Weirdos In the Workplace

Ever wondered what the key to securing the future of family farms for generations to come could be? If so, join our conversation with Lauren Sheil, a financial planner and trusted advisor. With his background growing up on a small farm and his focus on eliminating debt, building wealth, and leaving a legacy, this is a discusison you do not want to miss out. Stray tuned to be one step closer to building wealth, and financially planning well for the future.

Website: https://lcsfinancial.ca/

Stay in Touch: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/laurensheil

Script:

The shares are worthless if I'm not there.

The world has become a lot more complex.

Every year, you leave $100,000 inside a company, the government's going to come along and say, oh, look, there's $100,000 there. I want 15% of it just for nothing. And so we take that money and we just move it over here where the government can't get at it.

Nobody wants to die, Lauren. We're all going gonna live forever.

There's there's that and that's just delusional, everybody dies.

Well but we're all delusional.

The story of the day and this is a true story based on a previous client and you know obviously paraphrasing a few, a few little things, but Lauren, I look forward to hearing all of your thoughts about this, this story, this business case. All right. As the owner of a generational family farm, I've always been proud of our old school values and family first culture. My grandparents started the farm and it's been passed down to my father and now to me and I hope to my son in the future. We faced many challenges over the years but our commitment to keeping the farm and the family has never wavered. However, as I look to the future, I'm concerned we're not preparing like we need to be. I'd like to retire in the next five years and the world has gotten so much more complicated. When we bought the farm from my dad almost 30 years ago, it was a much simpler time. I know I don't know what I don't know and I've been resistant to change and putting together the necessary checks and balances, such as insurance, legal documents and policies. We've always operated on trust and mutual understanding but I also know the world's changing and we need to adapt and the last thing i want is for us to have to sell the farm so enter lauren shale thank you for coming on the podcast lauren uh lauren's a financial planner and trusted advisor

I'm just listening to you talk i'm like am I supposed to say now?

You say something whenever you want to say something.

So enter Lauren Sheil, a financial planner and trusted advisor. Lauren has a relational approach that we think would really support clients with this particular challenge. With his background, with your background, Lauren, growing up on a small farm and your focus on eliminating debt, building wealth and leaving legacy. I think you're you might be the perfect person to help us navigate with these challenges. So before we get started, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me. Fabulous.

Tell me what makes you a great person to help with this kind of challenge?

There's a lot going on. And, um, uh, as you mentioned, I, uh, I grew up on a small, it was more of a hobby farm. It wasn't really an actual operating business farm. I, my father was actually a corporate executive and, uh, and he, uh, he moved to this, we bought this farm he grew up on a generational family farm in the 1940s and 50s and uh and by the late 70s he was starting to feel the itch a little and uh so he bought a small uh small farm outside of town and basically played gentleman farmer on the weekends while he was being the corporate executive in the city during the week. I adore that. I totally adore that.

Yeah, it was fun. It was an interesting dichotomy of his of the way we we ended up living because uh because you know um well I won't get into all the detail about that but we we kind of grew up the uh the the location itself was just kind of outside the outskirts of town um not too far from a fairly large city um and uh and so the uh the relationship and the dynamics of the town itself and the people that we interacted with was was very diverse there was a number of um family farm in the area it was a big dairy farming area um as well as um the townies as you want to call them um and so so uh so that was kind of the environment that i grew up in and um and uh i got into uh this business after having spent 20 years almost um as a marketing executive in the canadian music industry okay working with creative individuals musicians um and so on and I learned a lot um about small business essentially and and might and even what i refer to as micro business which is um one and two people operations that are that are uh almost cottage industry-ish um in a way but uh but that can grow to be extremely large operations uh from a financial standpoint um but still operate with kind of on a shoestring of just a few people and and farmers tend to do that um that it's one family basically running this operation but it could be a multi-billion dollar operation and you don't and you don't necessarily see that or notice that until you do a little bit of digging so right so that's kind of how I come at this um that uh that that it's well it's a very simple structure um mom dad couple of kids all work on the farm maybe maybe one or two neighbors who are employed employed part-time or full-time or whatever um but uh but they're running a multi-million dollar operation a shoestring of uh of personnel uh and that's and that's what you see in a lot of the uh a lot of the farms especially the especially the dairy operations they can be hugely hugely profitable uh enterprises with five people interesting okay so you know it's so hard right? Because I feel like sometimes the farmers are this like last bastion of the handshake agreement.

Yes. You know, in a lot of ways, or the small town entrepreneurs, you know, and I'm from a small town. So I work with a lot of them. I work with a few people in similar scenarios as this as well in a different, totally different capacity than you do. similar scenarios as this as well in a different totally different capacity than you do um and it's like it i feel like that's almost like what we're missing in the rest of the world but at the same time we need to like help them um have some of the tools to make sure that because they're not wrong the world has become a lot more uh complex i was just going to say you you mentioned that in the story yeah in the discussion or the story there that you launched this with that the world has changed the world has changed significantly and um in preparation for this uh I did a little bit of research yesterday just uh kind of boned up on some statistics and uh one of the statistics that jumped out at me was that less than 8% of family farms have a written succession plan.

And that's, I mean, it doesn't have to be complicated. be as simple as son a purchases asset b from father i guess he would be a but yeah i know you're there and it doesn't it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be um a 60 page legal document it just needs to be something that's written down that everybody involved understands yeah um and uh and so that uh when the time comes there's no confusion and there's no there's there's no indigestion at uh at family thanksgiving dinner totally yeah where does insurance come into play here this is really your bread and butter, right? Is the insurance industry?

Yeah. Let's back it up a little bit first. Sure. Let's back it up. When we start talking about succession planning in a family business, there's two, well, a number of factors that need to be brought to the table and and then first one is that a family farm is treated differently by CRA than any other business so the one one of the things one of the first things that you need to understand when you start talking about succession planning in a business like this is how the CRA is going to treat the sale. And without getting super technical, everybody understands or everybody has heard the term capital gains.

So, under Canadian law, under CRA rules, the capital gains tax is charged, the definition of capital gains is essentially the value that an asset has increased, the amount that an asset has increased in value from the time you bought it so the so there's there's two numbers that come into play there's there's the purchase price which is referred to technically as the adjusted cost base um and the sale price which um is is the and then the difference now oftentimes what people will say is well what if i bought the business from grandpa for a dollar the cra doesn't accept that as the sale price the cra says the sale price is actually fair market value right so if so if the if the product if the assets are gifted to you the cra doesn't care no the the the assets were actually this and whether you paid that money or not that's what we're going to calculate taxes on so so that's the first thing that people need to understand is that uh when transferring assets between family members between or or a close friend or whoever if you don't sell it to them for fair market value you're still going to pay the taxes yeah at fair market value um the other thing to the other thing to recognize is and the conversation comes up all the time is that um under the, there is what's called the capital gains tax inclusion rate.

And for a Canadian controlled corporation, the first million dollars in change of share value is exempt from capital gains. is exempt from capital gains so um this comes into play a lot with with small businesses where where i will be having be having this conversation and uh the business is worth you know it's a small business maybe it's worth half a million or one or two million dollars and they're like well we don't need to do any tax planning because we're not going to pay any tax on it anyway because of tax exclusion. Which technically is true, but only under certain specific circumstances.

The way the law is written, it says that the first million dollars in change, it's actually $1,016,000, whatever. And it changes every year, it goes up every year. The way the law is written, it basically says that this first million dollars of share value is exempt. So that means, number one, it has to be a corporation but you don't have shares in sole proprietorships right so if it's not and so if you're not incorporated there's no tax there's no capital gains inclusion rate there's no there or rather there's no capital gains exclusion everything is considered a capital gain um so if you're a mom and pop shop that didn't incorporate, if you're a partnership that didn't incorporate, this whole idea of the first million dollars is exempt from capital gains is false because it has to be incorporated. The other thing that people overlook or don't realize is that a lot of these small companies and again i work with very small companies a lot of these small companies their greatest asset is actually the people who work there for sure so if i'm selling my business and i'm essentially the business yeah then the shares are worthless right i'm not there so then what ends up happening is you're not selling your company for shares you're selling the assets of the company and then winding down the corporation right yeah and the asset sale if i'm selling a truck or inventory or a contract, service contract, whatever, that can't be brought into the capital gains inclusion rate either. It's not share. Of course. Yeah. So these are the little stipulations inside the CRA rules that people who are especially small business operators really need to understand. Yeah. And I mean, I'm not an accountant, so I can't give you actually accounting advice. This is just a situation that I've seen over the years.

Now, translate that back to farm businesses. Now, translate that back to farm businesses. The CRA has basically said that farm businesses, because of their nature, it being a family operation a lot of the time, don't have to be incorporated. But because most of the asset in a farm property is actually in the land. This is now the land transfer that's happened that can be done between family members without having a corporation a lot easier if you are in a corporation but you don't have to and then the other thing that the discussion that ends up happening is, okay, then we go back to that same scenario of, okay, I don't really need to do a lot of tax planning because I'm only going to sell a business to my son for a million or a million and a half dollars. Then you have the discussion of, if that's what you're doing junior might not have the credit oh yeah go to the bank and and uh fund the taxes that are coming to you because because it's as i said earlier a lot of these farm operations you look at them you drive by them on the highway and you're like yeah that's a million dollar operation that's a million dollar operation no no that's a 10 million dollar operation and you don't even realize it yeah it doesn't take long you got 100 acres of land you got um you're you're putting out um i grew up in uh as i said earlier i grew up in dairy corn country so you got 100 acres of land you're cranking out you know a couple of hundred thousand bushels of corn a year um you got 200 head of cattle uh and those and those dairy cows are producing a are attached to a production contract with the marketing board. And, you know, you've got a $10 million operation. For sure.

Yeah. And, and Junior isn't going to have the credit. No. To buy that. And that's what, that's where we kind of intersect, right? Because my job is to help senior let go and figure out how to get junior to start leading and, and to know what they need so that in five years, you can't do this in a year or even two years. A lot of the time, sometimes it takes junior five years to get ready to have the cap to not just the capital but the the credit to be able to take this on right and to have the skills to take this on so oftentimes what ends up happening in my experience at any rate and maybe you can you can speak to this too but um oftentimes what ends up happening is is uh we'll take the example of of my friend david who i who I went to high school with this guy, a dairy operation, southern Ontario, where I grew up, who went to university and did the agribusiness courses and everything else. And dad creates a partnership with Junior. And dad slowly steps away. And Junior slowly buys the shares.

It takes like 25 years to do that. It can take a while. Because there was no way he was going to be able to come up with a loan for the million or three dollars that the CRA was going to demand to make that transfer. So now they do it over time. Yeah. So that's kind of one of the first things that I would say in a situation like we discussed earlier is, yes, okay, you want five years, but really how much time do you need? want five years but really how much time do you need because if if senior is 60 and he wants to retire at 65 that's one thing but if he's gonna kick around and dabble yeah buy and you know drive a tractor once someone else there for the sake of driving a tractor, then maybe we've got 25 years. Sure. Yeah. Every single scenario is different. Yeah. Another situation I knew of where they did something similar to this and senior, again, a second generation senior. So this was like a three generation family farm, senior again a second generation senior so this was like a three generation family farm but uh but senior was 85 years old and still going out and cutting hay and doing whatever else just because he wanted to be there so this brings me to the the i mean maybe we're everything all roads lead to insurance but i mean you hope you always hope you're going to have another 25 years when you're six years old but what if you don't right so then yeah you're you're right all roads tend to lead to insurance in one way or another um there's there's a couple of things when we get into succession planning too that uh that we have to understand about the family dynamic and um and we get into what i call a state equalization because if there's two or three juniors and only one of them wants to take over the business we've got to figure out a way to treat the other two fairly right and so that's when we get into family trust structures and funding certain things with life insurance and also where we talk about how do we make thanksgiving dinner go smoothly yeah without having some of the uh the children feel like they've been shafted.

Sure. Because, again, we've got a $10 million operation here. And one son took over the business. Yes. And the other, and so now he's managing and controlling this massive asset. These other two kids are left to kind of go out and make life on their own without the benefit of this functioning business. So I recommend in situations like that what I call an insured asset transfer process, which is where we take a life insurance policy that is funded by the proceeds of the business. And that life insurance policy now is designed to do three things. It's designed to offset some of the taxes that would come to you if a senior died suddenly and complete that transfer quickly. We would have the life insurance policy there to do that, but it's also there to provide the other beneficiaries with enough money that they feel like they've been treated fairly. In a case like that, we've got to, again, I keep coming back to the value of the operation, but we've got a $10 million operation.

We've got one son that's running the operation. I know we've got a again i keep coming back to the the to the value of the operation but we've got a 10 million dollar operation we've got one son that's running the operation i know we've got two other kids that are sitting there going i need or i should receive three four million dollars from my drone and so we we can set that up as an estate utilization approach through a family trust or through just through a well-funded and well-designed life insurance policy right yeah and this is why partnering with people like you lauren is so important yeah i think um yeah you've got a lot of uh insight under your belt there and you've been through a lot of these scenarios.

So, you know, there's an emotional, a palpable, emotional resistance to this kind of structure. In a lot of cases, the folks that I've worked with, it's been, you know, it's a process of kind of getting to that, that, to that point where they're comfortable having a conversation with you or, you know, or someone like you, right. And that's part of my job is to get them there. someone like you, right? And that's part of my job is to get them there. But what would you say to someone who's in that scenario, who's a little bit resistant? Well, we want to figure out what they're resistant to. And there are some misconceptions in the world about what life insurance is for and um and there are some there are some issues people don't quite understand about the um the tax treatment of things and so the number one thing that people need to understand when they start talking we start talking about life insurance the number one thing I think people need to understand is that it is essentially a tax-free asset.

The proceeds of life insurance pay out tax-free. And again, depending on how you structure it, that is a very valuable piece of information for a lot of people. So not just in farm corporations, but again, if we go back to the other corporate structures that I mentioned earlier, if you're sitting on a company that has a couple of hundred thousand dollars or so retained earnings, just sitting inside the company, everybody knows that to get that out you got to pay dividend tax of course but if the um but if instead you use the money inside the company to pay life insurance premium you're moving the you're you're transferring the asset from a taxable environment to a non-tax environment or a tax deferred. So now as it sits, that money sits in, when money sits inside a corporation, it attracts tax, just the regular corporate tax rate stuff, just as it sits there. If you then, if you use that money to purchase a life insurance policy, that tax stops, that passive tax as it grows has stopped because the money has technically been spent. You can't write it off as an expense, but it's no longer just a passive growth that's happened.

So that's just taxes when stopped. And then when the individual dies, the owner of the company dies, the company receives the proceeds of the tax, the life insurance policy tax-free, and it can be paid out to the heirs of the corporate owner through what's called a capital dividend account, the notion of account that's created on debt by CRA, which is, again, a tax-free account. So now all of this money has been, has come out of the corporation tax free without having to be paid on it without having any dividends charged on it or anything like that. So that's so that's a structure that we use all the time for all corporations whether it's a farm corporation or not but it works and then it works with that farm corporation obviously just as well as any other. Well that's a good angle because I think I think every single one of my Well, that's a good angle because I think every single one of my small, but certainly the farm clients, the generational family businesses got something in common. None of them like tax.

I explain this to people all the time is when we put a life insurance policy inside a corporation, what we've essentially done is we've moved money that's from one pile that the government is taxing every year. And you leave $100,000 inside a company, the government's going to come along and say, oh, look, there's $100,000 dollars there i want 15 of it for sure um just for nothing and so we take that money and we just move it over here where the government can't get at it and it sits there and it grows it does its thing because life insurance policies grow with dividends and everything else and it grows tax deferred government can't get at that money while it's in life insurance falls right then when the then when buddy dies the uh the cash drops into the company and gets dividended out to the heirs of the company through this cda that that is tax-free so it's so we've uh moved money from a taxable environment to a non-taxable whereas if we just left the money in there and as it grew when the government grabbed their growth tax every year so they're taking the money off of this and then when you try and dividend it out they're going to take tax on it again tax so the only time the only time in canadian tax law and just about any western world tax law where the same dollar is taxed twice yeah well that's definitely an angle that'll attract some of these folks i think um and knowledge is power right i think you'd probably agree knowledge is power uh the other thing the other thing is like life insurance companies, life insurance gets a bad rap. Because there's always...

Nobody wants to die, Lauren. We're all going to live forever. There's that, and that's just delusional. Everybody dies. Well, but we're all delusional in the same way. That's just delusional. Everybody dies. Get them. No, the point is, though, that we've all heard the horror stories of somebody who paid into this life insurance policy for years and years and years and then never got paid but but uh but they're almost what i refer to as the uh as as the urban legend because because everybody talks about this stuff and they they think about it and they're like oh i heard about buddy and i'm like okay who was it where where did he live what was his name right how long ago was that they don't have the specifics because it actually never happens probably not no no it's I haven't heard of that before for the record so what's that i haven't heard of that for the record i'm just gonna live forever that's my right there you go there you go now the other the um I don't want to I don't want to gloss over this and I yeah bring it up I meant to bring it up sooner is that there's also a thing in uh a relatively new thing in life insurance okay um that's uh that's critical illness insurance okay basically living it's basically uh it's basically um as one of my friends put it um it's it's insurance for the unsuccessful heart attack so there's been a lot of those yeah what's an unsuccessful heart attack we're getting really good at you know bringing people back to life after these we're getting we're getting really good unsuccessful heart attacks and unsuccessful cancer yeah and unsuccessful you know so these are things that you get it don't die but your life is altered for sure so so we have so we now have what we call critical illness insurance which pays out um upon diagnosis of one of these major illnesses so long as you survive 30 days and um because if you don't if you die after if you die before 30 days it's just like a trick sure um but uh but if you have a heart attack and survive but you can't work the farm the same way you used to nice to get a little bit of money to to kind of offset your lifestyle um and and other things disability insurance is harder to get because um because it's based more on your income and if you're under reporting your income like a lot of small business owners and farmers do if you're now nobody nobody under reports their income come on no but if you're under reporting your income um yeah they are critical illness insurance policy doesn't care no um you purchase a you purchase an insurance policy that pays you a hundred thousand dollars on diagnosis of a heart attack or heart disease then that's what you get whereas if you say I make a hundred thousand dollars a year and i need a disability insurance policy that's going to continue my income at that level now you gotta prove that you make that kind of money before the insurance policies before the insurance company's going to approve you for that policy for sure so yeah we could go into underreporting income too and why that's usually a bad idea for the record like but on actually though if you're trying to grow your business it's it's you know there's there's a bit of a it Even corporations, small business corporations, if you want to simply pay yourself dividends from the growth of the company, which a lot of entrepreneurs do, they just pay themselves dividends, then you don't even really have to under report your income because because it's all your income's all in the company and you're just taking out what you need to live on and i've seen that that scenario play out a number of times a number of times as well yeah where where we've got a like a meeting just last week with a with a gentleman who uh who has a company makes probably $2 million a year. He pays himself 60 grand a year.

Yeah. Just because that's all he needs and everything else lives inside the company. And he was in another one of these situations where now he's got all these retained earnings that are attracting all of this tax. So I was like, well, I understand why you don't want to pay yourself a lot of money. So I was like, well, I understand why you don't want to pay yourself a lot of money. Protect this pile of retained earnings here. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're a treasure trove of knowledge, Lauren. Yeah. Is there anything, any final words? You know, one of the things I like to ask, you know, at the end of the podcast is if you were in this person's shoes, or if this person was your client, what's the one question, the most important question that they ask themselves? Well, as I said, at the start of the story that you laid out is fairly common, but it was also a little bit vague in terms of some specifics.

So I would want to know what type of farm we're talking about here specifically, because there are different approaches and different considerations if we're dealing with a dairy farm that has a big milk quota versus just a straight up cash crop situation. I'd want to know how many kids there are for that state equalization conversation. And I'd want to know how the transfer, the first generational transfer happened because uh because when we're talking about adjusted cost base on the taxes we want to know how far back we have to go um but I think the number one thing that people need to understand when they're doing succession planning depending regardless of whether it's a farm or other type of business you've got to get your head around capital gains tax um and how that's going to affect things and i'm not an accountant so you need a good accountant yeah help you understand that and then once you get your head around how the capital gains tax are going to be treated then you need to engage uh someone like myself yeah who can uh work on ways to um offset or defer that tax for as long as possible and and um and the way we do that nine times out of 10 is with a permanent life insurance policy that grabs that asset, shelters it from tax and moves it forward. The the other piece of information that I didn't get a chance to discuss earlier is that when we're dealing with a permanent life insurance policy a lot of people will sit back and say well i don't get the money until I die and that is not true or not necessarily true okay um the uh permanent life insurance policy is has has this cash value component. The cash value is your asset.

You can withdraw portions of it. You can't withdraw it all because it collapses the whole policy, but you can withdraw portions of it as it grows and generate an income that way. You can also use it as collateral for a loan and borrow against it to get more money. Right. And now you've created another expense for yourself in interest. So any interest that's going to be charged when you borrow money against that policy becomes write-offable. Right.

So you can use that to fund your retirement if you if you get a large enough life insurance policy with a big enough cash balance you can borrow enough money against it to fund your retirement and then when you eventually pass away um because everybody dies need to break it to you but everybody dies um that was my that was my uh donald trump impression everybody dies you need to do your ted talk on everybody dies but uh the the uh the point being that that uh when you eventually die the life insurance policy pays off the loan and then right and then then away you go right so there's no there's no residual there um and there are companies out there there are banks out there that uh that structure these deals they understand how permanent life insurance works and they structure these deals in such a way that you don't have to repay them while you're living okay yep makes sense not really but you know why you have lauren guys don't worry all good you're in good hand this is why lauren knows stuff so we don't have to yeah well i mean the point is the point being if you borrow if you borrow against your life insurance policy. Don't worry about it. I won't say it about the bank, but if you borrow it right from the life insurance company themselves, they won't insist on a repayment plan because they know they're going to get their money when they die. Yeah, that's fair.

That makes sense. Yeah, that does. All right. Well, thank you very much you very much sir has been a pleasure and an honour Iappreciate that.

I appreciate the opportunity absolutely thanks for thanks for uh listening and uh i hope i didn't uh confuse everybody anybody too much but uh i'm sure in the show notes you'll have my contact information. So we are putting your contact information in the show notes and your website. So don't worry, folks, if it made no sense, Lauren knows what he's talking about. And, you know, we can guide you through it. You're a good, you're a good guide. A good guy and a good guide. There you go.

That's it.

All right.

Don't forget to stay weird, stay wonderful, and don't stay out of trouble.

Intro:

Max Brault has a vision: To build community by showing the world that Canadians with disabilities contribute to society―and to successful business ventures. Join us for a riveting conversation on accessibility and inclusivity in the world of business!

Stay in Touch with Max:

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/max-brault

Script:

The cost of changing something is all about understanding how you're going to spend the money.

Leading people into thinking a place is accessible when it's not, I think is the most, probably the most important thing that I'm hearing from people with disabilities.

One third of the Canadian population has some form of disability.

No one wants to go somewhere where they're uncomfortable or they're feeling disrespected.

You know, and of course the reaction is, well, we'll write off your pizza. And I'm like, no, I'm not looking for a handout. What I want you to do is stop putting the garbage can there.

For anyone listening this is a true story uh that was provided to me by one of my colleagues sarah and her partner who is paraplegic and so um this is her story. I visited a cafe with my partner who's in a motorized wheelchair. Their marketing said they were wheelchair friendly, but we didn't find that to be the case. The doorway was uncomfortably narrow. Objects like chairs and a garbage can made it hard to maneuver.

The bathroom was uncomfortably small for his wheelchair, and there were no low tables or a reachable check-out counter. When I told the manager they gave me a free coffee card, which was a nice gesture, but free coffee doesn't solve the problem, I decided to talk to the general manager who said they'd bring forward my ideas for change, but we never heard back from them. I honestly think they just don't know how to help. And this experience showed me that most places still have a long way to go to be truly accessible. And this is Erin, like, you know, breaking the third wall here. But this is a story that has, I think this has happened on a recurring basis for her and also for a few other people that we know as well. And I'm sure Max, you as well. And every time she has an experience like this, she says it makes it harder to take the risk the next time. It's not just about getting in the door. It's about being able to feel comfortable somewhere. So enter Max. Welcome to the show, Max. Max Brault.

Hi, Erin. How are you holding up?

Hello. I'm doing good, sir. Max Brault has a vision to build a community, build community by showing the world that Canadians with disabilities contribute to society and successful business ventures. Unafraid to challenge conventions to make positive change for the disability community, Max aims to identify accessibility issues for corporations, governments, international community, non-governmental agencies, and more to provide strategic solutions to address them. So that is a big goal, sir. It is. And it's by people like yourselves helping me achieve that goal to let everybody know that I exist and what I do in this great world of ours. Yes. And we, we appreciate you for it. Um, did you want to tell some people will be listening to this and others will be obviously watching on YouTube, um, or shorts or whatever. Uh, but did you want to tell the folks, uh, watching slash listening, why you care about this subject?

Well, you you're seeing is is that i'm an elderly gentleman with uh gray beard gray hair wearing a nice shirt rocketed out with a bow tie um what you're not seeing is this visual as i'm sitting in an electric wheelchair uh i'm an individual who's had a spinal muscular atrophy since i've been born. And so over the years, I've been, I've experienced all kinds of lives. I've had a physical life where I was able to walk and run and play rugby, to the point now where I am confined to an electric wheelchair. So I've kind of lived the two lines, but always having this parasitic SMA behind my back. And as well as I've been in and out of the business world, I've worked for the federal government for close to 20 years, and I've run my own businesses. And, you know, this is a common story. It's a story I hear all the time. And I've experienced some of these issues myself.

And to be honest with you, I've come to put a hard wall when they happen. And I kind of note the place where it's happened and I make sure I never go back there. It's my wife who wants to take the flag and start fighting and making the changes. But I realized that sadly, like your friend, for every one of those that don't really take accessibility seriously, there is one that does. And at the end of the day, our money is harder, right? And we want to spend money to the organizations and places that want us to come in and have a good time and be seen there. And so I'd rather spend my money there. And so that's why when a place comes up like that, I have a tendency to ignore them and then move on to the ones that do want my patronage. and then move on to the ones that do want my patronage. And look, I could spend hours talking to you about what to do and not to do in this situation. But I think that, you know, internet is becoming a more and more viable tool.

There are, you know, Google Sites. There's what myNZiv is doing with AccessNow. there's a whole bunch of different information that's starting to become more at our fingertips about what places are becoming accessible and what places are not. And I, and I think that again, taking a little bit of time and going to these sites and taking a look, which ones work for you might be a really good, you know, good starting point to avoid having that because I know a lot like your friend yeah um when I go out with my wife when I go out with my friends I don't want the evening to start off with with with a moment of man this place is not accessible and they treat me like crap I want to go out and have a good time I want to have a smile on my face I want to be be laughing and joking with the people I'm with. Yeah, absolutely. It's never going to be frictionless, but it's as frictionless as possible when you're going out. And what's the latest statistic from StatsCan? I think it was 27% of the Canadian population has at least one disability. And I'm sure that's underrepresented. Not everyone, of course, is in at least one disability. And I'm sure that's, you know, underrepresented.

Not everyone, of course, is in a motorized wheelchair, but at least one disability, which is it's that's more than 25% of the population and climbing, you know, given we have an aging population, right? Well, oddly enough, the one group that has the highest percentage of disabilities is individuals that experience some kind of pain, which floors me every time I see that statistic. Right. But because it's defined as pain, we have to make some assumptions that's, you know, everywhere in the body kind of pain. Right.

So you can have a back pain, you can have a shoulder pain, you can have, but it's still kind of an obstacle to your physical environment, right? So going out is already a challenge, because you're experiencing pain, you don't want to go somewhere where, again, you know, you want to go somewhere where, yeah, you might be having pain, but you want to mitigate it by having a good time with your friends and your family. The ROI has to be there. Yeah, for sure. And I am someone that has a pain disability and a few other disabilities as well. But in terms of pain management, like I have to know if I'm leaving my house, it better be for a good reason. I better have a good experience and feel comfortable there, you know?

So, and I don't, I think that probably most people know um so and i don't i think that probably most people feel that way they don't no one wants to go somewhere where they're uncomfortable or they're feeling disrespected you know yeah so yeah it's it's a big it's a big thing and and you know again it it goes back to you, where you spend your hard-earned dollars, where do you spend, you know, the whole, you've heard of the spoon theory, right?

And I don't know if your audience has heard of the spoon theory. But again, if you only got so much effort or not effort, energy to go out, you really want to make sure it's something that you're not going to experience another issue on top of it right and so the spoon theory is a really great explanation of that and and uh and i get that um but what what what places need to do is is that the statistic you said you know 27 it's a massive population i mean from my point of view i don't like saying 27 because i'm kind of always used to rounding it up so i just started saying you know one third of the canadian population has some form of disability and in today's world where making money um is becoming a challenge or you got so many competitors competing for that same dollar isn't it in your best interest to make your place fully accessible where you can't now there are occasions that you can't and i get that i understand that but then don't be like the situation where you advertise you are and you show up and it doesn't work out 100 transparency and like accurate information not gaslighting people into um maybe gaslighting is the wrong word but misleading people into thinking a place is accessible when it's not I think is the most probably the most important thing that i'm hearing from people with disabilities um but when you know you are going to invest in something, at least do the research to know when you're looking at making an investment, make sure that you're including that divert the disability accessibility lens.

If you're going to spend the money anyways, there's something that I heard the other day was something like, there's something that I heard the other day it was something like you know in order to include accessibility as a feature I guess within a renovation it's something like costs five to ten percent more than it would for the regular renovation I don't know if you've heard a statistic like that Max you know I I've been hearing, one thing I need to take a step back and I need to tell you, right? Yeah. I come from a real estate family.

My father basically ran a real estate management company. He basically owned and bought hundreds of condos in, in and around Montreal and Ottawa. Um, and so I grew up with, with this reno idea because whenever my father would buy a new place or whenever somebody would leave, he would have a team that would come in, fix it up, clean it up, make it ready. Right. Um, the reality is, and I'm going to call this a bad word, but you can say it's bullshit. And what I mean is, is that the cost of changing something is all about understanding how you're going to spend the money.

And what I mean is, I'm going to give you a great example of what happened to my friend of mine. My friend of mine owned a bar and he was really excited one day I was going to come in and and check out his bar because he's like I just fixed it up it's fully accessible come in and check it out and so I showed up and log behind I had to go to the bathroom so I went to the bathroom and I came wheeling out and I'm like hey you know uh James not working out for me so I'm gonna go in the back in the back alleyway and what ended up happening is is he bought a door that can go into the stall what he didn't check is that it hit the toilet right so i couldn't even wheel in like a walking person could walk in close it but i still couldn't wheel in because the door hitting the toilet didn't give me enough space to get around to close the door. Is that a wrong thing? Yes, because he thought the guy who installed it installed it for the door to open outwards, not inwards. Is that really an accessibility cost or is that just not double checking? Yeah. So. Quality control issue, I guess. Yeah. I honestly believe renovation costs, right. For a lot of things, if you do it right, it's going to be the same thing.

I'll give you another personal experience. I had to redo my, my, I bought an old house so I can make everything accessible. Every time in a room, the number one question I had my, with my wife is what we won't touch this room for 20 years. So what are we going to install? What do we need to do? Well, the first question is insulation, you know, making sure everything's up to break up the code, the windows, everything was up to code. And then what are we going to put in there? You know, are we going to put in new plumbing? Are we going to put in new electrical work? Are we going to put in whatever, lighting? But it was all about accessibility as well. And I did not feel out of my pocketbook that my accessibility was more or less than what the normal bill would have been. If that makes any sense.

I don't think it is. I mean, my mother is a kitchen designer, kitchen and bath designer, and she's done numerous accessible kitchens and baths and they cost no more. It's literally about the design. The design doesn't cost more. the design the design doesn't cost more you know um there may be a few bells and whistles you want to add or something like that but um it's not significant right it's not and and you know like if you want to put an elevator in a house yeah okay that's a cost but then the question you need to ask yourself is that really a necessity? Yeah. Right? And it might be.

You know, it might be a necessity. But in 90% of the cases where I heard an elevator being installed, it was a nice to have. It was not a necessity. Yeah. Right? So I call BS on it. Right? Yeah. right yeah and and where it starts to become expensive is if you're if you're um a restaurant or or a barbershop or something in a very old location that might need you know a ramp for stairs or might need um the bathroom wine because it's in an old structure. But at the end of the day, you're not widening that bathroom for me, you're widening that bathroom for your overall clients, because your clients are gonna appreciate a loiter bathroom, if you get where I'm coming from. Yeah, revisit the story. Yeah.

So because a lot of the things I felt like you know of course we've talked about um you know some things that are easy to kind of fix some things that are like obviously more of an investment but what I'm hearing in the story is like the doorway is uncomfortably narrow okay fine that's a renovation you know objects like chairs and garbage cans well to me that's like that's education and just awareness you know um my my biggest beef about garbage cans is they always put the damn garbage can by the push button right they do if i gotta i gotta press the button i gotta reach over a garbage can now i i don't know about some of you folks right most garbage cans are not a problem but some of them are disgusting they're overfilled there are not something i want to reach over and press another button but i gotta move the garbage can because I can't reach over that. Right. Yeah. And, and it's never easy to move a garbage can because they're heavy. Like some of the industrial ones are heavy. They're weighted at the bottom so they don't tip and they don't move easily. Right.

And the last thing I want to do is move a garbage can that all the garbage falls on me. And, you know, I kind of like looking good. I don't like looking, you know i kind of like looking good i don't like looking you know like full of garbage uh either way folks but it's still i don't want garbage all over me so that's probably one of my biggest beefs it's why is it always there right um the other thing that they mention is you know trying to provide feedback and and of the, maybe not resistance, but the friction around that. I mean, you've got to be able to take feedback as a retailer and implement it and have a process for that. And again, this is where money makes the change. The places I go to frequently, I go to a local restaurant here, Big Rig here where I live, near where I live. And they did that the first few times, the garbage can was right by the push button. And I would show up there with my family and have a pizza there. I love the pizza there. I know I'm not advertising for them, but they've seen me come a few times, right? Like it's kind of hard to miss a guy in a wheelchair who shows up, right? And by the third time, I was like, I went back and I talked to the management, and of course the reaction is, well, we'll write off your pizza. And I'm like, no, I'm not looking for a handout.

What I want you to do is stop putting the garbage can there right yeah exactly right like like just take a little bit of time find another location for the garbage can inform your staff to put it in this place because it doesn't work for a person like me right next time I went in there, lo and behold, the garbage can was located somewhere else. That's a beautiful thing. That's yeah. Right. Simple. But it's because they recognize that I was an ongoing, ongoing customer and I show up there on a regular, consistent basis. That's the problem. The problem is, is that those other places don't understand that if you don't suitable for us we're not we're not going to show up all the time right yeah right yeah and so you know I go back to something that my wife and i always talk about and i think a lot of people talk about is the customer service is is becoming a challenge and it's becoming a challenge just not only for people with disabilities but for everything right now right yeah i hate generalizing that but but it is right yeah so i you had a big part in um the accessible canada act i know this about you um tell me me what was your role in that. Tell everyone what your role was. Well, part of my role, my role was more is to socialize the document. So I worked on a handful of items, particularly to it, but I spent a lot of time running from department to department, asking them what their take is going to be in it. So we identified departments that were going to have some element that would fall onto their lap to be responsible for.

So an example would be ESDC, Employment, Social Development Canada has a really big labor element. So we wanted to make sure that anything we talk about employment was going to be suitable to what their messaging was at to be suitable to what their messaging was at the same time or what their future messaging was so then we would go back and make sure that whatever we wrote it would it would be sound to that degree the other thing is I spent a lot of time um really working with the community to make sure that what our concerns were going to be embedded in it which is one of the coolest things I get to tell you is that um this is the only piece of legislation ever designed built for canadians by canadians but also by can with disabilities. The act itself is solely based, well, not solely, I would say 80% based on literally a room full of 200 various people with disabilities talking about how to do certain things. And that's where the seven pillars came up. I don't think there's a piece of legislation that could say that. Okay. For the folks out there you know how is ace how do you feel like aoda the act of the different acts how do you feel like they contribute to supporting just the real lives of people with disabilities as you're walking through the world wanting to engage in you know regular the kinds of activities that everyone wants to engage in we the thing is we got to keep in mind that there are there are two ways to do things right there is um we tell society uh what needs to be in place and then we tell all the players in that society how to appear to that particular directive. Right. Or we could live as a free living society. And then we just do our things and just hope everybody lives comfortably and exists comfortably. Sad thing is that doesn't exist.

No. Right. So we need laws we need laws to tell people how to ensure a minimum standard of adherence to ensure that you're not being disrespectful for people right and the way i see it as you know the first big move was the charter of rights you know people with disabilities were listed in the Charter of Rights. But the Charter of Rights basically said, thou shall not be discriminated against. Honestly, anybody who's listening to me, we've all been discriminated against numerous times. Yeah. Okay, so we need to refine that a little bit better, right? And I think what the Provincial and Federal Acts will do is it will start ensuring that people understand their rights, but it also starts to a certain degree with organizations, understanding how to provide us those rights, what they need to do to ensure that our rights are being up here too, for a very simple reason or a logic is you know let's use communications as we're starting to work in a more heavier computer lived world where emails is pretty much the most common way of communicating why can't our emails be fully accessible why can't i email create an email send an email and then a blind person on the other end or a person with a neurodiverse on the other end who i don't know can read it and understand it and they can function with this why can't we have that world and that's what we're trying to do. Yeah. That makes any sense. Yeah. I mean, I can see definitely a use for AI in that space for sure.

Not that, you know, this is what we're talking about, but you know, as you, as I was imagining, you know, solutions to that specific case of, you know, translating for different types of disabilities, I can write it in my, you know in the way that I'm comfortable speaking and it can be translated somehow into the way another person can understand. Right. What a beautiful way to use artificial intelligence.

And I got to tell you, some of the stuff i'm starting to see with the i love this word in french melange with the melange of ai and and and other technology and accessibility all coming into like like a pot like a hot you know sauce totally and some of the stuff that's coming out of this is awesome and yeah you know i'm kind of a little jealous of people who are young and disabled now because i don't think their their world because the technology will be as harsh as mine you know they're going to have apps they're going to have things that are going to make things to a certain degree a lot easier look i'm not saying all things are going to be eliminated but i think there are a lot of things that will be yeah right and and ai and technology is going to be some of the driving factors to this yeah i mean i think it's a beautiful goal to try to make the sandbox as big as possible for people with disabilities to play in you know um how do you make a bigger world that's I think that's a beautiful idea you know uh i i was just reading a report yesterday from a colleague of mine uh who was talking about the Louvre, the museum in Paris, in France, Paris, how they are literally designing and building an experience that's fully accessible for this population.

Wow. And for the record, I went to the Louvre many, many, many years ago when I was still walking, and that place is massive like you know whatever you're used to times the white pen and that's the signs of the Louvre okay so by them trying to make it accessible an accessible experience that's a heavy investment no no shit sorry yeah you, and part of my philosophy too is to work with people like you to make everybody aware that it exists because that's philosophy you built it, they will come as bullshit as well. You need to advertise the living heck out of what people are doing to make this a more accessible world. Yeah, and you need to band together. You need to find alliances, partnerships, collaborations. Yeah.

And, and it, it, it's interesting. I've been finding that like a lot of folks in the space are solopreneurs or like micro organizations micro companies you know like under 10 people and so it's really hard to make a really big impact unless you're collaborating with other people by yourself you know if you're by yourself or you're just working with a few other people so yeah that's it's really important yeah yeah the, yeah, that, that's a whole other side argument. Totally. Yeah. We can talk about that, but yeah, the, the, the reality is, is that for at least the foreseeable future, a lot of the driving forces will be from small entrepreneurial companies with people with disabilities but here's the really cool thing i will say in canada the uk australia united states and a handful of other countries these organizations have the first time in a long time the opportunity to actually grow to become multinational corporations the question is is who yeah who and how yeah yeah so for um a smaller you know perhaps a cafe chain who are interested in becoming more accessible uh and and have a few obstacles in the way, literally and figuratively. What do you say to them? What are your final thoughts?

Know your customers. At the end of the day, you're fighting for 10 cents all the time. And so sometimes you need to spend a dollar to get the 10 cents. But if you make your environment not only exclusive you know accessibly exclusive for people with disabilities you're opening it up to the whole community as well like that's the beauty of accessibility the beauty of accessibility it's not just you make the door wider and now just wheelchairs could come in and that's going to show up. No, you're going to see mothers with carriages coming in. You're going to see a whole lot of other group of people that, wow, I can get in here easily or whatever. You have lower counters. You're going to have a whole bunch of group of different people coming in. You're not going to put your garbage can by the right place, the wrong places.

You're going to have more people who are as experienced and nicer and say, I'm going to come back and spend another dollar here. So, you know, know your customers, you know, and listen to what your customers are telling you. And then hopefully you get to survive a little bit longer and make some money. Yeah. As you were speaking, the thought popped into my head that accessibility is inclusion. What do you think about that? It is. Yeah. Right. How many, like, I don't know how old you are, but I remember the time when you used to go to malls. Yeah. And malls didn't have the self-opening doors, right? I know. They had the pull on them, right? Or the rotating ones, yeah right or the rotating ones yeah or the rotating ones right yeah who can get in those so go to a mall now how many of them have self-opening doors and if they don't how many of them have push button doors they all do why because it works for everybody well and the acts you know at a certain point they have to yeah it's legislated i'm pretty sure I would say it is but but i think from a from a from a mall point of view it was pretty much a no-brainer wait a second you can make doors open easier but it still closes so we don't lose the heat in the wintertime yeah let's sign up for that well and that's the thing it's like a lot of these um these retrofits or whatever they are um they're they're just good business you know what i mean like a lot of these decisions it's just good business in the end you can make it a win-win yeah yeah and the other thing i'll add um accessibility is also not an expensive equation and and we need to start having conversations with people and the answer cannot be about money because you know as stephanie cadeau says the the chief accessibility officer um when you're going to retrofit your place design it with accessibility in mind.

So that way it's not an extra cost.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. 100%.

Thank you so much for joining me today, Max. As always, it's a pleasure and an honor.

Not a problem.

Awesome. High five.

Don't forget to stay weird, stay stay wonderful and don't stay out of trouble!

Intro:

Meet Sydney Elaine Butler, a powerhouse in HR, DEIA, and neurodiversity. Get ready to uncover invaluable insights as Sydney drops some gems on how to craft an environment where every team member's strengths shine bright to maximize full potential in your team!

Website:

https://www.accessiblecreates.ca/

Stay in Touch with Sydney:

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/sydney-elaine-butler

Script:

Communication is obviously the most important thing, you know, listening to people, actually like understanding what the real problems are, trying to get to the root of the problem.

Everyone's mind is different at the end of the day. You know, we all have different experiences and ways we're brought up and all these different things that shape who we are. And that's part of neurodiversity.

People learn often the most when they're outside their comfort zone. diversity. People learn often the most when they're outside their comfort zone.

I think sitting down with them, you know, kind of having that second to actually talk to them, you know, I think a lot of times I feel like I'm at the end of my rope.

During the pandemic, like everyone, our team transitioned to remote work, and it was a revelation for many of us. We have a very neurodiverse team, and I really try to celebrate this despite some of the challenges. During the pandemic, many of us realized we have a strong preference for virtual work, and many of us built new lifestyles around the fact that we don't have to go into the office. On the other hand, for a few of the team, it made them realize that they needed and wanted the structured routine of the office and the camaraderie there. As we transitioned back into the hybrid model, these differences and desires became more vocal. Conflicts arose as we tried to establish new team norms. Those who preferred remote work felt isolated from decision-making processes, while those in the office felt burdened with more immediate responsibilities. Our attempts to find a middle ground only led to more friction impacting our productivity and team cohesion. Okay. I realize we need a more nuanced approach to accommodate our diverse needs. Any ideas? Enter Sydney Elaine Butler, whose expertise in HR, DEI, and neurodiversity seems like the perfect fit to help solve this conundrum. Welcome to the show, Sydney.

Thank you so much for having me, Erin.

So I guess the question of the day for this person here, we don't know whether they're male or female, we don't know anything about them, but they're looking to know how to create an inclusive environment that respects and optimizes the strengths of each team member, regardless of their preferred work setting. And it seems like they want to build like an inclusive and neuro affirming organization. So that's interesting.

Okay. So before we get started and dive right into this, I'd love to have you just share a little bit about who you are, what you do, why you do it, and what your big goal is.

Yeah, so again, I'm Sydney Elaine Butler, the founder of Accessible Creates. And so I actually graduated in 2020, which was only four years ago. But when I studied human resources at school and I was like HR needs to be more inclusive and accessible for people with disabilities and I was also working in a recreational environment having kids teens and adults with disabilities and seeing how my co-workers treated me and also my best friend that have disabilities and versus how they treated our participants and even how our supervisors treated us. And I was like, something really needs to be done. And so I realized I could do more as an external consultant, HR in diversity, including accessibility, focusing on neurodiversity, and really drive this momentum forward. And I think during 2020 and 2021, things were changing in this space. And so I launched Accessible Grace in 2021. And since then, you know, I've, speaking at events, speaking at companies, providing consulting for companies to really understand that sometimes they bring me as an HR consultant. And when I do that, I bring the neurodiversity lens, accessibility lens, disability lens, and then vice versa. When they bring me for that, I also have the HR lens. And so really understanding that it's all interconnected. for that I have also have the HR lens and so really understanding that it's all interconnected and if you really want to make the workplace better that it starts with just trying to do something and so my big goal is actually to have a big training firm and and right now I've found it accessible creates to be that training firm now I'm like maybe accessible creates to be the consulting firm and then also start a training firm to provide best practices for organizations because i feel like so many organizations are just trying to be compliant and that's that's the bare minimum and so how can you actually move beyond that and hiring subject matter experts in different areas because i'm not a subject matter expert in everything but they that can help us work forward.

Absolutely. Okay. So what is your philosophy around neurodiversity?

Yeah, I think a lot of times people think it's a deficit or they think that, they think it's just autism and ADHD but it's so much bigger than that. And so my kind of philosophy is give people resources they need to be successful based on what they say they need and literally listening to people and being able to understand that people might communicate differently everyone's mind's different at the end of the day you know we all have different experiences and ways we're brought up and all these different things that shape who we are and that's part of neurodiversity and so just really understanding that we all have different brains and that, you know, we all have similar brain types and similar ways of communicating, but at the end of the day, we're all different. And that's beautiful. Absolutely. So what did you think about this challenge that we have in front of us? It's so interesting because, you know, she's trying to, she's like, we're trying to have a very neuro- inclusive team we have a very new inclusive team um i think that based on what you said it seems like she was they were trying to do a one-size-fits-all approach you know and really understanding that you know you have to really look at each individual case and see okay where does this person best thrive does it make sense to have them back in the office? You know, or have them work remotely? You know, how can we best provide these resources? How can we also, it seems to be that disconnect between, okay, people that are working on site versus working remotely. How can we better make that cohesion?

And I think, you know, having, you know for example I did I do trainings for companies and sometimes now especially the last six months previous before that I was like all virtual everyone was attending virtually these my trainings I was doing through the company but now it's like okay they have a big boardroom and people that want to come on site and come to the training in person can all be in that boardroom. People that still are working from home can access that training from home. And so just, you know, seeing, meeting people where they're at. So what, if you were like working with this company, they brought you in as a consultant, what were the, what are the questions that you would want to ask to really understand the root cause or how would you go about it yeah i would say is there a demographic if like who prefers working remotely versus who works working on site or hybrid and really getting down to the nitty-gritty of why you know is it communication styles what is the communication like on site versus in the remote setting you know do you have any cohesion between making sure that the remote workers know what's happening on site and vice versa and so just these are some of the initial questions I would ask some of the teams that I've been going into it seems like the virtual people are very happy working virtually you know the people who want virtual they're like we're going to work virtually and they they're more like I don't care where people work if they're virtual or on site but I want to be virtual whereas the people who are they want the community aspect like the face-to-face community aspect they're more likely to be like well it's not fun unless everyone's here you know um it's not so much like that philosophy, like, you know, everyone can do what they want. I'll be in the office because that's what I like.

It's more like, you know, I want to be in the office and I want all my friends there with me, you know, I want you guys there with me. Right. And so I feel like it's the in-person camp, I guess, that are more likely to want that like holistic policy around when we're going to be in the office and when we're not going to be on the office or whatever. What do you think about that? Yeah, I think, you know, because they want the greatest sense of community and like you said, they want their friends and colleagues there. And it is completely different atmospheres but i think kind of making the case that it's an individual accommodation sometimes for having the remote work some people try better and really you know providing that space it's like you can check in you know you can be on site but so you know have virtual meetings with the remote employees and again i think then this just needs to be more done to provide that human connection for all you know and and really understand that bridging that gap because you know and understanding that you're not there to communicate at the same time like you don't want the sense of community but it's also like some people thrive better and work better at home and that creating that sense of community is important but then the day you're here to do a job and but also providing different options and you know it's like have a social you know have a you know is it a remote social that's what comfortable with?

Or it's like, hey, invite people to a social once a week or once a month to connect. It's like, hey, virtual employees, come on in. We want to celebrate you. And maybe we can make it more of a celebration, a reward to incentivize bringing those employees in. And reminding each other that it's all working towards a common goal. Yeah.

And you know being like reminding each other that it's all all working towards a common goal yeah yeah and it strikes me that um when you said that they're they're looking for like one solution it's i think the line was our attempts to find a middle ground only lead to more friction impacting our productivity it's like maybe there is no middle ground yeah i think sometimes people always want that middle ground it's like but can you actually get that middle ground i think middle ground is like the ideal that everyone wants but it's like sometimes it doesn't exist and then sometimes you it it looks different than you thought it would yeah how can how can that look like like yeah I think you know picture again I think kind of again meeting people where they're at and so you know like hey and explain to people the situation and really understanding that it's okay this person needs it to thrive and do well in the work we understand that you want the most sense of community you have you know other people here that are already here that will also like you want to work when i have that sense of community but it's not feasible for everyone and really understanding that you can you you're never gonna please everyone you know i think a lot of times you as a business owner as ceo you want to please everyone and you know you want to obviously have the best things from your employees and get the most the most satisfactory they can do the most and be the most productive but it's not always feasible and being kind of okay with the uncomfortability do you think that this might be a loaded question so forgive me um do you think it's possible to accommodate everyone within an organization or is is there something like, maybe it's not a good culture fit?

You know, like, where is your stance on that? Yeah, I think you can try your best to accommodate everyone. And so really by listening to your employees, I think I'm really trying to, you know, do the one approach for everyone, you know, not trying to do the one size fits all, but actually looking at individual's needs and say, okay, well, how can we best get you to that part but you know your individual needs being met and you're satisfied completely in every aspect of your job function but you know I feel like as humans we're never fully satisfied anyways and so but just you know knowing having employees know that you will are willing to accommodate them at any time and, you know, see, meet them where they're at and say, okay, what can we do to actually improve this?

Having check-ins with them, you know, seeing how they feel and really having those conversations and having those difficult talks. I'm curious, like, as you, as you're talking about, like, meeting everyone where they're at, it strikes me like something I learned a long time ago when I was managing people, meeting everyone where they're at, it strikes me like something I learned a long time ago when I was managing people, I'm still managing people. But when I first started managing people, it was that, you know, people learn often the most when they're outside their comfort zone. And so sometimes meeting everyone where they're at, it, it could be perceived as like helping them be as comfortable as possible.

You know what I mean so what's your um take on like you know how much discomfort is a reasonable amount of discomfort so that they're being pushed outside their comfort zone through learning something while also feeling complete like feeling like a whole person within their company yeah I think as long as you know you make sure that they feel safe and that they feel good about their work you know that's being the mother app but then also being like it's not feasible to do everything and you know it's like a stolen organization and kind of you know kind of frame it like that it's like what you said you know sometimes you have to grow you grow outside of your comfort zone.

And so, you know, nothing to ask you to do anything dangerous, not to ask you to do anything unsafe, but just, you know, kind of pushing the envelope a little bit. So for people who, you know, don't want to come into the office because they like it virtual, do you think it would be reasonable to to suggest like, know different activities you know to go in the office even though that might be kind of outside their comfort zone or what how could we um push people who want to work virtually not push them but encourage them to be in person every once in a while yeah i think kind of like having different activities you've had team building activities that you can't that you can do them virtually but it would be better in person it's like and really highlights like this is going to be for connection and you know help i mean this is why you want to do the um activity and do the event because i think a lot of times companies just try to do events and activities and and the employees eyes it's like well why are we doing this you know it kind of seems meaningless to me but it's like hey we're trying to build team morale between our remote and on-site employees you know we want to thank you for all your hard work in both spaces you know and that kind of incentivizes you know having people come in person and i think also somehow like i think it's kind of to say because i think like not making it mandatory actually you know, having people come in person. And I think also, somehow it's kind of to say, because I think like not making it mandatory actually would kind of, then people are like, oh, if we make it mandatory, then people have to come and they're going to be more willing.

I feel like actually the opposite is true. You know, it's like, if you don't be as mandatory, people, they feel like forced and they feel like they have no autonomy. But when they chose to do it and it's voluntary then they're like oh no i want to do it and but you explain the reasons of why and the team building or the creating this atmosphere then people think huh they'd be more actually more motivated to do it yeah for sure i completely agree with you i think people are forced they're much less likely and then when they show up they're not showing up with that like you know that mindset that you want them yeah they're just trying to like i was forced to be here i'm at the laboratory instead of like oh they generally want to be here and they because of why they're here yeah exactly like they know that people they enjoy are going to be there they know that there's going to be something interesting happening like um yeah maybe there's options um you know maybe they go there and they don't have to do exactly the same thing as everyone maybe there's like you know different varieties of things that yeah i think like yeah i think having like different activities for like different types of people again you know like it's like oh you're more social like have like a more like have like a dance party or like you know like have a right take a playing class you know oh you're more social like have like a more like have like a dance party or like you know like have a take a playing class you know like you're still with other people but you're working on another activity you can like share show with each other and just you know I think catering to those different types of people yeah for sure um how can we enhance how would you recommend to a team like this who is probably distributed and you know hybrid remote flexible whatever you want to call it um how would you recommend that they structure their communication so that everyone's on the same page or as possible yeah i think you know leveraging things like slack i love slack yeah i think Slack's such a huge platform. And other things like Slack. I think there's other ones that have similar. I can't remember the name of right now. The Flex Room that comes to mind.

But really having that sense of community. And you can play posts when there is events, you know. And post the different things happening within the organization. And that, you know, people that are working on site can communicate with each other via slack and also people working remotely you know everyone can be communicated there either in the direct channel or they can message each other directly and so i think that's a huge way to foster that communication and i think even leveraging video calls such as this you know understanding that you could be on site we could still have virtual meetings with people that are working from home or working remotely and so understanding that there's all these different tools and we have so much technology and platforms these days and so just really leveraging that yeah for sure um what else is important to making sure that your team like what are the what are the systems and tools that you would recommend?

Yeah, I think like the system is like kind of doing like, if you're the manager or if you're the CEO, just kind of touching base with your employees and like seeing how people are feeling about the current circumstances of their work and they're working virtually or they're working on site, seeing how people feel of seeing, does it make sense to do a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly meeting with everyone that's no matter if they're remote or hybrid, and really having more cohesion. I think a lot of times right now, it's like even though everyone knows it's the same organization, it seems like there's two different organizations when it's on site and hybrid or remote. And so having more of those cohesion and using those tools that we used when everyone was remote you know and really so just because you're back on site does not mean you should lose all that great technology and those systems you hadn't played previously to connect everyone yeah um for the often it's the people who want to be on site who um may be like more frustrated a lot of the time if assuming that there is um when in in an environment where there's a respect for autonomy you know so we're talking about an organization here who has a respect for autonomy they don't currently seem to have a standardized protocol for coming into the office or not being in the office you know um so when when folks aren't getting what they want they can tend to get really frustrated right in this model it seems like the people who are virtual't getting what they want.

They can tend to get really frustrated, right? In this model, it seems like the people who are virtual are getting what they want. The people who are in person aren't getting what they want. And so it seems like they're starting to get very kind of more, you know, frustrated and vocally frustrated about it. In terms of the emotional atmosphere of the company, where would you start there? Yeah, I think really understanding, I think we're making assumptions that the virtual is happy and then the onsite is angry or more angry. But I think really understanding it's like, okay, where is everyone at, you know? Yeah. Like, you know, even just like doing a survey check, it's like, you know, kind of, are you on site? Are you remote? How do you currently feel about your work? What needs to be improved? What do you think needs to be improved? And so I think really understanding that, again, it's going to be an individual approach, but seeing where the gaps are and it's like, okay, this is, you know, it's going to be an individual approach but seeing where the gaps are and it's like okay this is you know it's like is it because you know is it everyone in your department there is it people in your department that are working virtually and then you like feel like you're missing people in your department is it into departmental you know is it people in different departments but you need to connect with them, be that they're virtual and I'm on site.

And so just really seeing where the gaps are, really understanding where employees are most frustrated and where they think that the most problems lie and how it's like, what kind of also what level of frustration or what level of emotion are they feeling? Is it at 10 out of 10 they're very frustrated or like i'm getting slowly getting more frustrated and really understanding where they're at i was like i'm just starting to get frustrated and i think when you break it down like that because it's like i hope like i think a lot of times too oh they're mostly frustrated we have to like do it now but actually when people start getting frustrated is when you should start like okay this person's starting to get frustrated how can we get it back to not frustrated you know instead of oh this person's super frustrated obviously you want to help them too and come up with solutions but not just focusing on those people that are what's end right um if they were very frustrated i'm curious like what kind of interventions would you recommend if it was like these people are going to leave?

Take a second to actually talk to them you know i think a lot of times I feel like people undervalue the importance of conversation in the workplace and it is having someone to feel heard you know and i think a lot of times people are like oh we don't think people are frustrated but they don't actually know how they're frustrated and you know we just see that there's a problem but it's like there's so many different correlations and so many different variables that could be making this person frustrated that's a mix of the home life that you know how they feel about the work they're doing the circumstance of being on site versus having people virtual and it can be a myriad of things but if you don't know that if you don't have that conversation with someone it's like oh i think you know you don't want to just diagnose the problem and be like well it's probably because there's virtual and then they're on site and at that first glance that's what it looks like you know they want that sense of community but it can be a lot deeper than that and seeing if they're that frustrated it's probably multiple variables right uh okay so they were very frustrated and it was something that hadn't been like say we're not it's not something that like it's been they're very, very frustrated, it's probably something that's been happening for a while. It's probably something where that, you know, they've vocalized and maybe it hasn't been fixed yet.

Right. Like, it's just something they're feeling like, well, this is never going to change. In that case, what do you, what do you tell the leadership team? In that that case what do you what do you tell the leadership team yeah i think again really listen to your employees and listen to the people you're managing and again really understand where they're coming from kind of put yourself in their shoes and really and like have the empathetic ear you know but also that that willing to okay this is the problem and this person's feeling this way it's probably other people that are feeling this way maybe not this exact same but probably similar um and so kind of working on a solution to solve the problem and being transparent with them when you know it's okay we're trying to work on the solution because i think a lot of times managers or leadership are working on the problem but they don't communicate that to the employee so the employee feels like nothing's being done you know nothing's being done nothing's being done but sometimes the complex problems they take time to solve by just you know being transparent with the employee hey you know thank you for you said about and we're working on a solution but it is taking a bit of time um please bear with us or it's like we kind of hit a snag and trying to come up with a solution um is there any other things that you would like to see change you know or hey that that solution isn't feasible i'm sorry you know can we work together and come up with another solution for any other problems or, you know, other, any other solutions towards this problem. And really again, having that clear communication because a lot of times you're just left in the dark. Yeah, that's true.

A lot of the times you're not followed up with on the problem. It's almost like the problem, you know, people just pretend it doesn't exist anymore almost, you know, because it's, I don't know. I'm almost like the problem, you know, people just pretend it doesn't exist anymore, almost, you know, because it's, I don't know, I'm not sure what the, that's never been my problem. And I'm sure that's never been your problem either. So, okay. In terms of neurodiversity, you mentioned that communication is obviously the most important thing, you know, listening to people, actually, like understanding what the real problems are trying to get to the root of the problems, and then proposing solutions. Obviously, sometimes there's negotiation around that, like with a leadership level or manager, manager level, sometimes there's policies that need to change. or a manager at your level. Sometimes there's policies that need to change. But what is the relevance of the way that we communicate, the different people communicate in a neurodiverse organization?

Yeah, so I think, for example, if you're sending mass emails and communicating, it's like someone does not like communication, you know, and it's like, i prefer for you to say it aloud and it's my best process information i remember but then the flip side also if you're just communicating everything in a meeting and we'll have the transcriptions and not you know not sharing that intervention right after then that could get muddled you know and so for example I best communicate when I see written like when I see an email when I see a slack message and if you just say instructions to me or you say something to me I'd be like I can kind of get it but like if you wrote it down I would get the full picture more and I remember I worked with an organization and I worked with the CEO, directly with the CEO. And he would send me voice notes all the time. And he would be like, you know, saying I did a great job. We wanted to improve. And I would get it. But I was just like, I told him to send this to me in an email. Send it to me, you know, via Slack. Because that's how I best process information.

And you really need to meet people where they best process information. You know, and I think a lot of people are like we're really happy systems play so that that's gonna take more time out of my day but when the person doesn't understand what you said to them that's gonna end up taking more time of your day so just you know communicate how people need you to communicate like hey can i send you a voice note hey can i would you prefer text do you prefer email what is your preferred method of communication yeah how do we build that you know preferences not just communication preferences but all preferences into the process in an individualized way rather than having to like you know I'm a manager and I'm communicating I'm getting to know my employee. I understand their preferences, but then I have to do that with every single person that's on my team. And it becomes difficult to remember, you know?

So how do you recommend building that into the process of an organization so that there is like a memory of some kind? Is there anything for that? Yeah. I think even just like having it included right when the employee is onboarded is a huge step i think onboarding right now is very much the employee the new employee learning about the company but the company doesn't really take much time to learn about this new employee and so it's like hey what is your preferred communication what is your preferred different channels you know how can i best help you thrive with this organization how can I best help you be productive at this organization what do you want to get out of this organization and so really having that conversation and the employee should be onboarding the employee to the company and the company being onboarded to the new employee and i think you know when you when you have a new manager you got you know promoted or moved to a different department within the company you know having that mechanism it's like okay even like leveraging excel or having a document that has that you know this is the employee's name this is the preferred communication this is preferred x y and z and just having that because yeah it is a lot but once and then when you especially when you first start but once you you know you start doing it you start doing repeatedly and you start doing the process over and over again it kind of becomes muscle memory but even we're human we forget things you know so having it written down somewhere that you use all the time but I would I would say like just a excel file the employee name and having that information there. Yeah, okay. That makes sense. I haven't seen this before.

Maybe there's a tool out there that I'm not aware of, but what would be really interesting and I'm curious to hear your thoughts about this is there a tool that's been designed so that you can blast the communicate, like whatever communication it is, if it's a team you know organization level team level individual level but then you can send it in multiple formats you know what I mean so you don't have to you know you don't have to send the emails make the call you know do the slack do the text whatever it is you know but you can just do it in one place and then it goes and gets sent out in all the places. Is that overkill?

I feel like that's not overkill. It's a very interesting idea because I feel like so many processes now being automated. And so it's like, it's just part of that. But I think for the productivity, you know, that makes sense. And it's like, watch, it's a thing although someone's like thinking about it right now also um because i feel like people always come up with new ideas and coming with things to just make the processes better but i think when you still have i think you still need that human approach at the end of the day because because it's like it sounds nice and to have these you know the animated email to call to whatever the preferred channel is but I think when it really comes for that person and knowing that person's making an effort to communicate with you how you best need to be communicated it's going to sink in a bit more when you know it's just coming from a platform it's just like did they you know and so I think it makes a difference yeah I think so I think it would be interesting to have something where if like if I'm a if I'm better at stream of consciousness you know and I like meaning like I like I know a lot of people who just like to take audio you know they do audio and they send their audio um audio grant I don't know what it's called just like a recording um I know quite a few people who've been starting to do that, but like I'm, I prefer it in an email as well because it works with my whole system better.

So I, I mean, I want them, I want everyone to be able to communicate way, the way that they feel it's easiest to communicate, but I want to receive the information in the way that I need to receive the information. I'm curious. I wonder if there's a way to like, you know, you know, create a system around those two things. Now we're going to start a product or something.

Starting a new business now. Yeah, exactly. Sounds like we're starting a company. okay um what else do you want to tell these guys like what is the bad news and what's the good news like if you just like could boil it down to like you know the most basic hardest information that you they need to hear what do they need to hear yeah i think that well kudos on being a neurodiverse team that's not the end all be all you know i think people are like oh we're a neurodiverse team or we have a neurodiverse organization and i feel like sometimes people don't really understand what that actually means or like you know it's like at first glance it is neuroinclusive in a neuroinclusive organization and team but it really isn't and so really understanding and also that you can't satisfy everyone and that you can just try your best but meeting people again where they're at and really accommodating those individual needs is what makes the difference you know I always say like you know trying to make your organization as inclusive and accessible as possible obviously where you can but you're still going to need to accommodate those individual needs i think sometimes people think oh well we are inclusive enough we're accessible enough but it's like people people can still each still going to each have the individual needs that need to be met are you accommodating those you know or making every effort to accommodate those. And so I'm making sure that they feel like they're included at work on an individual basis and not just as an overarching.

Right. Okay. Awesome. Thank you very much, Sydney. Been a pleasure and an honor.

Thank you.

We'll chat soon.

Sounds good.

Don't forget to stay weird, stay wonderful, and don't stay out of trouble.

Intro:

Ready to crack the code to business success?

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Website:

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Script:

What kind of products are they selling? How are they telling their story?

You know, when we're so busy doing the business, working in the business, sometimes it's easy to forget the big picture. And then, you know, sort of one thing leads to another. And eventually you're not really left with the same business that you started with or the same vitality that you started with.

And once you do that work, everything else falls out of that.

I'm the general manager of a local retail chain known for our trendy clothing and accessories. For years, we've enjoyed success and a loyal customer base, but lately we're facing a crisis. Sales are dwindling, foot traffic is down, and it feels like we're losing our once loyal customers. It's clear that recent shifts in consumer behavior and market trends are taking a toll on our business. Our brand identity feels stuck in the past and our social media presence is stagnant and dated. We're struggling to understand our customer base, which has become increasingly vague. Despite a desire to change and a budget set aside for marketing support, we're not sure where to start. So how can we adopt our marketing strategies to resonate with today's consumers? How can we revitalize our social media to engage our audience effectively? And what steps can we take to regain the trust and loyalty of our customers? Enter Lisa Strangway, owner of the Marketing Station. Lisa is known for innovative yet practical marketing strategies and disciplined social media implementation. How can Lisa help? Welcome, welcome, Lisa.

Hi, Erin. How are you? I'm so good. I'm so happy to have you on the show. I am thrilled to finally be on this show. I love it. I'm a big fan. So now I get to be part of it.

I love that you listen to the show. So folks, Lisa and I, and Lisa is the founder of the marketing station now in its 10th year. Congratulations.

Thank you.

She is an amazing friend of mine. We've known each other literally for a decade now. I can't, it blows my mind. I can't even believe that.

Wild.

And she's definitely highly, highly experienced and seasoned as a social media expert in content marketing and strategic planning for businesses. So I think that you're just the perfect person to help with this issue.

Well, it sounds like a very familiar story. I have, I have dealt with situations like this in the past. With path clients, or, you know, just colleagues that I've talked to in this field in the retail field specifically. So yes, I can definitely help here.

Yeah. It does seem like this is something that I this is definitely something that I have personally seen as well, not with just clients, but even just friends who are owners of retail stores, having to just, you know, things, I find things, you know, when we're so busy doing the business, working in the business, sometimes it's easy to forget the big picture. And then, you know, sort of one thing leads to another.

And eventually you're not really left with the same business that you started with or the same vitality that you started with. Yeah. And also don't forget that the speed at which things change these days is astronomical compared to even 10, 20 years ago. so you could set yourself up in a business um two years ago and it's already changed in terms of um digital capabilities so it's really important that you stay on top of uh trends and uh data right yeah um okay so for the folks out there uh who are new to the show, we're in season two of Weirdos in the Workplace.

And this year, this season, we are focusing on supporting with practical problem solving with businesses. So every time we're doing an interview with a professional problem solver, just like Lisa, folks are coming on and we are going to be kind of doing some real brainstorming together. So today we're actually going to be looking at this problem through a model called the six thinking hats by Edward de Bono. And the six thinking hats, there are six hats, as you can imagine. And the first hat is the white hat, information and data. imagine. And the first hat is the white hat, information and data. There's the red hat, which deals with emotions and intuition. There's the black hat, which deals with caution and risk. The yellow hat, which is optimism and benefits. The green hat, which is creativity and alternatives. And then the blue hat, which is process and control. So we're going to basically look at this scenario through all of these different lenses.

Okay, let's get started.

So starting with the white hat, Lisa, white hat deals with information and data. So, you know, in terms of the insights that this retailer could gain from the world or that they should be gathering? What is your advice on that?

Yeah, so this is probably my favorite category. There's a couple things they should be looking at. First of all, look at your sales activity and take a look at the sales figures there and figure out which products and what type of inventory is actually selling. Look at your, and then for the products that are selling, figure out who is actually buying that product. So I know that they have a loyal fan base, but is that, or not fan base, loyal fan base, but is that not fan base, a customer base, but is that loyal customer base actually still purchasing items? Who knows? You have to do the digging and find out. And collecting information from, customer base is super important. You can do that through surveys, um, or through, um, you know, just talking to them in the store. Um, social listening is a really big tool. So take a look at what people are saying online and, and start to figure out what they're looking for right so maybe that's cool like are there any specific platforms that are used for social listening or is it more just like like sensing um you know through through like. So just reading comments, you know, which will give you a good sense of what people are looking for, for sure. You go to any Facebook group for a town or whatever, or a city, and you can even ask a question in there and see what people are saying. But, but there are apps and things available to you with the specific use of social listening. Interesting.

Okay, cool. I interrupted you. You were going to say something else, I think.

Well, I lost that train of thought.

Okay, the train of thought has left the building.

Yeah, seriously. In terms of competitor analysis, is that relevant these days you know because i know there's sort of two different thought ways of thinking around it i know folks who are very customer focused and they don't care crap about their competitors and people who are you know obviously customers are important but they also want to see what their competitors are doing and you know make sure that they're balancing everything.

So what, what, what's your opinion on that? I always a hundred percent recommend doing a competitive review. Okay. I would, I would look at your top five competitors and see what they're doing. What kind of products are they selling? How are they telling their story? Are they, what kind of technology do they have? So are they offering, you know, online purchases, free delivery, you know, all of these things are going to help you get a good picture of where you stand within that competition.

Okay. Yeah. All right. Let's move on to the red hat, emotions and intuition. How, as a consultant, marketing consultant, do you advise your clients on that, that storytelling aspect that you just shared a minute ago?

Like how, how do we tell a story that evokes emotions? And yeah, let's stop there. Let's ask that question first. Right. Well, first you have to really understand who your customer is and who your potential customer is, right? So that's why the research part of this is so important. What are the values? What are they looking for? What do they, you know, what do they aspire to be? What's their lifestyle like? And all of that. And then the best way to engage with them emotionally is to craft the story. engage with them emotionally is to craft the story so craft not one story several stories that you can publish on your website and on social media that will with the goal of appealing to that side of them right so appeal to their emotional side so if your target market is, you know, a busy mom of two kids, full, and she works full time, and she values quality time with her kids, with her family, you know, you craft a story around that somehow that relates obviously back to your product but how how can your product or service appeal to that part of that target markets world right so that's an example but right yeah so in the case of like this general manager who's managing a local retail chain really you don't know what stories you're going to necessarily tell about your business until you understand your customers. Is that what I'm hearing?

Absolutely.

A hundred percent.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay. So it sounds like customer really understanding the customer at a deep level is the most important starting point perhaps. It is the most important starting point. And once you do that work, everything else falls out of that. Hey, so I am curious. How much can we trust our gut instincts as entrepreneurs? Yeah, I'm a big believer in gut instinct. Okay. Yes. Now, having said that, it's really important that that's not the only thing you rely on.

So it's gut instinct plus data or research or any kind of quantitative, you know, results or data. uh you have to have you have to have a balance of two now and i would say if you're just focusing on data then you're missing that part of you you know your gut which you know if you're the owner or the general manager of a business to me that says that you have some type of passion for that business so if you don't have an instinctual gut feeling about it, then maybe you're not in the right business. It's interesting you say that actually, it just struck me like, you know, what if your product or service, you know, isn't quite perfectly aligned with your passion anymore?

You know, like, how does it ever see see that in your clients does that come up for you um like yes but it's it's not it's not something that is like easily detectable because especially with an owner I think an owner and a manager are two very different roles so I'm just going to speak about ownership. If you're the owner of a business and you're not quite passionate about it, it's going to show in your results and it's going to show in the amount of time and work that you put into securing the future of your business.

Okay.

Which means doing the homework now and and doing you know investing in your business if you're not passionate about your business anymore you're not going to be taking those steps so yeah I have seen that um and um it always makes me sad yeah it always makes me sad because maybe at one point this person was passionate and something happened along the way you know they got disillusioned or maybe uh they just decided this isn't something they wanted to do but i've seen other times uh situations also like sometimes health related you know oh yeah health and stress you know there's lots of I think reasons why people can become disengaged um yeah yeah definitely uh yeah and sometimes I've seen it where they're just at a place where they're kind of ready for retirement and you know they just haven't really done the planning and they're just sort of checked out a little bit so that's I've seen that too. So that's, those are big feelings around that. Yes. So the black hat is caution and risk.

And you did touch on risk, I think in the first question as well, but what risks, I mean, the obvious risk of, you know, if you don't have revenue, you don't have a business um other than the obvious risks you know what what do you see for their business if they don't make a change immediately well if they don't make a change immediately well i would kind of uh use different wording for that if they if they don't start doing the work um to figure out what changes need to be made then they're going to cancel themselves out if they can't evolve they're going to lose their audience and by audience I mean customers yeah so the risk is you know not knowing not knowing who your target market is and maybe going too broad.

You know, if they use strategies and tactics that is meant to appeal to a very broad fan base or target market, they're going to miss out because they're not, they're not going to be providing, um, a product that is actually needed by a specific target market. Okay. Um, have you noticed that business, our, our, our business is niching more than they used to. Is this a trend? Yes.

Okay. Yeah. It's something I've noticed for sure because uh you know with i think with technology today it's a lot easier to uh drill down into your um into your target market and really figure out uh through research methods and stuff figuring out exactly what their needs are and sometimes you find out that maybe you can narrow down your product offering to really hit that mark for them. And so you're decreasing maybe what you're offering, but you're increasing your sales and maybe the frequency in which people are buying. So that's why niches sometimes work. Yeah. Is there any time where you would not recommend a niche?

I think it just depends on the product being offered. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's hard to answer that question without knowing specifically. Well, if we use this example, I would recommend that maybe they niche down. But again, I'd have to know more about the target market. Right. Yeah. Okay. right yeah okay um i'm curious about if we could go into that just a little bit um so when you're creating like a customer persona along with a client what are the steps that you go through for that like what is what's the really important things to identify um well i always ask the client to send me whatever data they have.

So it's, and a lot of times I don't get it. But it's, you know, give me a general sense of who is coming into your brick and mortar store, right? I look for, you know, general observational data probably is what I'm going to get. So the age, the sex, the purchasing patterns, frequency in which they come in, any kind of anecdotal data they can give me. You know, do they know their customers?

Do they talk to them do would they recognize them if they were walking down the street you know are they coming in with strollers are they coming in you know a certain time of day I need all of that whatever the owner can give me will give me a bit of a broad picture and then I drill down and what I do is I look at that industry and I look at what the typical customer would be right so there I mean that research is available out there on the internet and I so I look at that and then I compare it to you know what I have from the owner and I see what the gaps are, if any. And so that helps me round out what the, what the persona would look like. So it's a lot of research. It's a lot of talking to the owner and looking at survey results. If I'm lucky, they have survey results, but you know, startups don't have survey results. If I'm lucky, they have survey results. Right. But, you know, startups don't have survey results.

So, yeah, it's a little bit of both. And I come close. It's not an exact science. No. But I do come close. Yes. I mean, as someone who owns a business and is, you know, I've been part of a few startups, my own and other people's, you know, sometimes it's like, it feels like a little bit of a risk, you know, deciding to like focus on one or, you know, a cluster of particular customer personas, like a target market. It does feel like a risk. And I think that sometimes that that's a trap that I think people fall into is not wanting to pick a person, pick someone who you believe is going to buy your product. Well, again, we're going back to that whole thing about too broad of an audience. You know, it's like, you know, how do you craft your messaging? How do you how do you how do you craft your messaging?

How do you develop your creative? I mean, everything stems from your customer personas. So if your customer persona is everybody in the whole wide world, how are you going to get your messaging across you know to the whole world you know if every single person is a potential customer right we're not gonna hit any marks right you know you just think of it as that you know put it down the funnel and then at that at the bottom of the funnel you have like the cream of the cream uh you know the people that are most likely going to buy from you and figure out what is going to get them to buy yeah that's what a customer persona is supposed to do right okay so going back to black hat and caution and risk um i'm curious because i think this is like a very natural, you know, human behavior to want to minimize risk.

And we know that, you know, in most cases, diversification minimizes risk, except I think when we're talking about a target market. So but it feels like a risk. So what do you do as a marketing professional to help it feel like less of a risk with your clients? You mean developing that target or that exact? Yeah. Well, I have to explain to them that, um, oh, well, I mean, this is what I always say to clients. I say, you know, you have to start somewhere. So let's, you know, so far, yeah, you haven't tried any strategies.

So why don't we try this strategy and this strategy and see how it goes. And then we'll revisit it in three months. Honestly, like marketing is, you know, it is part science, but it is part gut instinct, like you said. And it's a lot of, you know, data crunching and stuff. But at the end of the day, it's not an exact science. Okay, so and anybody who says it is not been in marketing for very long. So what I say is, let's just try it. What I say is let's just try it.

I can tell you as a professional and based on my years of experience that you're going to get better results if you focus on a particular market and you craft your messaging to that specific market. But if you don't believe me, let's try it for three months, see how it goes. And then we'll look at the results and we can pivot if it doesn't work. So that's how I, I, I'll, I always get a yes when I, when I kind of position it that way. And, you know, all I want is success for the client. Right.

So at the end of the day, I'm not going to recommend something that I don't think is going to work. So I put the power back in their hands and I say, you know, it's your decision, but let's, let's try it and we can always change it. Yeah, definitely. And you'll learn something from it. Right. And I'm sure there's always something to learn from, from a test.

So, yeah. Okay. Yellow hat is optimism and benefits. So what is the good news here? Well, the good news is that this store has had a loyal customer base and they have had a lot of success in the past. The other positive thing is that they are looking to make some changes, to pivot, because they know that they need to do something. And they do have a budget, which is huge. They have set aside a budget. So right there, that tells me that they're serious. And that's the positive thing about this is they have the right mindset to pivot and change and grow. Oh yeah. Mindset is literally everything.

And you know, people who poo poo that, like they haven't, they just haven't gotten there yet. You know, like. Mindset is everything. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So green hat, creativity and alternatives. Is there anything like outside the box that you'd recommend here? Or one of the other questions that I would ask in the scenario is if you were working with no budget, where would you start? Oh, I have a lot of ideas for this. This one, I mean, okay. The first thing I always say is, okay, let's take a look at your network.

See who we can collaborate with. That's a, you know, a win-win situation for both that doesn't actually require any kind of payment, but maybe it's a, it's a collaborative promo on social media where you're, you know, partnering up and offering a huge prize and you do some type of contest, but definitely collaboration is the first thing I would look at. Okay. And the second thing I would look at is try and step out of your business for a second and imagine what it could be. So more than a store. Okay. So this is a store, but what could it be other than that? You're selling clothing, but could this be a meeting place for women?

Could you have fashion shows could you do you know i don't know any type of little event wine and cheese events um sure take a look at what you know what can you do in your space that will make it more of a destination okay and what it already is yeah so for brick and mortar stores i always look at those two things and um it's bound to create traffic i love that yeah make your business a destination. Yeah. Blue hat, process and control. So how do we, you did touch on this earlier, but like specifically, you know, you're testing a new campaign.

You know, we're working with this business, this retail chain. We're testing a new campaign for them. How do we know if it's been successful right so uh whenever you whenever i start a new campaign um i do a full marketing plan for it and part of the marketing plan is making sure that you identify what your specific objectives are but every objective needs a measurement tool absolutely or else you're just throwing money out the window.

So we call them KPIs. So key performance indicators. So you always do that. That's the first thing you do. So for a new campaign, I would look at social media data. So the reach, engagement, impressions, website analytics. so how many more people are visiting the website how long are they staying on the page are they uh clicking on anything you know that type of thing uh and then surveys so uh if you've never surveyed your fan base, I keep saying fans. Can you tell I come from a different world? We forgot to mention Lisa spent a long time with the Ottawa Senators in marketing. I'm never going to get that vocabulary. Well, raving fans. We're all trying to create raving fans, are we not? Yes, yes.

Raving fans

Yes. Yes. Rating test. So surveys, you know, and I would hope to God that they would have some type of database, customer database. But if not, that would be one of my recommendations is to either start collecting email addresses so that you can survey on a regular, on a consistent basis. So whether that's once a year or once a quarter, whatever it is, it's consistent and you create a baseline of numbers and then you measure against that every time you survey. So, and you'll be able to get some good data that way.

For sure. And of course, sorry, sales sorry sales obviously are you selling anything you're not selling anything then the campaign probably didn't work no okay so that is that is interesting though because there are a lot of people who focus on marketing that you know there's different you know goals when it comes to marketing you know brand um reach or brand awareness there's different, you know, goals when it comes to marketing, you know, brand, um, reach or brand awareness, there's community building. There's like a bunch of things, obviously revenue is one of those things.

Um, like what is the, like what, what, I mean, revenue is that number one, the number one goal? Well, I have to say it depends on, it depends on the business I'm working with. Okay. If we're using this, I'm using this as the example. It's a brick and mortar store. Obviously, they're doing all of this because their sales are dwindling.

So I would say the number one is to increase sales by X percent. And you need to figure out what that X is. So, you know, I would ask for sales figures for the last year or two, even to see what the sales trends have been and and then figure out what a good KPI would be for that. And so I say, yes, sales for sure for this, but they did mention that their social media was dwindling and there was no engagement whatsoever um so you know the second one would probably be to increase awareness increase awareness of the store and increase engagement with the content that they're putting out um and engagement could mean clicking a link that goes back to the website.

To me, that's a valuable result from a campaign. If people are actually, you know, taking action on the content that you're putting out, that's what you want at the end of the day. At the end of the day, you want people to go to your website and make a purchase for sure yeah or walk into the store and make a purchase totally yep awesome um any any final thoughts i want to actually help the store so yeah it's too bad it's an additional store yeah yeah this is well it's an optional store based on you know numerous experiences that I've had with clients and um but but certainly you know if you're you're out there listening to this and you're thinking is she talking about us uh Lisa might be a good person to chat with oh absolutely I love retail um and I love, you know, I have so many ideas when it comes to retail. I used to manage, I used to do the marketing for shopping centers. So I understand the retail cycles. I understand, you know, the ideology behind retail strategies.

And I just love it. So yeah, I love that your example to this story was amazing. Well, this is this is like, like I said, it's like it is a real story. It's a real story. It's an amalgamation of a couple of stories that I'm, you know, we're aware of.

So yeah, we hope that this resonates with people. And I think it will because it is, you know, a common issue, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for coming, Lisa. I am happy to be a weirdo in the workplace. I am very happy. You are an official weirdo now. I love it. Yay. Yeah.

Thank you so much for having me.

Don't forget to stay weird, stay wonderful, and don't stay out of trouble.

Intro:

What does it take to redefine your business and reach your full potential? In this episode, we sit down with Peter Georgariou, the CEO and Founder of karmadharma, a full-service marketing agency dedicated to helping organizations achieve their goals. With a background spanning national sales, marketing, and operations at top media companies, Peter has a wealth of experience guiding SMEs and non-profits through strategic planning and brand-building. But his true passion lies in being of service to others - whether that's supporting his wife and two daughters, or amplifying the impact of the organizations he works with. Join us as Peter shares his unique perspective on how businesses can evolve their value proposition, leverage their strengths, and make a lasting difference in a fast changing and digital society!

Website: http://www.karmadharma.ca

Stay In Touch:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/petergeorgariou/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/karmadharma-agency/

https://www.instagram.com/karmadharma.agency/

Script:

I am very aware and my sense of urgency is very high on how short our walk on this planet is.

That's what culture is going to be changing every time something changes within the organization.

People are going to read this. My friends are going to read this. Maybe they don't see me in that lens, but I think that's where the magic happens, Erin, like getting them into like being out there as themselves and letting go of the good and bad opinions of others.

Let yourself jump off a cliff once in a while and see what happens.

Here's all the benefits for you. Here's how this is going to change your world.

My favorite thing is to sell it, to change somebody's mind from like resistance to like, oh yeah, okay, I get it. I'm going to do it. Bring it on.

---

I'm Jordan, CEO of a five-year-old consulting firm. Our journey has been rewarding, but we're now facing challenges in a rapidly evolving market. The demand for digital transformation and specialized services is growing, pushing us to adopt and stay relevant. Securing long-term contracts has become tougher in an economy filled with uncertainty, impacting our revenue and growth plans. Competition is intense, with both new and established firms fighting for the same clients. I realize I need help to navigate these turbulent waters, redefine our value proposition and get us from where we are today to our big future goal of becoming the go-to consultancy for digital transformation, guiding businesses through the complexities of technology adoption to enhance their competitiveness and innovation in the digital era. And so I'm me, Erin. I'm very happy to have Peter with me today, the CEO and co-founder of Karma Dharma, a B Corporation. And Peter, I'd love for you to just tell us a little bit about you and what you do and why you do it.

Get started there. I want to change the world, Erin, while I'm here. Life is short. So yeah, CEO of Karma Dharma, we're a strategy and creative agency here in Ottawa. And we're slowly moving into a little bit of what you guys do into that people and culture as we realize people need a little escorting along their journey to help them along. So anything from strategic planning to full service, creative agency from creating brands to websites to you name it, and we take them to market. So that's us over there. And why I do it, I want to help individuals and organizations have the courage to be themselves in this life, kick some ass, you know, like it's, it's, I am very aware and my sense of urgency is very high on how short our walk on this planet is. And I'm assuming walking asleep at the wheel is not a great life. And designing a life of meaning is not easy.

So we'd like to help them in that journey. So this is a fictional client of ours, we're going to pretend that we're working with this client. But, you know, what would you say, you know, when you read this story? How did you feel?

I feel like when I hear the word compete to start, Erin, I get nervous. I think that's especially working with a lot of small businesses. And in the B Corp world, there's a lot of small businesses, solopreneurs, as we've chatted about. And they're starting often from that scarcity mindset. So I think the mindset from the beginning is something I like to work through with our clients. I think there's plenty of business for everyone. There's always been competition in every industry. Sure, it can vary a little bit, but digital transformation right now, I'd say is a hot topic like sustainability consulting. I figure there's a lot of people trying to do that. So I think there's a lot of demand and he needs to figure out how he rises to the top of the supply chain.

Okay. So what would make you a good person for Jordan to work with on this topic? What's special about you?

Gotta call my mom for that one, Erin. I think we ask good questions. I think we really want to work with our clients to a shift that mindset, like I talked about, and help Jordan find his why, because there's one thing there's doing digital transformation, but why this is his jam, why this is his life's work, or why it's part of his life's work. And what's his zone of genius and all that like where is he really the guy for this or his organization is the place to go and figuring out you know it's not any ingredient in their recipe because there's a lot of overlap in the industry and there's a lot of commonality and digital transformation but i would say there's an ingredient set that i'm convinced that Jordan and his team have, um, that we can help Tice out, you know, and tease out, I should say, um, and then help him develop messaging to go to market with that.

Like how to, how does he convey that people have difficulty distilling themselves, the essence of themselves and why people should care. Um, so we joke that we're professional distillers over here, minus the gin. But yeah, I think we are a good fit to help him figure out how he is different in the market. Because there's either you're the cheapest option or you have to differentiate. There's only a couple of ways to win. And so he's got to figure that out. And not just against the people his size i find a lot of the people we talk to compare to themselves so there's nobody doing it exactly like us but there's a lot of substitutes for them there's a lot of different ways to do it or they have this philosophy oh the big guys are eating my eating my cake um and so i think it's just navigating that conversation to figure out where they are mentally at the organization and then helping them elevate above that into their own spot.

Okay. Um, so you said that, uh, well, one thing I love that you said was the zone of genius and Patrick Beck, that David, I don't know if you know that gentleman, he wrote a book called your next five moves and it's awesome. So I highly recommend that to anyone listening. But he called it the zone of fascination. And I just love this idea of like the zone of genius and zone of fashion fascination.

Tell me how do you tease that out of a person?

Um, I think in all your secrets. Yeah, no no are you kidding no they're not that secret um I think it's creating early on a zone of trust here and with these people like literally having a conversation around you know why are you doing what you're doing beyond the table stakes I need to feed my kids and all of the just stuff, how we show up just to pay our bills and to bring them to a spot of meaningful contribution. You know, I believe we're all here to be of service to our communities and to allow people to dream a little bit about that and to go beyond the functional aspects of work and why this lights a fire in under Jordan's bum or, you know, like why is this his place? So I think it starting from creating a zone of trust where there's no wrong answers and not a safe space, cause there's no pure safe space, but creating a brave space where this person can, you know, speak to what their challenges are, their fears are, why they aren't showing up as their best selves or something I fought with a long time imposter syndrome.

Why, oh my God, it can't be me. Why do I have the answer? Why would they believe in me? Like a lot of us are fighting this in certain different ways. So just leveling the table or the playing field that he's human, we're human. You don't have it all figured out. Neither do we, neither do your competitors. So why don't we just really hone in on your spot and your sweet spot? And in a, you know, I was born in the U S I've been up here for 40 years, been a long time, but I find in Canada, we are very conservative business wise. And we are very fearful of quote-unquote bragging, whereas, you know, you told me at the beginning of this call, there's nothing wrong with selling. So I think that getting out and saying, hey, why are you awesome? Why should they pick you? And it's okay to tell people you're awesome. You don't have to be a jerk about it, but I think you can go out and tell the market you have something that you believe no one else has.

And oftentimes, if other people are doing that, perhaps it's your why that's going to differentiate you. You're doing this to rebuild your community, to save the planet, whatever that might be, right? To help people, small businesses get out of and compete with the big boys, whatever that might be for him and his business. of compete with the big boys, whatever that might be for him and his business. I think it's diving deep and getting out of talking about the senators and the weather. It's just harder than you think for some people, because even in the way you positioned your case study, it's a very transactional, I'm in a competitive land state. How do I stand out? And then, okay. So these are very versus, okay, how do you make this your life's work?

You're going to spend 40 years at eight hours a day. That's a lot of frigging time. Why don't we just make this something that at the end of your days, you look back and say, Hey, I made a difference while I was here and reposition what you're doing through that lens. Yeah, definitely. It strikes me that the kind of what I would have called sort of the BHAG of the case, the guiding businesses through the complexity, the becoming the go-to consultancy for digital transformation, guiding businesses through the complexities, blah, blah, blah. As you were talking, kind of struck me that there is no why, you know, there's nothing that has to do with a why in that statement whatsoever. Not that this is a real case, but this is again, something that I've seen over and over and over.

Yeah. Well, I, yeah, I think that back to the transactional nature of, of businesses or, or jobs, right. You know, people are in this because I need to provide and it's not available to everyone. I even think at times it's of the privileged few who get to think about something beyond just putting food on the table and being up a couple rungs on Maslow's pyramid. I think it's a privilege. But I also think it's a mindset, you know, whether you find that through the work or outside of work, you know, becoming that best version of yourself in service of the world is low key or the goal of every human in whatever form that takes for them. really helps them stand out. And it helps them stand out even in their language and how they communicate that once they found that resonance in their inner self, not to get too woo woo.

But, you know, once they've done that, all of a sudden, it even infuses meaning for them into what they're doing and the impact they could be making. And hey, all of a sudden, I'm going to walk you through a digital transformation that's going to, if you get this right, cut your costs, allow you to compete with bigger players, allow you to provide for your family or those trips or whatever that means. Digital transformation could change the lives or will change the lives of entrepreneurs and businesses and their employees and all these things. There's a massive ripple effect of Jordan getting this right. So now we're talking, we're not just talking about switching, you know, to your project management system.

We're talking about helping people live a great life, you know? So I think there's something underpinning any product or service that can, if you are passionate about it and it's not just transactional, I think there's an opportunity there to have people dream bigger a little bit. Totally. And like you say, like, I think, you know, your why doesn't have to be changing the world over that many hour why. No. It could be, you know, I had this idea in my head. This is me talking. I literally had this idea in my head since I was a child that I wanted to be an employer. And that was because I wanted to be able to give people somewhere to work, you know, somewhere I wanted to help them have a life, right?

Right. So that could just be the goal. It could just be, you know, I want to give my employees the most people possible, a great life and somewhere stable to work, you know, because there's a lot of unstable work in the world. There's nothing wrong with the why being, you know, just your internal community. That is your why. I don't know. A hundred percent. I think changing the world is intimidating. I mean, I put it out there, but I think everybody's could just be, I need to provide for my elderly parents. I could like, it could be that gamut is huge, but it is usually beyond the business itself, right? It is, you're generating this money and this income to use it as currency or as energy to go fulfill what you want out of this life, right? So I'm with you on that a hundred percent.

So if Jordan's your client, you know, and he's coming in, he's saying we need to stand apart. Yep. You obviously, you mentioned you start with why the self-awareness, the understanding of, you know, who, who, who they are and what kind of impact they want to make, whether it's the community or the world, where do you go from there? Then we start working on, you know, this is the branding side of the house for us is really how they want the world to perceive them. Right. So there's, there's the branding side of the house for us is really how they want the world to perceive them, right? So there's the what they do that a lot of people get lost in. And it's very, you know, just, hey, I do A, B, and C. And this is, you know, usually you go to a lot of websites, they say, I do A, B, and C, it's gonna be great versus, hey, here's what's in it for you, Mr. and Mrs. Business. Here's all the benefits for you. Here's how this is going to change your world. Here's all of that. But we also work on what we call brand tone and personality. So personality-wise, how do you want to be showing up?

For us, you come to our site, people might be like, oh, I love these guys, the people who tell us that. And then the other people who never show up because they thought we're dope smoking yoga teaching god knows what and so they just leave so i think there's having that courage to stand up for yourself and not just what you say but how you say it and being okay like yo this is me this is us this is the way we roll this is how it's the beginning of that engagement with people and if they feel energetically like, these are my people, or Oh, my God, these guys are scaring the crap out of me. It's pretty good. They know it up front, because you'll start to find your people a lot sooner. Because so many websites or comms pieces are just so tofu, they don't smell like anything, they don't taste like anything. They're bland as hell. I'm not saying Ottawa's worse, but I don't know. I see a lot of that.

And I would say, you know what? There's something about standing out is hard for people. Being different is really hard. Like I decided not to call Karma Dharma, Peter G's media media company right i said ah this is this is what I believe in and if they don't like it they can kiss it um but the ones that do love it and i would say to jordan like as we move towards it how do you want to be perceived or there's a great question out of a conference a month ago and i can't remember the lady who said it, but she says her question was, who are you uninterrupted? Like if you would just go tell the world everything about you, your org, and you didn't have to worry about how you thought they were going to receive that information and you could just speak like that, A, it takes courage, but B, we like to work with them on that first draft. And I will tell you, we've done a lot of this where like, they're quite nervous to put that out in public. You know, the website piece or whatever, it's like, okay, people are going to read this.

My friends are going to read this. Maybe they don't see me in that lens. But I think that's where the magic happens, Erin. Getting them into being out there as themselves and letting go of the good and bad opinions of others. You know, and there's that, you know, that book, The Five Regrets of the Dying. I can't remember the name of that lady. She worked with palliative care and I would definitely. And so anyway, she goes through the top five regrets. And the number one is, I wish I had had the courage to live a life in line with my values and who I was and not to have compromised. So I find when I come full circle to doing like brand work or the teams doing the brand work for these companies is so many of them are fearful to be truly themselves in this world. And ultimately, it's so sad. You're like, wait a minute, you're paying us to help you go tell them. And then you're still like, what if they think I'm silly or stupid or not good enough, or Johnny and Mary over there are saying it different than me. And they seem to be kicking ass. And I'm like, well, you're not Johnny and Mary. And I think you standing up as yourself is the ultimate gift to yourself. That's not easy work, Erin.

I don't think for a lot of people, right? To just like show up because you are going to have the haters and you got to, we really want to print these t-shirts. We need some courage ourselves. I want to have these t-shirts that says F the haters. You got to let go of these people who are just not your people. Yeah, absolutely. I will say something though, that you said right at the beginning there, I want to, I want to touch on this because you said something like, you know, they might come to the website, they might see karma Dharma, they might freak out and run away, but that's okay. Cause we're not their people or whatever. Yeah. I want to say like, if, if anyone's listening and they go to karma Dharma's website and they're like, Whoa, if if anyone's listening and they go to karma dharma's website and they're like whoa freaky like they're not I would I would hold on to that feeling for a minute because that might be exactly what you need you know you might need to be a little bit scared if you're getting a little comfortable um I know I feel like the best moments that I've had, the best learning, the best mentors, the best teachers are the ones who challenged me. You know what I mean?

The ones who were like, I was like, I don't know, man, like, I feel terrified to go there. It sounds like a lot of work, you know, maybe it's not like do it anyways, because to me, that's where all the growth happens, right? But then everything else you talked about through that entire, you know, that last couple of minutes was all about fear. A lot of it was about fear, right? So- Amen, yeah, for sure. So facing your fears, if you can support people in facing their fears, I think that that's the most valuable thing that you can do for other people. What a gift. And it just happens to be, we do branding and marketing, but I would argue that back to my intro saying, helping people have the courage to be themselves in this lifetime.

And I'm still client number one for me. I went to a conference six weeks ago and this lady gave a workshop on imposter syndrome and took my breath away, Erin. I was, I can't believe I'm still battling this at three months from 50, you know, and, but it was just an extreme motivation for me as well to take that leap of faith into, okay, I still have some letting go. I'm not, everything I've said is very far from preaching from a place of mastery. It's really from a place of practice that I'm still working on, talk to our team about all the time. And letting go perfection is not possible. It's actually a, it's a plague, this perfectionism thing. So anyways, I think full circle is this journey of stepping forward into courage or back into fear is a constant decision at every moment in your life. And you have these opportunities and sometimes you just need some people on your side to help pull you forward a little bit.

Absolutely. Yep. Or drag you kicking and screaming sometimes. Maybe. Maybe. It's funny you say that because we talk a lot about, you know, we can't do your pushups for you or we can't want it more than our clients. So sometimes as we can open up the coaching mindset and approaches, we can present it to you and help you find that solution for yourself. But the dragging rarely works, right? We joke about it and I get it. And sometimes you get dragged along and you're like, thank God I did. I mean, I have teenage daughters and most of the time I lose, but occasionally I drag them along and win. But helping them find that intrinsic motivation within, right. To help pull them out of their shell or that conditioning that's been like, you know, protecting them from judgment or whatever that might be and letting them like, you know, just peek open a little bit and looking out. or whatever that might be and letting them like, you know, just peek open a little bit and looking out.

Maybe it's not the dragon kicking and screaming. Maybe it's let yourself jump off a cliff once in a while and see what happens. Yeah. Mama birds are doing it all the time to their baby birds and there are lots of birds around, but yes. You got it. You got it. So what is the relevance is the relevance to, you know, the market research, competitive research, you know, all that jazz, like, what is, is that important to your process? Or is it, you know, mostly like really getting to know yourself at a fundamental level? I feel there's like the right answer and my answer and I don't know if their mind's the right one, Erin. We do a lot of competitive research just to see how the other brands are positioning themselves, how they're presenting themselves both visually and in their messaging. So it's really good to see that. The counterweight to that is sometimes that can get you away from what you're trying to accomplish because you're like, Ooh, yeah, we should do that. Or we should say it like that. Or I love that you start going to see these websites or documents and you're like, you know, they've got it nailed down or they got a big marketing team. I don't know what, but so, so yes. And still hold space for, despite all, when I launched Karma Dharma, or I would say this for crap, any restaurant out there, if you did your market research, you'd say, oh, well, this market's saturated.

There are tons of players in this market. You know, there's a million marketing firms or there's a million even the strategy side of both of our businesses there are lots of people who can help you do this um same for restaurants so why the hell would you ever go open up if you see because the market research could tell you oh there's no space there right or it comes full circle to the intro of your question of your case is i'm competing big and small and all of this. And you're just like, I got to go. And then immediately you're in this scarcity mindset. I've got to go eke out my little bit of this. And I'm not so sure that's the healthiest place to be launching from. So I think back to the people thing. I think anybody's business, your people are out there. They are waiting for you. You need to find ways to go help them find you, obviously. But so I say yes to doing your homework. Don't ever not do your homework. But I'm a bad example because I started the business. I had no business plan. I said, hey, I know a bunch of people after a long media career, and I'm going to go call them and see if I can start a business and go. So I feel there's that, there's that agility, you know, you guys do agile work at your shop. So, you know, there's that ability to make some quick decisions on some initial hypotheses and have your MVP, your minimum viable product and go test it out and let the market tell you versus you kind of stewing over it endlessly on these fake website pages or your endless business plan. So yes, homework and get out, ship your goods, get out, let the market tell you if it sucks or not. And that's a hard place to be, I think, for a lot of people, because once again, there are going to be people tell you it sucks and that hurts, but there's going to be a lot of people who love you too.

Yeah. What's the, what's the saying? It's like strong opinions loosely held, right? You want to go out into the market with, you know, confidence. But if, you know, based on the feedback that you're getting and feedback as quickly as possible, talking to as many people, delivering to as many people as quickly as possible, regardless of whether you think it's perfect or not, because guess what? It never will be. And that's tough for people. Yeah. I have a preamble, Erin, if Lynn Lyons was your thing, is I reserve the right to change what I'm telling you today, tomorrow, if I learn new stuff, right? Because strong opinions loosely held. I get new information. If I were to look back on our last seven years, my batting average on the correct hypotheses is for sure under 500.

There's just so many been wrong, but there's been a lot of good. And in business, you're making decisions every moment of every day almost you know so there's a high volume of decision making and kind of got to let go of those other pieces because i thought this would be great oh six months later that was stupid uh you know but but you learned something right you learned i think that i was drawn to the agile like the agile space and agile frameworks because of the fact that I'm so often wrong that's funny well what do you think about Jordan absolutely suck your instincts suck I think my instincts suck my instinct about people are great my instincts about like the broader market suck um but I what I'm really good at is helping people not be perfectionists and just get something out there.

And then let's see what people think. Let's actually ask them. Because when I make I learned like my assumptions are are just terrible. Like I can't make assumptions. This is probably one of the reasons why I try not to make any assumption. So what would have your what was your answer to the market research question? assumption.

So what would have your, what was your answer to the market research question? I think it's a yes. And because I think people want to feel like we've done our due diligence. So from a business perspective, you, I think we have to do some market research for sure. But the market changes, especially right now, the market's changing very quickly. So I think going out and, and talking to people and being and being okay, even like with your business, like holding your business somewhat loosely as well, so that you can have the space and the mindset to shift if this are or aren't working. If they are working, you do more of that. If they're not working, you do less of that, right? So, but I do think, I think that the research is important to help you understand what the variables involved are, right?

I agree. And I really, you said holding your business loosely. I've figured actually it was someone from Invest Ottawa actually who told me the worst tech companies are these guys who are married to the technology they've created and not the problem they're trying and not the problem they're trying to solve. So they're like, look at my widget or my features in this. And then they're, well, nobody's going to pay for that or wants that. And then I realized for us, I guess, us Karma Dharma back to the full circle on the why is we know why we exist. We want to be a movement for individual and organizational fulfillment.

We want to help these people live their best life. So the products and services we offer today may or may not be with us in five years or 10 years, because I'm not married going to have a creative agency or we're going to really focus on this section of the business where more really all of our energy is towards the impact that we want to have. And we'll figure out how we layer in business services to create that underneath. And that is loosely held big time, like, you know, and I'm saying this to my team, Hey, I'm not sure. We'll have all these products and services in time probably, but maybe not. But that just allows us this space for that growth mindset to find different ways outside of ourselves or find partners who do things we don't do and bring them in.

And like, it just allows for a much less rigid structure around how we want to solve these problems. And I don't know, I would like, clearly I'm biased, but I'd like to gift that to people to more loosely held vision of their business, right? And what they're trying to accomplish will allow for a lot more inputs to come in when they're ready to receive them. Yeah. I mean, it does. I mean, similar to your work, the work that I do is often considered an investment for clients, you know? And so it's tempting to want to go in, and this probably goes for any business, digital transformation included, Jordan, where there is an investment to be made.

You want to, you know, your clients want to believe that it's, this is the last time they'll ever have to do it. Right. But the, yeah, but I mean, chances are that this is maybe the first time they're ever going to have to do it. Right. When we go in and we support with um culture shift shifting a culture guess what culture is going to be changing every time something changes within the organization someone goes on mat leave someone especially small business you know what i mean um so you need to be continuously improving that and i think same with your marketing materials too. You can't just, it's not just a one time deal, right? I don't think. this November.

Thank you. And my wife and I are not the same people we were when we got married. And so we've had the ability to grow together and stay together and learn together. But the same for your organization. When Jordan started his business, we look back on stuff we did three months, six months, 12 months ago, and we don't recognize ourselves, right? Because we've changed the way we're approaching problems has changed like our, from proposals to content to you name it. Everything's changing all the time because we have individuals have changed. And people want so much certainty. I feel there's like this fallacy of certainty. No, no, no. This is the right thing. And we've got it nailed.

And then, okay, tomorrow the market's going to shift a hair imperceptibly and sometimes you have mega shifts like chat gpd gets launched 18 months ago and then every service business in the world is you know uh having to pivot but i think often change is so small and minute until you see it like six months later and you're like hell a lot a lot's changed in this little while and so I would say back to back to Jordan or to any small business owner is what we're doing today is a stake in the sand for who you are today um you know and a lot of our work funny enough if I come back to Jordan and the case study is you you know, we're finding in, we do the strategic planning work like you guys do.

And so there's part of it there, you know, okay, here's where we are today. We're at point A, we want to essentially a strat plans. Here's point B, we want to get to point B and here's what it looks like to get there. And we're realizing back to the culture work you guys do, Erin, is the bigger issue is not identifying point B. the bigger issue is not identifying point B. The bigger issue is that gap and who do you have to become to achieve point B as individuals, right? Because there's no org change without the people changing it. You are where you are because of who you are today. And then helping them becoming mindful and change that thing. And to your point, culture changes every time there's a mat leave or whatever that might be. But holding a little grace around the fluidity that is life and business, right? And that's not always easy.

Yeah. Okay. So this has been an awesome conversation. And I just want to say thank you for coming on the show. And I have one final question for you. And that is, if you were Jordan, what's the one question he should be asking?

I think it comes back to, if I only get one, Erin, I think it comes back to initially like, why you and why is this your life's work?

Awesome. That's really good. All right. Thank you for joining me, sir.

Thank you. It was a pleasure.

It was awesome.

Thank you so much for inviting me.

Don't forget to stay weird, stay wonderful, and don't stay out of trouble.

Intro:

Feeling stressed, distracted, or disconnected at work? Are you a business leader looking to boost productivity, engagement, and retention? Or an employee struggling with burnout and work-life balance? You're not alone. Today, we're diving into the powerful connection between employee wellness and business success with Lydia Di Francesco, the Founder of Fit & Healthy 365, and Creator of the 15 Minute Workout Club!

Lydia is a Certified Personal Trainer and a business coach who helps companies and organizations succeed by prioritizing the health and wellbeing of their workforce! Get ready to learn practical techniques that can be used anywhere, anytime, to help your people and your business thrive, by strengthen your mindset, managing stress, and cultivating work-life harmony.

Website Url:

https://www.fithealthy365.com/

Stay Connected with Lydia:

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/lydiadifrancesco

Script:

Life is short and we aren't meant to just suffer.

They're not willing to put their money on something. They're not willing to like, you know, strategically bet on something. They want to try to do everything. And I think this is a fear response.

Also allows people a proactive approach to their health.

Feels like you're banging your head against the wall and there's nothing you can do about it. You feel like there's nothing you can do about it.

And it's actually in your best interest to even just take a break. Even if you want to work a lot of hours, take some breaks.

This case is from Alex, who's the HR director at an employee experience software company. And Alex says, we've been riding the wave of rapid growth and success in the tech industry, but an increasing number of our employees are reporting feelings of burnout. Absenteeism is on the rise. Productivity is taking a hit. And there's a general sense of exhaustion in what used to be a vibrant and energetic workplace. To add to our worries, our pipeline seems to be stagnating and leaves are drying up. I know I'm not the only one who feels an overwhelming sense of impending doom, says Alex. As a company that prides itself on valuing employee experience, that makes sense as an employee experience technology company, it's incredibly frustrating to find ourselves unable to practice what we preach. The well-being of our employees and the overall health of the organization are at stake. All right, so enter Lydia, a consultant specializing in workplace wellness and employee engagement. Welcome to the show, Lydia.

Hi, Erin. I'm so happy to be here with you.

Excellent. Okay, so for the listeners, please tell them just a little bit about yourself and, you know, why you love this work.

Yeah. So I've been in the wellness space for 12 years and counting. And I started out mostly on the fitness side. And then over the years have acquired a bunch of different certifications and knowledge and experience and have been working out for the past five years with on the more corporate side, working with organizations, helping them support their staff with their well-being. And I love this work because for me, just with how I've lived my life, like we can maybe get into this later if it's relevant, but I have had a burnout before. So I know what it's like. It was surprising to me when I was going through it. And of course, as a wellness professional, I was like, this is kind of ironic, maybe. But I learned a lot. It taught me a lot. And I also learned a lot about how to live my life and how to create a lifestyle that supports my own well-being and make sure that I'm not, you know, heading into a burnout. Again, I've learned a lot about work-life harmony and how to bring that about for myself. And I also just really believe that life is short and we aren't meant to just suffer through it for the most part. Like, obviously, we're going to have challenging times, of course. But, you know, for lack of better phrase, like life shouldn't suck always. And work is such a big part of that. You know, so for me, it's important for people to like, feel like, you know, that's a good part of their life, or at least not dreading it. You know, that whole like, oh, it's the Monday, what do they call it? The Monday worries, it's not the Monday worries, but whatever they call it about worrying about Monday. And then like, you know, people are like, oh my god, it's I'm so excited. It's Friday. You know, like, I want people to be okay with every day of the week, and just to be more healthy. You know, I see a lot of people who are not overly healthy and, you know, are kind of putting in the time now hoping to maybe one day just like retire and but who knows where their health is going to be at in that case, and probably not in a good place. So some big motivations for me, you know, I've got some big missions in terms of changing workplace culture. And I think it's a really great time right now, just coming off of the pandemic, you know, where there's a lot of opportunity to rethink how we do things. And so yeah, it's a really exciting time to be in the space. the space.

Yeah, it sure is exciting.

And like, I mean, the, from this story, um, when Alex says there's an overwhelming sense of impending doom, you know, man, like that, that is something that I think a lot of my clients for sure have been feeling this sense of impending doom. Uh, and it's impacting their, the way that they can like you know perform impacting their health impacting so many different areas um one of I mean I don't even know where where would you start if you're if you're Alex where where do you start so it's this might be a bit of a weird answer uh Hopefully not.

But I would like weird answers here, by the way. I know, right?

We're weirdos. Is that what we're called? Weirdo now? Am I a weirdo now that I'm part of this podcast?

I mean, are absolutely certified weirdo for sure.

Amazing. I mean, I think I was before, but now it's official. Hooray, I can get my little like, yeah, we'll get you a t shirt for sure.

Yeah we'll get you a t-shirt for sure um you know I think I was thinking about this um and I honestly would start with a conversation with the leadership team and a real conversation with the leadership team um in the sense of getting their buy-in and real buy-in not fake buy-in and real buy-in, not fake buy-in, and their support. Because I've seen time and time again with clients that I've worked with, where if the leader is really not on board with changes, especially kind of cultural changes or things that can impact the culture, it's not going to trickle down to the employees or not in a way that's as effective. You know, a lot of times I see leaders where they have this sort of like, do as I say, not as I do kind of vibe and it doesn't work, you know?

So if I'm Alex, I want to make sure that if I'm going to put in a lot of effort to try and make some changes or like hire me and I put in the effort, um, that the leadership team is really, truly understanding that there might need to be some, or really do definitely do need to be some changes made to how things are done. Um, and are they willing to participate actively and be supportive and do the things that need to do that need to be done and then really kind of go from there yeah that would be my starting off okay I as you were talking it struck me that you know obviously they need to be leading by example and I think that's something that we both have probably seen as, you know, it's a lot easier to say you're going to do something than to actually do it. Right.

So, I mean, you know, there's tools in the toolbox. One of them is building a strong enough business case. What would you suggest to Alex in terms of like, where are we gathering information in order to solve this problem? So we can build the business case that's so airtight that people can't ignore it. Right.

Yeah. I mean, I think a bit of what you were saying was in the story piece of the absenteeism, the loss of productivity. You know, I think for me, so the next sort of researchy phase would be survey things like basically informal and formal talking to the staff. Right, so it could be surveys. So for example, like I have a sample wellness survey that I provide to my clients that they could use. And that's more on the kind of more wellness side of things, sort of pulse check of where people are at. I think looking at the quantitative data that exists.

So in terms of like the absenteeism, in terms of sick days, in terms of any kind of leave that's been taken, even in terms of, I know there's sometimes ways to track, like how many meetings do people have, right? And like, are they spending, how many hours a week are people spending in meetings? Whether or not we're judging that as productive time or not, that's kind of a different piece, but just as a pure number. So there's a lot of data that I would look at in order to sort of get a sense of where things are at. And then the qualitative side, which would be part of like the survey, really with how people are feeling, where, where they're at.

You know, I think doing some group discussions sometimes can be helpful, one-on-ones, that sort thing I think those are those are really good places to start and then really looking at what does it mean like what is the data saying and what is the impact right of the data in terms of are people heading down a track where they're going to be taking a stress leave or quitting or you you know, even though even the productivity pieces is so important, especially, you know, for this company that's growing, you know, they do sounds like they definitely need to be figuring out what's going on with their lead generation and their sales pipeline. And, you know, we need people to be at their best, right?

In order to be able to even just think strategically and creatively, right? Like if people are mentally zapped or even physically or emotionally zapped out, right? They're not going to be on their A game. And even, you know, in terms of problem solving and coming up with good solutions.

So I think it's really kind of looking at like the big picture of what's happening in the company in terms of of employees their health their well-being their engagement all that kind of stuff um I definitely see the irony that Alex is talking about right that they're an employee engagement company and they're having employee engagement company, and they're having or employee experience company, and they're having issues with that.

Yeah.

But, you know, I think if, if they are that kind of a company, and they believe what their values are, then, you know, they should be able to turn things around. Yeah, yeah, you definitely hope for sure. Yeah. Yeah, do you, is it possible to like benchmark some of these data pieces against other, other companies like in the same space or in different spaces?

Like, have you ever heard of that before? And how common would you say this kind of scenario is based on your experience?

Yeah. I mean, yes, there are some benchmarks. So the survey, for example, that I have, it's not, I didn't make it up. I got it from a very reputable source, have benchmarking data that you can compare your results to, which I think is great. So there's, there's quite a bit of stuff out there in terms of being able to, to gauge where people are at. stuff out there in terms of being able to to gauge where people are at um and 100% this is a very common problem I would say um this issue of burnout and overwork is certainly on a lot of people's radar I'm getting a lot of people approaching me a lot of clients talking to me about it wanting to figure out how to solve this issue um you know there's a lot of clients talking to me about it, wanting to figure out how to solve this issue. You know, there's a lot of the phrase, a number of people have used with me is that they have to do more with less.

Yeah. I know that's been a very common theme, at least so far in 2024, which is a challenge, right?

Because a lot of times times there aren't necessarily a lot of massive things that can change um but at the same time I think that there are components and it's also I think that a lot of times organizations don't spend enough time thinking strategically and thinking about what are the pieces that are the most important for their business right in terms of what people are spending their time on and I think that's where um which I know doesn't sound like a wellness related thing but it absolutely is. Right. Um, and like urgency and priorities.

And I think I, I see it a lot, especially with the government clients that I work with where everything is portrayed as urgent and priority and you just get more urgent and priority items piled on a Right. A lot of times, if not.

No. Right. And so I think, I mean, maybe a little less in private sector, perhaps. But I think where that's where sometimes there needs to be a bit of a reality check of like, you know, is this really? Or like, is this how we should be using our time? Like, for example, you know, with Alex and the case, I think a little bit into working with their company, I would want to like have a discussion with their sales team or business development team and basically be like, what are people spending? What has worked in the past? What is working now?

What are people spending their time on? I know for me, that's something I've had to learn as a business owner, right? Of like, I've actually learned, I'm not the best at it yet. It's always a work in progress, but like how to be focusing on the things that make the most impact for myself, for my business, from a financial standpoint.

Right. And so for me, that's where I think though, a lot of times people can get caught up in like, let's call it the busy work. Yeah. Necessarily massively effective.

Yeah. I mean, I see that as well. I, when you were talking about, um, kind of like diversification, like everything's important. I, I see that almost as like a response to fear. You know, I see that in a lot of leaders where they're not willing to put their money on something. They're not willing to like, you know, strategically bet on something. They want to try to do everything.

And I think this is a fear response. It's like, we're afraid that what we're going to put our money on isn't going to work out. So we're just going to spread ourselves then and hope that something's going to work. But guess what? Hoping and praying is not a strategy. right it's not shocking yeah crazy yeah no I think that could could in a lot of instances that couldn't very very well that um yeah I mean I think it's I think it's also and I know one of the things that we wanted to talk about was the idea of communication and, you know, I've seen it and, and I have less of this problem, but in a lot of workplaces, there's just now an endless number of ways to be communicating with colleagues, right.

Whether it's, I mean, barely the phone, but sometimes people should be using the phone, you know, email, Slack or Teams, chats, Slack or Teams or Zoom virtual meetings, um, other forms of instant messaging, text messaging. Uh, I don't even, carrier pigeons, like, I don't even know. There's so many different ways and so many different channels. Um, and a couple of friends of mine even that I've talked to are like I literally can spend an hour of my day bopping back and forth between all the different channels and you're literally not getting done no um you know a lot of times stuff like that is just again it sounds so simple of a problem but people don't take the time to think about it how they just feel that overwhelm of like there's so many ways of getting a hold of somebody plus not to mention the people who have their notifications on for all of the things oh yeah you know and it's just there's like pop-ups and dings and dongs and it's like, it's too much for the brain, you know, in people, it's just, it's just too much.

So, you know, even having conversations around what do our communications look like? How can we streamline the ways that we communicate with each other and, you know, try and reduce some of the volume or the noise, or at least make it more efficient or effective, right? So I think these are some things to consider as well. I can agree with you more.

You know, those team norms are so important. I don't know, you know, in this case, we'd have no idea what the team norms are as a company. I think we can probably assume that, you know know if there's an overwhelming sense of impending doom there's probably some a sense of urgency right which we know can lead to some really you know toxic behaviors yeah uh and you know a lot of the time things just get derailed so it's really about like who's going to be the anchor in the storm who's going to say like no this isn't the way we do things here remember we yeah remember our team norms exactly well and I think too like a lot of times people push through um and and especially thinking about this company and how they're probably overworking a lot.

You know, they've got a lot going on. At a certain point, and it's different for everybody, you're just not as effective. No, it's actually in your best interest to even just take a break. Even if you want to work a lot of hours take some breaks because you're going to be way more productive when you step away I've had times where and I again I'm speaking like high from experience um right where there's been moments where I'm literally in front of my computer and I'm just like bopping from this checking that checking my email checking whatever I'm really not productive it's kind of tired and I need a nap but I'm like no no I'll just I just gotta keep going and I've learned that it's actually better for me when I'm getting this for whatever reason I may be sick I I might've had less of a sleep, whatever the case is.

If I'm tired, it may be for some people, they don't need a nap. They just want to do some sort of other break. But for me, I can take a nap and then I get up and I'm just so much more refreshed and I'm so much faster and my brain is firing on all cylinders. And I'm so much faster and my brain is firing on all cylinders. And I think too often people don't realize that that's happening. Yeah. And it's, again, though, that's where the leading by example comes into play. And if you have a leadership team that is that sort of like, just go power through, just drink the coffee to stay alert and stay awake.

That's again, going to trickle down to, to the staff and see those kinds of behaviors. They're going to see emails at all hours of the day and feel like that's normal and also feel like that's what's expected you know yeah it's tricky for sure but uh yeah I think and I always tell people I'm like prove me wrong like if you don't believe me take those breaks and tell me that you weren't you know more energized after for sure do you think it's appropriate to ask your team members if they're sleeping okay like just like out of like genuine um curiosity or concerned like is that like how how do you dance around that I mean I think it would have it would be less weird if you just didn't do it like randomly um yeah. You look a little tired today. Yeah. What are you trying to say? We love to hear that.

No, exactly. In the sense of someone said it to me the other day, but I was tired. And I'm like, I also don't have makeup on today. So, you know, but no, I mean, I think it's a great question. And I think it, to me, it's a great question. And I think it, to me, the answer would be yes. And a leader should be having just wellbeing conversations in general, right. Of how are you doing actually? And even, and I say this in my building stress resilience course often, but in a way that's appropriate finding out a little bit more about people's personal lives so that you can have a general sense like even just things to ask about but also just for you to know right that maybe that's why they're off or maybe that's why they are behaving a certain way. Right. A lot of times people have things going on in their personal lives that can, as much as people like don't want to bring that to work, like it can happen. We're human, of course. And so, you know, having a conversation about like, are you getting enough sleep?

Are you, is your sleep a good quote like are you sleeping okay like not in like again not in a weirdo sense but just in an a caring sense and I think it's where it's normal is if having these conversations are habitual regular not and and genuine okay that that is that is a key piece where you have to actually as the leader really do care like it can't just be like hey how you doing like are you sleeping okay and then they give you an answer and you don't engage or who can tell actually care like it's going to be so obvious yeah we know you know in our hearts if someone cares about us or not yeah exactly and so I think that's where and and I will admit that it can be a lot as a leader to kind of have that on you um right but I mean I think it's also though from the perspective of and this is also something I tell leaders is like your job is not ever to diagnose anybody your job is not ever to fix anybody it would be as or where appropriate to support in a way that makes sense right and so you know you have a conversation about sleep for example and maybe the answer is no I'm not and then maybe like okay well is again it depends on the relationship but you could be like is there is there like is the reason something related to work for example is it because you're working till midnight or is it a more personal related thing? Or for some people it could be, um, you know, if I have a menopause workshop that I'm preparing for, right. It could be a woman who is in perimenopause.

And so she's not sleeping as great because she's sweating in the night or having cold flashes or whatever. Right. So there's different reasons why that aren't necessarily work related. But I would say, you know, the leader's role would then be to provide some support or direct to other resources that are available to that employee so whether it's something through the benefits or something else right so again it's it's just being I always kind of refer to it as just like being human um in that case um as opposed to being like the fixer because that's not the job right it's just your job is to be a caring human to a person who happens to be a report to you. Yeah. So, yeah, I think I think those I think those kinds of conversations are absolutely needed and helpful and can really, you know, benefit everybody right and also for the leader too to maybe even see trends right if they're talking to their staff and having these conversations you know like in Alex's company's case for example like there could be some some things that some of the leaders are seeing that are trends within the organization right because it kind of depends on lots of things, like the demographics of the employees and all that kind of stuff and what other things they might be dealing with. But yeah, I always encourage conversation of all different shapes and forms.

For sure. And then like once you've had the conversation, if you're getting honest feedback, accepting it, right? Because self-awareness, like how do we change anything if we're not aware and self-aware of what the issues are or if we're you know if we're distancing ourselves and the responsibility for them a really good practice for leaders for example regarding we were talking about priorities and urgencies and stuff like that a really great practice is for you as a leader to be obvious about those things when you're sending off requests to staff, especially if you're sending things at a time that isn't like a typical work hour.

Yeah.

So one of the, one of the really great practice for leaders is for them to, uh, set out the expectations. So for example, if I'm sending an email with a, like, Hey, Aaron, I need this info from you. Instead of just leaving it at that, right. Um, you know, maybe saying I need it by x date or if it's super urgent or like say like oh i i really need this by like 2 p.m today super sorry i just got this last minute request blah blah for the cases right but being um more clear about when you need things especially if you're asking somebody to do something for you either to get information or to do a task giving some sort of a deadline or a sense of the level of urgency or priority that this could be is really helpful yeah not that complicated no it doesn't take very long. And it's free also. Right.

We like free.

And it just can help with clarity. It can help with that expectations, the priority management, even overwhelm in terms of like being given a lot of things, but no being able then to know, okay, this is, I need to do this by this date. And then that also gives someone autonomy to have some more flexibility in how they're structuring their own time as opposed to just constantly being in reaction mode to somebody else right yeah you know and that's a really important you know important part of burnout right so?

So, you know, feeling like you have little or little or no control is one of the factors for burnout. You know, lack of clarity. These are other factors being under being unappreciated, and, you know, not recognized, these are some other factors. And these are some some things that I mean, I feel like I'm a very common sense person. I feel like, you know, can be fairly simple, and not super time consuming to help with at least to make better, right and improve. Yeah. So when this came up in the discussion, somebody and a leader that I know said that this was a practice that she did. One of like she kind of works sometimes late in the evenings. And so she would batch send emails, but she would be really clear about when she wanted stuff by.

And I just was like, that's so great. Right. Like, so she's doing work at a time that makes sense for her. Awesome. Love that for her. Um, but she's also then helping to reduce, you know, overwhelmed from her report, getting like a flurry of emails all of a sudden, um, you know, and not being like, Oh crap. And the instinct to do things right away when you're asked is real for a lot of people. Absolutely. If you're like, I feel even for me, like if someone asks me something, absolutely. Unless told otherwise my instinct is like, Oh, they probably want this now.

Right.

And that's why they're asking me.

Yeah.

Um, and a lot of times, like, like even for me as a leader, like I'm just thinking of things all the time and so I might send off a thought because it's in my brain now and I know if I don't send it is I'll get on for sure right yeah I think I think you know what I'm where. Yeah. So for me, I've adopted and I'm trying to adopt this practice of being more clear about like, this is urgent, or you can do this on Tuesday or, you know, to work on later, you know, that sort of thing. And again, it's just, it's a, it's a different way of communicating that may take a little bit of time and practice to adopt, but it definitely can alleviate a lot of issues.

I feel like for sure. When you mentioned like one of the key elements of burnout is a lack of control. I totally get that. I feel like the only times I've myself flirted with burnout is when I've been very frustrated, you know, and it feels like you're banging your head against the wall and there's nothing you can do about it. You feel like there's nothing you can do about it.

Yeah.

Like what other tools in the toolbox, just really quickly, because I know we've got to kind of wrap up, but what, what kind of, what other tools in the toolbox would you recommend for organizations that are trying to combat this issue?

Oh gosh. Yeah. Great question. No, no, it's all good. How much time do we have? No, I'm kidding. Yeah, no, I mean, I think, you know, a lot, Oh, another thing that we didn't talk about, but that's, that's again, for me, I'm also about like simple, effective solutions that can have an impact immediately. There's a lot of things that will take time and there's some things that can be impactful quickly. Another one, meetings. Again, super common sense, but do we have an established meeting hygiene kind of guidelines, right?

In the sense of, you know, meetings are by default 25 minutes or 50 minutes. So we can have breaks in between. minutes or 50 minutes so we can have breaks in between um you know we always have an agenda or at least a sense of what the meeting is about someone is leading the meeting um and keeping it on track right we have some action item follow-ups like somebody's been taking notes or something like that um Ideally, really honestly, things are sent in advance. So we're not wasting time reviewing stuff that people could have or should have reviewed at another time. Right. So even stuff like that.

And really, I love what Shopify did at the beginning of the year where they basically scratched everybody's meetings and blew it up. Yeah i love it they burned it down deleted all the meetings for those who don't know they erased everybody's meetings on their calendars and we're like okay now you have to really think about what meetings are actually important yeah i mean not just the ones that are habitual, you know, but again, like so many people I talk to just live in meetings and that that's, that's a, there's so many reasons why, but again, having those conversations, thinking about how we can, how we can do this better.

You know, I, another thing that I'm a big fan of is it, I mean, we were talking about the absenteeism and the sick days and stuff like that, but also like, so sometimes if it's too much, obviously that's a sign of a problem, but looking at it also from a sense of like giving people a day off in the sense of like it's not called a sick day it's just a day off for whatever reason and again I feel like that number one means you don't have to justify why you're taking this time off we're all adults like we really should be trusted um and it also allows people a proactive approach to their health and i think that that's also i mean we could that's a whole other conversation about um proactive health care but you know having a normalized day off policy where people can take a day off because like either for mental health or just because they're a little fatigued and just need a mental rest day like just from like too much thinking mental rest right yeah you know and and having be okay.

And having that not be a thing where you have to explain that. Right. I think having like, so from like a policy perspective, I think there's again, a little, a little shifts and changes that companies can do that can have a good impact. I was chatting with somebody else the other day who was saying that they an employee of theirs had requested time off and and they were like oh yeah I know it's because I wanted blah blah blah and the leader was like I don't care like not that they don't care but like they don't care right like it's fine you need the day sounds like me I don't care you don't like we have like a no reasons policy basically I don't need to know any reasons you need the hour you need the day and and I think you know again that's also goes back to that sort of empowering piece right where where we're treating people with respect we're treating them like um they are a grown adult and I and I think for people who say, well, like the what ifs or what abouts, the people who are not going to be doing a good job, it's going to be obvious regardless.

Yeah. Do you have these great policies or not? It's going to be clear. And so as long as you know what they're supposed to be doing and they're not meeting their goals. They're not doing it. Exactly. Yeah. So I think there's, but there's, I think there's just a lot of lingering old practices of very like heavy handedness that I think hopefully are kind of being dismantled. If we could say fingers crossed, but I don't think they will be if we keep with the throwing the spaghetti at the wall strategy, you know, I think that's really a limiting factor in seeing this transformation go through.

Yeah. I mean, I think, yeah, I, I'm, I know we have to wrap up, but I'm something to leave our conversation on maybe for a discussion for the future, or maybe even another person who has more expertise on this. But what I'm super interested in is the changes that are going to happen because of the new generation of workers that are coming into the workforce and how they've grown up. Now there's lots of issues. A lot of them have more higher anxiety, more mental health challenges, but they also are less bought into this concept of like work is life. Yeah. I will do anything and all things for my job. And compared to the older generation.

Right.

So I think that's going to be a super fascinating thing to look at in terms of how things shift and change. And, you know, I think pendulums have been swinging one way and the other, and, you know, we've got to find kind of the good space, maybe a little more of a less extreme option in terms of new things. But I think it's definitely, there's, there's changes coming. I believe it. I'm raising three of them so yeah and I think there's three gen Z's I see it as positive and I think like companies better get with the program or they're gonna miss out and they're gonna have you know labor shortages and challenges which then cause compounding issues within their companies. S

Oh yeah, the world is not getting any easier.

No, but yeah, I mean, it's, yeah, it's again, I think there's, there's a lot of solutions that, that can work. And for me, again, if I can, I can just go back to the idea that a lot of it is related to culture and related to how you're operating as a business as a company as a team what the leadership is like and and really taking an approach that prioritizes people's well-being I think really that's just so important and it's it's the way of the future right everything every decision from the lens of well-being yes absolutely yeah like and it's just again it does go back to the productivity as well right where it's there's such a strong link there and in terms of like high performance and all that kind of stuff and yeah so I think it's it's for for leaders to acknowledge agree and then take the steps that need to be taken within their companies to make the changes so that they can see these things happen and they can have success and everybody wins right when I think when everybody is operating at their best everybody wins the company wins people win it's it's a win-win-win situation so winning all around exactly yeah for sure and the good news is we're still not we're not jaded yet um we don't do believe this is possible and even likely I think yeah I mean I have a realistic mindset but I do I am heartened by the people and the companies that are making the changes so I just sort of like wait for the others to catch up and I just focus on yeah because it can be it can be very depressing to think about all the problems, but I focus on the people that are doing the good work and hoping that's going to just trickle and people will see and notice and it will expand from there.

Definitely.

Thank you so much for coming to the show.

Of course. It's been a pleasure.

Yeah. Lady lady so great to chat with you really appreciate you you know coming on and talking about these deep issues and all this sort of great yeah we weirdos we like our deep issues we go deep

Yeah.

Don't forget to stay weird stay wonderful and don't stay out of trouble\

In today's episode, Tina Collins, is going to share her proven strategies for dealing with these workplace nightmares - the problematic high-performers who are potentially destroying morale and threatening the success of the entire organization.

Tina has spent over 15 years consulting with companies of all sizes, helping them to navigate the delicate balance of keeping their star performers while also protecting their company culture and team morale. She's seen it all - the charming, charismatic sales superstars who undermine and belittle their colleagues, the brilliant engineers who rule through fear and intimidation, the indispensable executives who treat everyone around them with disdain…

Tina addresses and confronts businesses and individuals's blind spots to help them achieve their ultimate potential, so if you're a leader grappling with a difficult superstar on your team, you won't want to miss this!

Tina will walk us through real-life case studies, offer tangible solutions, and give us a glimpse into the psychology of these challenging employees.

Website Url:

https://www.tinacollins.ca/

LinkedIn Profile:

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/tinalcollins

Script:

And this is really one of the biggest reasons why quiet quitting happens. Good employees observe employees with bad behavior getting away with it.

And that's what happens when you go into the scenario with empathy instead of judgment, right? Right. Right. And curiosity. Yeah.

Because I'm willing to bet that if max performance and bad behavior is constantly overlooked, I'm willing to bet that they've already lost, if not physically, at least mentally, some of their employees.

I'm the executive director of a nonprofit organization that's dedicated to making a difference in our community. Our mission is clear and our team is passionate, but we've hit a roadblock that's threatening to derail our progress. It's a situation I never anticipated, and it's keeping me up at night. The heart of our problem lies with our vice president, who is also our highest performer. This person has been instrumental in securing the majority of our funding. Their charisma, networking skills, and ability to close deals have been nothing short of miraculous for our NGO. However, there's a dark side.

Lately, the VP has been exhibiting toxic behaviors that are causing rifts within our team. Their abrasive attitude, lack of empathy, and tendency to take credit for others' work have created an environment of fear and resentment. This toxicity is spreading, and I can see the impact it's having on our team's morale and productivity. The dilemma I'm facing is complex. On one hand, this individual is critical to our funding and by extension, our ability to operate and serve our community. On the other hand, their behavior is eroding the very foundation of our organization's culture and values.

To add to this, our board absolutely loves them. Yeah, that's complicated. I'm at a crossroads trying to balance the financial stability they bring with the negative impact they have on our team situations, forcing me to question how much we're willing to compromise our principles for the sake of financial security.

Enter Tina Collins. Welcome, Tina.

Thank you so much.

Tina is an award-winning seasoned leadership consultant, executive coach, and very proud to call you a friend as well. Tina explores blind spots that limit her clients' potential so they can accelerate personal and professional growth. I am so happy to have you on the show with me.

I'm so glad that you've asked me and I'm so glad that you've given me this topic. This is a juicy, juicy one.

Oh my gosh, it sure is. I was like feeling overwhelmed.

Just as I was reading it, I was like sensing those emotions because we've, I mean, any of us who've been in leadership roles, if we've observed people, we've been in an organization, I think a lot of us have seen this as an issue.

And you said that you have some personal experience with this as well.

Yeah. I mean, this could have been read from my own personal notes. I have lived this recently with a client. So yeah, I'm really excited to get into this.

Fantastic. Tina, I'd love for you to just tell everyone a little bit about yourself. What do you love about your work? And what's the impact that you want to make?

What great questions. I spent about 26 years as a management consultant before the pandemic, traveling the world. And the pandemic gave me a chance to sit at home and not be away. And that pause led me to coaching. And in the one-year program that I took, I realized that coaching was always my favorite part of consulting that I had actually been coaching the whole time. I just thought it was consulting. And once I was able to split the difference and really appreciate how each serve my clients, I was able to really lean into coaching completely. So now, so now it's more like, you know, 85% of my time is coaching and 15 is consulting versus the other way around, which was all just like a mighty mess of like, just doing everything for sure. And what it is that I love most about coaching the impact. I would say that it's actually just no longer something that I do. It's just who I am. I, at this point, just feel like I'm the vehicle for whatever transformation my clients need.

Beautiful.

Thanks. Yeah. I feel like it's a true blessing. Honestly, it's not something I take for granted that people trust me to work through whatever's blocking there. You know, it's usually what's between the ears. It's, it's a true privilege.

Yeah. And you're incredibly good at it. I feel like every single conversation I have with you, it's like, it's into a coaching conversation. It's not, you're not lying when you say that you are a coach, like literally that is who you are. You know, it's everything that you do, I think is you take that coach approach. And I think that's amazing.

Thank you. Thank you. And it's funny because I used to, I found that term really prickly before I used to think like, Ooh, yeah didn't I didn't it's not a weekend because but I don't know if you remember but you could just do like a weekend coaching program and be called a coach and that just uh really rubbed me the wrong way and so it took me a while to adopt the coach name. But now I'm all in, I'm all in. And I don't feel in any way like I ever need to explain to people what it is that I do. All my clients come through from referral, which I'm so grateful for. It's, it's a really magical place.

Yeah, the coach, becoming a coach is a transformational journey for sure. I'm still on that journey big time, but, um, I feel like you're, you know, you're kind of a master, uh, mentor, um, a friend. I think that, um, you're just an amazing person. So let's dig into this and see what kind of solutions we can drum up for.

Thank you.

Well, we don't have a name here, but let's call them. I don't know. Let's give them a name. What's a good name for, for this executive director?

Brenda.

Brenda.

Brenda, the executive director. Perfect. Okay.

I like to have a name when I'm working with a person.

Yeah, me too. Me too.

Yes, absolutely.

Contextualize too.

Yes, absolutely.

Contextualize it.

Yeah, absolutely.

And who's puppy? What's your puppy's name?

We have Piper Murphy here. They are my chief security officers. If they do cause a ruckus, I will let them know. But they're almost always here with me.

We love them.

They're great.

Okay, so we are going through, I guess we were thinking about going through this through Edward de Bono's six thinking hats, which you're probably familiar with. So just using the hats as the six lenses. So white hat, information and data, red hat, emotions and intuition, black hat, caution and risk, yellow hat, optimism and benefits, green hat, creativity and alternatives hat optimism and benefits, green hat creativity and alternatives, and blue hat process and control. So just looking at what, you know, when we're doing kind of a root cause analysis, or just looking to, you know, generate ideas on solutions, you know, thinking about the different lenses that we're looking through, and let's get started.

Hey, what are your first impressions before we dig right in?

The first thing I read, or I thought of after reading the summary was an organization is only as strong as the worst behavior it's willing to accept.

Yeah.

And I have worked with organizations who have, so the individual in question who is like, you know, a super high performer, critical to the success of the organization, yet troubling behavior is often a secret cow. You know, these are individuals whose bad behavior is often overlooked in an organization because of what they bring to the organization. And while the benefits are tangible, you know, in this case, he brings in revenue, I mean, which is really important, especially if it's a fundraising, you know in this case he brings in revenue i mean which is really important especially if it's a fundraising you know i mean they can't do anything without money the long-term effects it has on the organization as a whole are immeasurable yeah have you seen a situation where um someone can you know we can address the behavior head- know, we can address the behavior head on and we can change the behavior of, of a person in this scenario.

Absolutely.

A lot of times, you know, like this is where I love working in the blind spots because a lot of times people's bad behavior, they don't even know that it's bad behavior. They just think it's part of their personality. And until someone brings it to their attention, it's not obvious to them. want to be part of a social group. They don't want to be ostracized. They don't want to hurt people. You know, so unless this person, what's his, what's, I'm calling it in my hand, but what's this person's name? I'm making some assumptions.

Yeah.

Maybe we should find a general gender neutral name just so that it's, let's see, gender neutral. We'll call them mac okay okay I know females and males named mac yeah excellent excellent so um in mac situation unless mac has a personality disorder which they might have we don't know um i mean that's a completely different thing, but, but a lot of times it's just bringing that to light, you know, that like your performance is, is impacting the organization in this way. Is this how you want to be perceived? Is this how you want to show up?

Yeah.

Because honestly, sometimes it's just a tiny, tiny little shift that makes all the difference. Mm-hmm. It's just a tiny, tiny little shift that makes all the difference. And what I'm not seeing from this, and it's, you know, it's obviously impossible to know everything from this case. We think we have to make some assumptions here. I'm not seeing that Brenda has actually directly addressed this with Mac. Well, if this is something, if he's been behaving badly and been a top performer, I'm assuming that it's gone on for a while. And if the board loves him, that means that they have a relationship with him. It means like that he's been part of the team for a while.

Yeah.

And so, you know, some of the responsibility is on the director, on Brenda's shoulders to say, you know, this is something you should have addressed the first time you saw it. I am noticing that they say lately the VP has been exhibiting toxic behaviors. So we don't know what the timeframe is really. But I presume that maybe this hasn't always been the case. So in terms of like information and data, what would you, if you're going in and you're trying to support this team as a consultant or as a coach, what would you suggest to Brenda?

Let's pretend you're Brenda's coach. How would you, you know, how would you suggest that they gather a business case? Or is that even necessary?

Well, I would want to know exactly what Brenda's intentions are. Is it to improve her team or is it to develop strategies so she can manage better?

Because if he's a big personality, he may also be triggering some things in her. So if her goal is to create a better team, then I would recommend coming into the team and having a couple of sessions where we scenario map different values, different visions of the organization and allow everyone in the organization to have a voice. This might shed light on some of the prickly factors having a negative impact on everyone's performance. It also allows an organization to determine what is is a value you know because i mean every organization says we value trust we value openness we value all these things but when i say to them so what's the cost of not living up to the values and they there is no consequence then it's not a value so if mac if one of their values is um respect and mac is breaching that respect on a regular basis then we need to reevaluate whether respect is in fact a value because if it's, if it's tolerated only by Mac, that's a major problem, but erodes the entire workforce.

For sure. Now, do you, as a consultant, when you're wearing your consultant hat, do you recommend building these kinds of values into performance development, performance management, 360, leadership, assessments, those kinds of things?

When it comes to a team, I mean, individuals have their values, which change over time and context. But when I work with a team, I take sort of like an accordion approach, where if we're, if we're working together, there's going to be some one-on-one coaching, and there's going to be some team coaching. And the team coaching looks more like, well, at first we, we like develop scenarios, develop values. Like we create a vision of like, what's the best case scenario that we want here and what does it look like in the worst case scenario because sometimes they are living the worst case scenario so just identifying that you know oh geez this is where we're living um but this is what we'd like to and then and then hooking all of the work that we do on three, but I never do more than three values, because I want everyone to be able to remember them off the top of their head. And so often communication is always one of their values, their format or one-on-one coaching then I can say well you know where does this fall within you in the context of the organization you know because some people are great communicators and some are terrible and some don't even know where they fall and so if communication is a top value of an organization let's dig in so yeah we I always have something to like hook all of us, which is sort of like the anchor, if you will.

Otherwise, everyone's like, you know, squirrels at a rave. I love that. I'm going to use that one, squirrels at a rave. So good. that i'm gonna use that one squirrels at a rave so good um do you do you suggest though like benchmarking this in any way so that you have the data or is it more you know you prefer an anecdotal conversational um way of you know gathering information on their present state or their emotional environment in the workplace?

Well, we, we definitely talk a lot about stories. Like that's like, you know, I want people to be expressive and understand it in their context because everyone thinks differently. And so the more we talk about it, the more they can relate to a different version of the same story. But I think it's absolutely critical for organizations to measure the performance of whatever objective we're doing. So in this particular case, we would want to know, how are we going to measure Mac's performance?

And it's not just having an impact on Mac and the ED, it's the entire team. Because I'm willing to bet that if Mac's performance and bad behavior is constantly overlooked, I'm willing to bet that they've already lost, if not physically, at least mentally, if not physically, at least mentally, some of their employees. So it's not like the, so the performance isn't just on Mac, it's the entire organization.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is really one of the biggest reasons why quiet quitting happens. Good employees observe bad employees or employees with bad behavior getting away with it. Right. And then they think to themselves, then what's, why should I bother doing great work?

So you've been in this industry, you know, in different types of roles, you know, in wearing different hats, different types of government, non-governmental, private sector, you know, different kinds of organizations, big organizations, small organizations, Canada, globally. I'm curious whether you're seeing this scenario, is this like a tale as old as time? Or are you seeing this in terms of like, you know, we know that our culture is evolving. We're going through a bit of a cultural revolution right now. Is that an element?

Are you seeing this more or is this, you know, this is just, this is just business. I'm going to say both. I'm going to say that it is a tale as old as time. I have seen this for the 28 years now that I've been doing this type of work, but I definitely think that there's a much more aware and aggressive desire to correct this behavior because like anything else, you know, we have psychologists who are now studying this stuff and they can like provide us with real metrics and value to the the outcomes the impact of this type of behavior you know like like like why quitting like i mean and or like um you know employee turnover rates you know we know that that's a very costly chunk of organization's budget.

And so how do we attract, retain, and maintain some amazing teams? We have to invest in them. And investing them also means coaching people like Mac through these prickly conversations to adjust their behaviors.

Yeah. At what point does an executive or a manager's behavior become so like a lost cause? Like at what point would you suggest, you know, it, you know, it's worth finding solutions, like internal solutions so that we can transition them out. It's a really great question. I think every organization needs to figure out what that measure is. Like what, what, what's'm a very optimistic. I like the idea of like an amazing inclusive organization. I love psychological safety and empowerment. I love cognitive diversity. I love all of those things.

And I would, I would love to like empower organizations to onboard all of those things. But I do know that there are different industries, you know, like what would work in the Canadian forces. And they've been my client for a very long time is very different from let's say my client who does online learning. You know, the environment in which they work is completely different. And so where one can be very, not slow moving, but like more thoughtful in their decision-making may not be possible in another industry. And so every industry, every organization, I think needs to evaluate that those specific needs based on the impact that they're making. You know, if the impact is we're saving lives and this is time sensitive, how you get there is going to be very, very different from, let's say, perhaps a retail operation.

Yeah. from, let's say, perhaps a retail operation.

Yeah.

And it strikes me that, you know, obviously we know that not everyone is a great fit for every job. So it's kind of, I think it probably has to be some kind of compromise, you know, between, you know, people within a relationship, within an organization to say, I'm willing to change my behaviors so that I can, you know, fit in this organization better, or, you know, maybe it's, I can't, and this isn't the right fit for me. What would you think? What do you think about that?

You know, a lot of that has to do with feedback, you know, and I'm willing to bet that Brenda, if this behavior has been going on for a while, I would ask Brenda, what's keeping her from giving Mac some really hard feedback?

Yeah. You know, most people don't like giving negative feedback, but I really, I mean, I think it was Abby Wamba, who once said when she was playing at the national level soccer, or I think it was the Olympics, it dawned on her that if the coach stopped providing feedback to the players, those players were likely going to be benched and not playing. And so, you know, so I took that sports metaphor and I ran with it i thought to myself okay if the boss is not giving the employees feedback that means that the boss is no longer investing or seeing value in the employees and you know so so if that's true and brenda's not giving mac feedback either she doesn't see the value of Mac or she doesn't want to do the hard work, which is give negative feedback because she doesn't want to disappoint Mac or whatever.

But that's, that's love. You know, sometimes love looks like, Hey, listen, I value you so much. I want us to be successful. But this thing that you're doing is really having a negative impact on the rest of the team. So like, what can we do to change that, to shift it? Like, that's an important conversation. And so some of the responsibility very much lies on Brenda's shoulders in this case. It does. My best, the best leaders I ever had were the ones who told me what I had to hear, what I needed to hear, not what I wanted to hear. Right. You know, definitely. And so I agree with that. And that's so hard. I remember, you know, being a new manager and, you know, how difficult that really is. Cause you, your instinct, I don't know if it's a feminine, I know it's not totally feminine thing, but being a mom, you know, a young mom at the time as well, like my instinct was to shelter them, you know, to protect them from, from harm, not to, from, you know, not, and then I realized I was actually harming them more when I realized that, you know, that changed and then I realized I was actually harming them more when I realized that, you know, that changed my perspective, but yeah, that's a, that's a hard trans transition to go through for a lot of people. It is. And it's one that once they realize that not providing the feedback is actually more harmful, they start opening themselves up to the process of learning how to give feedback. Yeah. I mean, it's just a conversation. It is a difficult conversation, but it's, it's just a conversation. And if you can learn the tools to having those prickly conversations, they become easier.

And it's like, it's like wanting biceps, you know, if you want biceps, you have to lift muscle or you have to lift weights. Well, the same goes for having difficult conversations. The more you practice them and the more you have them, the easier they get.

That's true.

Yeah.

So what can be done in terms of building this into the systems of the organization? What do you recommend there?

You know, so it makes it easier for us to engage in these conversations because it's built into part of the process. Well, I think part of it is just, you know, including it in an annual, if not semi-annual performance evaluation, just an opportunity for both parties to sit down and evaluate you know where are we based on what we agreed would happen and based on the organization's values you know like if we say communication is important how are we doing with that yeah i think that's like the easiest least costly initiative that any organization can do and I know it takes a lot of time and thoughtfulness and you know having to overcome all of the personal stuff but that's that's bold yeah then of course I would say hire a coach and probably a therapist and find a mentor have all three of them yeah because I mean you need objectivity you need people on the outside looking in to see what you don't see yeah yeah and to also like help you find the courage to do what you know you need to do but are having trouble stepping into that or finding the energy for it so yeah I found that's where coaching because you're committing you know when in a coaching session we know the very end of the coaching session usually you're making your commitments and it's through the process of making those commitments that you actually find that that and the energy, I think.

Yeah, accountability makes all the difference, for sure.

Yeah, I mean, I can remember one group that I worked with. Near the end of our engagement, I was known as the most expensive donut deliverer because I always brought treats, including donuts. And I would just show up to meetings and, and observe. Yeah. And the CEO was so grateful because he said, you don't have to say anything or do anything. We bring the best versions of ourselves to the table when you're here.

Yeah. Because if we don't, we're going to get it in our coaching session, you know, and because, because of these observations and, and them trying on new behaviors in a group context, they were able to see something that they couldn't on their own that like, oh, when I just suspend my judgment and I ask more questions, the outcomes are different, more positive. You know, it's a pretty simple process and yet it often doesn't happen without an objective observer okay so our conclusion for brenda is is what we're not going to turf him yet no no we're not going to throw the baby out with the bath water. Right.

Yeah. We're going to stay curious and find out what's keeping her from giving him hard feedback. Absolutely. Yeah. And then we're going to investigate whether this is something she needs for her team and whether Mac is valued enough to get some feedback and coaching. Yeah. To improve his overall performance.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's really strange. I mean, I, I, I have to like interject. I have a client who once came to me and he's, and like, this is a very similar situation. He was definitely the sacred cow of his organization and this was a billion dollar business so like big big big stuff and his staff were giving me glimpses of what it is that that they wanted him to shift without actually calling it out. And I think they were terrified of what was happening. Okay. And so I get him into a coaching session and I just call him out. Like what is going on? What is this thing that everyone's talking about, but no one like, what's this elephant. And he says to me, strangely, the older I get, the harder time I have controlling my emotions. And I thought, well, that's interesting. What emotions specifically are they talking about?

Because if it's tears and, and whatever, I'm sure that's not what the problem is. So it's got to be like an aggression, you know, behind what's going on. And sure enough, you know, behind what's going on. And sure enough, he tells me what's going on. And the outcome of this is that he made a doctor's appointment and found out that he was having a hormonal problem. Okay. Yeah. So this had nothing to do with psychology or mindset or performance metrics. It was a physical thing that was happening to him, but he, it was out of his control. Yeah. And so, but, but in the process of coaching, we were able, I mean, I did not diagnose him. We just opened this possibility that like, well, what if it's that?

And he was like, yeah, well, I have felt a little weird and I, you know, and so I, so, you know, who could you ask for support that? And he was like, well, well, I have felt a little weird. And, you know, and so I said, you know, who could you ask for support that?

And he was like, well, I guess I should make a doctor's appointment. Great. That's a great idea. And so the next time he came in, he had had his doctor's appointment and had this diagnosis and was now on medication to regulate his hormones. And sure enough, everyone reported that it was like a flip of a switch happened and he was back to his normal self. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. And that's what happens when you go into the scenario with empathy instead of judgment. Right. Right. Right. And curiosity. Yeah. Like what else might be happening here?

I think it's important to presume that people are not evil. This is, you know, I talk about this all the time. I call it positive intent. Enter every single interaction with positive intent. Give everyone the benefit of the doubt, even if you've had negative interactions with them. You have no idea what people are going through. And in fact, like this guy, he didn't know what he was going through and in fact like this guy he didn't know what he was going through for sure yeah i agree i wholeheartedly agree i think most people mean well i think that's true yeah i think that people want what's best and you know and it's it's complicated life is complicated it Life is complicated. It sure is. Yeah, it sure is. Yeah. Oh, well, on that note, is there anything exciting on the horizon for you, you wanted to chat about?

I'm excited to be talking at the Chamber of Commerce's, you know carlton place they have a business set i'm very excited about that you need to do that too and my workshop is going to be on psychological safety which is something I'm very very passionate about i'm really excited about that that's perfect yeah okay good yeah and that's may 14th I believe for anyone who is in the Carleton Place and or Ottawa region.

Right. Mm hmm. Yes. Wonderful. Yeah. What about you?

Oh, gosh. Well, we are just about to launch the Train to Help project, train to help dot com. e-learning it's part e-learning platform part marketing platform for small businesses brick and mortar businesses so that they can improve the inclusion and accessibility of their businesses through the power of customer service so that is important that's it that's it that's all you've got going on oh my god well I'd say you know if i we had a day no i'm just kidding you're extraordinary oh my gosh that's amazing yeah that's pretty cool that's gonna that's gonna make such a huge difference in the lives of so many I feel good about this I think it is going to get it back

Tina yes I just love being in your in your uh solar system in your whatever you call it

yeah ditto ditto.

You've got such a powerful aura. You do. I don't know how else to describe it.

We are definitely members of the mutual admiration society.

That is for sure.

Yes.

Thank you so much for this. This was really fun. Y

eah, for sure. It was awesome.

Don't forget to stay weird, stay wonderful wonderful and don't stay out of trouble

In today's episode, we're joined by Jen Broad and Laura Lobay, who work on the employment team for the charitable organization LiveWorkPlay. Founded in 1995, LiveWorkPlay's mission is to foster an environment where individuals with disabilities and autism can live, work and play as valued citizens.

As employment inclusion specialists, Jen and Laura have extensive experience helping employers and managers create more accessible, equitable and supportive work communities. They'll share their insights on the key elements of building an inclusive organizational culture, providing reasonable accommodations, and empowering employees through disability awareness training and allyship.Tune in to learn practical tips and best practices that organizations can adopt to make their workplaces truly inclusive, where everyone can thrive.

Whether you're a business leader, HR professional or simply interested in promoting greater inclusion, this episode is sure to provide valuable takeaways.Join us as we explore the transformative power of workplace inclusion with the experts from LiveWorkPlay - Jen Broad and Laura Lobay.

Website URL: https://liveworkplay.ca/

LinkedIn Profiles:

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/jen-broad-39b4b5b6

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/laura-lobay-2a43531a3

[Script]

How to really take those thoughts, those intentions, and make them more actionable and really see results within their organization.

Can you explain to me what's going on? What's your process? Why is this happening? And then maybe there's something going on within the process for that person that then you can adjust and then help make things better.

And, you know, nine times out of 10, you're not going to get an individual who maybe feels comfortable saying that in that situation. And if you do have a candidate that feels comfortable, you as a manager, are you able to then implement that accommodation?

Welcome to the show, Jennifer. Sorry, I'll try that again. Welcome to the show, Jennifer and Laura.

Hi, thanks for having me.

Inclusive Tech, a fictional company with a real problem, is forward-thinking and prides itself on its core value of inclusion. The company has made concerted efforts to create a diverse workforce with a particular focus on hiring team members with disabilities. However, despite their best intentions, Inclusive Tech has encountered challenges in ensuring that all employees, especially those with disabilities, can thrive in the workplace, Joshua, the HR director, noticed an increasing number of concerns being raised by employees with disabilities regarding accessibility and accommodation. They've expressed that while the company's policies are inclusive on paper, the practical implementation often falls short. Some employees feel their specific needs are not fully understood or met, leading to a sense of isolation and hindered performance. Joshua is determined to address these issues, and he's decided to engage the team who's helped him recruit these team members with disabilities.

Laura Lobey and Jen Broad work on the employment team for a charitable organization, Live Work Play. Live Work Play was established in 1995. Their mission is to help the community welcome and include individuals with intellectual disabilities and autistic persons to live, work, and play as valued citizens. Laura and Jen are part of the team of inclusion specialists who work with employers in the private sector, everything from small family businesses to major corporations. They help bring job seekers and employers together and support owners and managers to build their own capacity for workplace inclusion.

Welcome to the show.

Thanks for having us.

So great to be here.

Okay, well, I'd love to just take a very quick minute before we dive into our case study. Now, I would like to ask you guys why you love your jobs.

Oh, do you have enough time for that on the podcast? Inclusivity is something that I've always been really passionate about. And I love customer service as well. And so for me, in my role, I get to incorporate those two things on an everyday basis. I also love sort of like problem solving and and helping people sort of feel seen and valued. And so for me, this is just, I find it really fun and engaging and really impactful at the end of the day.

Awesome. Laura, how about you?

Yeah, sort of very similar to Jen. I just really, I love working with managers. I love working in the community and really helping to build that capacity within the community. As someone who has struggled with employment in the past and having, you know, finding that successful path, I love now being able to work with employers and really help them to build that capacity and build a more inclusive environment and just help everyone to be more successful.

That's amazing. And like such valuable work too. So I'm curious, what, what are your first impressions of this case study that we presented?

So I think it's pretty typical with a lot of organizations really recognizing that there are some changes or, you know, they've done a really good job thoughts, those intentions, and make them more actionable and really see results within their organization. And so this is not something that you haven't seen before, probably. No, this is definitely a pretty, pretty realistic kind of thing that we would be working with in our everyday, our everyday work for sure.

Awesome. And so if this was one of your clients, you know, how would you respond to help them start to identify the root cause of these issues?

Yeah, I think step number one is always for businesses and organizations to realize, okay, something needs to happen here, we need to, we need to approach this a bit differently. And I think there's a lot of good intention here. And a lot of companies really focus on trying to find ways to make things more fair in their organization. And for a lot of organizations, and for a long time, fair meant equal. And that's really not the case. So we really need to shift from looking at things from an, you know, from an equal perspective into a more equitable approach and perspective.

And for our listeners, some people may be trying to visualize what that means. So I'll just try and paint a picture in your mind of when I'm when I'm referring equal and equitable, what that actually means. So we use this example a lot in our workplace where let's say you have four different individuals and they've got varying needs, varying abilities. Let's say maybe one is a toddler and one is, you know, varying heights and weights and sizes. And then you have someone who's got some mobility barriers, and you give them all the exact same bicycle, and you say get from point A to point B. And everyone is going to have a lot of challenges with that, because the bike is not suited for the needs. It's an equal platform for everybody. So that's what we mean when we're talking about equal opportunity. But then when we're talking about equitable opportunities or equitable approaches to things, we're taking a look at the individual and what skill sets they have, and then what supports or practices we need to put in place to help them get from point A to point B. So then you hand these individuals bicycles that have been tailor-made to allow them to give you that output or performance. And so when businesses are looking at their practices, their policies, they really need to start to shift to look at things in an equitable lens. And you know what that may look like from a business perspective is, you know, this is a tech company. And so maybe everything is online. But you may realize that while it's a tech company, there may need to be some accommodations put in place for that. So seeing where we can maybe start to put in some, you know, different application processes or hiring processes.

The interview category is one that I really love to sort of blow up for people and really have them view it with a different lens. Because we're used to a very traditional interview where, you know, you and I are sitting at a table and there's papers and managers who are hiring are typically frantically writing down answers. And, but maybe that person who's really good in the tech world has really struggles with that, you know, interpersonal communication or even being able to formulate their thoughts on the spot. So, you know, maybe, maybe you can offer different approaches to the interview system. Maybe it's, you know, you're providing the candidate. I can provide you with questions ahead of time. You can choose your platform of interview. It can be, you know, a walk and talk, but, you know, having some, some different approaches for people.

And, you know, the only sort of cautionary tale with that is, you need to make sure that you are providing those opportunities for accommodations before you get to the interview. Because so many times, again, and this is that, you know, it's on paper, but is it in practice when a manager sits down and the first question is, do you require an accommodation for this interview? And, you know, nine times out of 10, you're not going to get an individual who maybe feels comfortable saying that in that situation. And if you do have a candidate that feels comfortable, you as a manager, are you able to then implement that accommodation? And that really shows a lot about the organization and goes along to building the trust. So I think the biggest way to get to the root of the problems is really starting to shift from equal to equitable when you're looking at your practices.

Okay. Is that something that employers you work with typically come to you with an understanding of? Or is that something you often have to educate them on?

I think it's something that we often have to sort of go through a bit of an exercise as well, because again, there's just been this real narrative that equal is fair. And so it's really trying to get through that and have people see how a more tailored person-centered approach is really going to help with their practices.

That makes a lot of sense. So I'm curious about how would you know if there's a challenge?

You know, once you've placed someone in a role, how do you deliver, how do you build a continuous improvement process or support your client in building that like feedback mechanism? So you know if things are working or if things need to be adopted. So I think really just, you know, taking that person-centered approach and really working with the person. One thing I often recommend to managers is having regular check-ins with your employees that aren't about necessarily giving feedback, you know, to the person. Let them give feedback to you, you know, have a dialogue, like just a real dialogue about what's going on in work, what's working for you, how are things going? What's not working? What can we improve on? How can we change or streamline our processes to have this fit better for you and just have like an ongoing conversation with the person? I think that's really a helpful way to sort of approach things and to identify challenges sort of before they happen, even, you know, like if you're having these ongoing conversations and you're just sort of regularly checking in and, you know, how are things going as things come up, you're building trust with the employee. And then the employee is going to be able to be like, hey, you know, maybe this isn't working, but can we do this a little bit differently? And bringing them into the conversation like that so they have a lot of agency and how to do things in their job as well, I think is super important.

Okay, cool. For a company like Inclusive Tech, would you recommend something like an accessibility audit? And if yes like what are the best practices around that?

Yeah I think anytime businesses can do a deep dive into that is always going to be beneficial and the important thing to remember is it needs to be a collaborative approach so we have we often reference the saying with not for. So making sure that you are including the employees along the journey with you. Because, you know, within your organization, you may have someone that has already disclosed that there's accommodations that are needed. And you know about that one. And so you're going to be able to really easily pinpoint, you know, where the deficits are there that you'll need to make accommodations for. But you're also going to have individuals where maybe they have episodic disabilities that come up, you know, once a week, once every couple of months that you don't know about. And you're absolutely going to have people who have disabilities who have not disclosed that in the workplace. So inviting a broad range of your employees to participate this and sit around the table because accessibility really looks different for everybody. So having that broad perspective is going to be super important. And then you can start to do a deep dive, you know, into, you know, the very physical surroundings of your work, but then you look at to do a deep dive, you know, into, you know, the very physical surroundings of your work. But then you look at your other platforms, like your website, you know, how accessible is it, your hiring practices, your training practices, your onboarding and orientation.

We see a lot of very similar platforms in that. And in that process, you know, it's kind of a one-stop shop, but is that working for everybody? So really looking into that.

Another area that organizations don't always think about in this sort of thing is, you know, what do outside of workplace gatherings look like? So are you going out for dinner? Are you doing a team building somewhere? So taking a look at that to making sure that, you know, where you're going as a company are still accessible. So taking a look at that and making sure. And I think approaching with curiosity and excitement around this because it should be a really exciting thing for businesses to sit down and say, I want to create a more inclusive environment. But there can be this, you know, negative connotation of a burden, or I have to do this, where, you know, one, businesses should just want to do it, because it is the right thing to do. But if we're trying to encourage businesses, there's also a strong business case for it, so customers seek out employers where there's representation present, where they really sort of walk the walk. And employees will stay around for longer in organizations and that reduces training costs and turnovers. So there's a huge amount of benefits to sort of doing a deep dive like this with your organization. But how you approach it is really going to tell your employees your stake in it. So if you approach it with curiosity, excitement, include them in on the journey, then that's when you really start to have inclusivity be woven into the fabric of your culture and your organization, as opposed to, you know, I'm ticking a box, I'm doing an accessibility audit, because it's what I'm supposed to be doing. But when you start to really integrate that, and how you approach it is when you start to really see the long lasting changes within your organization.

I'm just thinking, like, as you were talking, it came to mind that like, you know, there's lots of folks who are either leaders or owners of small businesses who are listening to this podcast.

And, you know, I, when I think accessibility audit, and some of the things that you mentioned, I'm thinking like, to Ching, you know, like, this is going to be expensive. How, you know, how can we make this as financially accessible as possible for people to start the process and continue the process? Yeah, I absolutely see how that could be a bit daunting. As a sort of statistic, an accommodation within the workplace, ballpark around $500. And that's sort of across the board. But you know, taking time to talk to your individuals and doesn't cost anything. And a lot of these changes could just be attitudinal changes to the workplace. They could be shifting work schedules. They could be changing a light bulb to make it a little more sort of like dimmer and not as bright or impacts, you know, headaches. So a lot of these things can be super small changes that are really going to make a big impact. And again, it's, you know, you're not going to be able to make all these changes overnight. So recognizing that, recognizing that mistakes are going to happen along the way, and that's part of the journey and part of the learning process. But I think if your employees see that there's a commitment to these changes, they can help facilitate these as well. So there may be ones that cost more. Absolutely. That is part of the equation. But a lot of these things can be sort of attitudinal approaches to accommodations in the workplace. Awesome.

So I guess for the folks out there, you do not have to hire a consultant. You can just ask questions. Are there any specific questions that you could recommend, you know, like as a starting point?

I think having people sort of, you know, what would your ideal workplace look like? What would your ideal training platform look like? If you could change, you know, one thing about your office or your setup, what would it be? They don't have to be super groundbreaking questions. And I think Laura touched on this a lot of, a lot of it is the trust building with your employee, encouraging them because it's not up to you necessarily to come up with all of these ideas. And that's the other thing, if you have employee engagement, come up with all of these ideas. And that's the other thing, if you have employee engagement, we always try and make sure that the individuals that they work with are their own best advocate of the accommodations that they need. And so utilizing their skill set along the process can really help. But those really just kind of prodding questions about what would make your workplace overall better. Even like, has there ever been a situation that, you know, has really been uncomfortable for you or has really been a struggle or a challenge in your workplace? All those conversations can really lead to some great discussions around accessibility.

Right.

So I feel like a lot of employers, performance management is always a tough topic for employers. Everyone hates it already, you know, let alone when you're, you're, you know, as the business owner, you do need a level of performance from your team and you want to be sensitive, right? Especially to people who have certain types of disabilities. What are your recommendations around that?

So I think really taking a collaborative approach with your employees, if you're doing these regular check-ins, like we mentioned earlier, building that trust and really having an ongoing conversation, then when things come up or you need to address issues with performance management, then it makes it a little bit easier, because you've built that relationship. And you've sort of built that trust with the person.

I think, yeah, just keeping it as an ongoing conversation, asking questions with people and approaching things with curiosity as well, like Jen said earlier, you know, what you were seeing this happen, can you explain to me what's going on? What's your process? Why is this happening? And then maybe there's something going on within the process for that person that then you can adjust and then help make things better. But everyone has sort of, you know, different ways to get places, you know, we have different routes, but we all have different output capacities as well. So you just sort of looking at that, really approaching things with curiosity and with an open mindset and building that trust with your employee, I think is really important. But also at the end of the day, everyone is accountable for what their goals are as well. So holding that accountability is also really important.

But I think it's the thing is, is how do you get there and how can you adjust how you get there and then still holding someone accountable for the end result is really what the key is here that you thought was like the linchpin or the most, you know, important behavior to remember to demonstrate in the workplace for this specific topic? What would that be? I'm curious.

I think really, it's about approaching things with curiosity. You know, like we all come into a situation where we're like, oh, we're seeing this happen with this employee. And you know, this is awful. And we have sort of like a direction we're trying to go and I think just trying to to let that go and really being curious about what's happening can be challenging at times absolutely to sort of have that mindset but really approaching a situation with you know curiosity why is this happening this way what can I learn from it as a manager as well to help support my employee I think that's probably me, that's probably the advice I give the most is, you know, let's ask some questions. Let's be curious about this situation and see what we can learn and how we can make it better.

I love that, like not making assumptions, basically.

Absolutely, yeah.

What about you, Jen? Is it a different response?

I don't know that. No, it's the curiosity piece is huge for me. And it being sort of a collaborative approach as well is huge. And just, yeah, just knowing that everyone is usually doing the best with with where they're at at and just having some empathy and compassion around it and trying to figure out, you know, how can we get them to where we want to be?

I think the biggest thing that we're all learning in life is that it ebbs and flows and sometimes everything's fine and we don't need that additional support or or um you know guidance and and then something happens and we get a bit derailed and and we do need that so um really seeing the person as a as a as an individual and and and like laura said approaching with curiosity so you can you can find out and see how you can best support.

Fantastic. One last question. So if someone, you know, like Inclusive Tech was looking to develop a more inclusive workplace, and they really wanted to have representation and make sure they had a strong pipeline of folks that had disabilities and encourage them and grow them, what are the types of resources that you would recommend to make sure that you're supporting the career advancement and professional development of, you know, their team members?

Yeah, I think, I mean, there's not a one-size-fits-all for this, and it's very, it's going to be very sort of person centered in terms of like the resources that you're, that you're bringing aboard. But I think making sure that, again, that focus on equitable approaches to things you can, it's great to have sort of categories like a mentorship program, absolutely. And, you know, maybe facilitated groups where people can drop in for some more complex, you know, issues within the work like HR or tech, for example. You know, having those spots where people can go and facilitate can be really helpful. But I also think, you know, outsourcing in your community as well. So there's a lot of great employment support programs out there that can help you navigate these changes. A lot of them are government funded as well. So it's no charge. And so if you're looking to help sort of navigate your path and figure out ways to really create an inclusive environment and to bring your team into the fold.

There's lots of great resources out there. And, you know, just really embracing the notion of, you know, what an amazing workplace it could be if we actually got rid of the word accommodation. And we just sort of approach the workspace as like, you know, how do I, how do I set my employees up for success? And what do they need to be successful? And that's not disability specific. And inclusion is not disability specific. So I think, you know, really making sure that if you're targeting inclusivity, it's going to happen organically and authentically. You're not going to need to sort of, that's where you really get away from the boxes being checked or having it really be on paper, but really making a concerted effort of, you know, what can I do to set my team up for success? And how can I create an environment that will really enable them to do that? Oh, I love that so much. Making it the rule, not the exception.

Exactly. Yeah, for sure. I completely agree with that. Any final thoughts? Actually, I have a final thought. How in the world do people get a hold of you guys so they can be supported through this process from, you know, from the recruitment phase all the way through?

Oh, well, you can find us online at liveworkplay.ca. People are also welcome to reach out directly to Jen or I. Our contact information is all on that website. Our services are government funded. So, you know, there's no cost to employers or employees seeking support from us. And we're happy to help out. I mean, we also do offer an inclusion workshop through our organization for employers to help them build their capacity in terms of inclusion, which we love facilitating those.

They're really great.

Yeah, I think, yeah, search us up online and find us. We're always excited to connect with more people in the community. I think too, if there are organizations out there that are interested in finding out a little bit more, or just like leaning into that space a little bit, we also can organize some employment networking opportunities. So these are opportunities where we facilitate a conversation between a job seeker and an employer. There's no sort of like pressure that there's a job coming out of this. It's just a way for employees and employers to sort of have a conversation about like, what's it like to work here. You know, what are the hours like? What's the culture like? And giving because sometimes it can be challenging for people to, you know, oh, I think I want to do this. But you know, what does that job actually entail? We find out all the time that jobs are so much different than what is sort of said on a job description. So having them have the ability to go into that environment, ask the manager questions, see the sights, the smells, the sounds, all of that can have a huge impact on their employment journey. So that's another really great way for managers to sort of get connected with us with like no pressure to hire, just some great, you know, community connecting and building going on yeah that's actually a problem almost everywhere it's it's tough to really understand what skills you need for a particular job for whatever reason like what that job actually looks like um I hear that all the time as well

so um oh well it has been an absolute pleasure chatting with you both.

Thank you so much for having us.

Yeah. And hopefully we'll maybe partner together in the future.

Yeah, that would be so great.

Awesome. Don't forget to stay weird, stay wonderful wonderful and don't stay out of trouble

Welcome to our guest, JP MIchel.

JP Michel is the creator of the Challenge mindset and the Challenge Cards, which have been used by more than 70,000 students around the world.

His past consultancy work with leaders led to the creation of SparkPath, an innovative career exploration company spotlighted on the Forbes, TEDx, CBC and BBC. Recognized as the 2022 Outstanding Career Leader by the Career Professionals of Canada, JP's holds a degree in psychology from the University of Ottawa and a master's degree in industrial-organizational psychology from the University of Manchester.

Website URL: mysparkpath.com

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanphilippemichel/

Pick up his book, The World Needs You: https://a.co/d/csR7VI8

If you're a business owner and a business leader, and you're listening to this right now, I want to know what you want to hear. Welcome to Weirdos in the Workplace, the podcast that celebrates authenticity, transparency, passion, and purpose in our world of work. I'm your host, Erin Patchell, and welcome to Season 2. For those of us who are continuing this journey from season one, thank you. If you're brand new here, welcome. My name is Erin Patchell. I am the founder of a company called Positivist Group, which is a management consultancy based in the Ottawa Valley in Canada. I'm also, obviously, the host of Where It Is In The Workplace, and I'm the co-founder of a technology startup called The Trained to Help Project, trainedtohelp.com. But Weirdos in the workplace. This is where we are today. And there's a good reason why our values are authenticity, transparency, passion, and purpose. So for the folks who are just joining us now, it's important to me because I was always a bit of an outcast. I was a rebel. I was a little bit of an outsider growing up. It took me a long time to figure out how to love myself and hone my strengths and my abilities into something that was valuable for the world and to unlearn how to be a loner and build community around me and people around me to help me and help others, help me help others to succeed in life.

That's what I'm doing now. It is a journey. I am not done. I feel like I'm actually just at the beginning of this, but I love that you're joining with me on this journey. I'm a professional problem solver. That's what I call myself. One of the reasons I call myself that is because I feel like I never know what I'm doing. That also pertains to this podcast. Season 2, we do have a bit of a plan, believe it or not. We have 45 episodes. There will be 45 episodes similar to Season 1. I am actually only going to be doing five solo podcasts this year because what we want to do is invite more people on the podcast to share the amazing work that they do. Every single person that we're inviting on the podcast this year has something, a special solution, a unique way of thinking and a unique solution to a real problem in the world.

Just a sneak peek, we're talking to Lydia DiFrancesco, who's a corporate wellness specialist and expert speaker. We're talking about a real relevant problem in corporate wellness, which is burnout.

Talking to Lisa Strangway about how small businesses can revitalize their online brand. What happens when your brand is a little bit stale? You haven't been evolving with the times. And boy, oh, boy, are the times changing so fast.

We're talking to Jen Broad and Laura Lobe from a company called Live Work Play. It's a nonprofit charitable organization in Ottawa, and they work with people with disabilities to support them to get jobs. And then they work with the employers to help the employers learn how to build a better workplace for everyone, not just people with disabilities.

We're talking to Lauren Sheil about succession planning. What happens when you want to transfer your business or you're thinking about, maybe it's your father, maybe it's your grandfather, maybe it's you that is aging and wants to retire. My goodness, you have a generational business, perhaps a family business, and you want to pass that on to the next generation. What are some of the things that you need to think about there?

We're talking to Tina Collins, who's an amazing executive coach, and she is supporting us in understanding what to do when your star employee has become a little bit toxic. What can you do? Do you terminate them? Do you fire them? What can you do to help them understand what the challenges are and help them evolve out of that?

Then we're talking to Peter Georgariou, who is an amazing entrepreneur in Ottawa in the marketing and change space. He's talking about redefining value, your value proposition. How do you get to where you are right now, today as a company, to where you want to be in the future? Peter has a really interesting spin on it because he really works with impactful businesses, businesses who have really big social, environmental, or governance goals.

We have Sydney Elaine Butler, who is an amazing neurodiversity advocate, building neuroinclusive spaces. We're talking about the challenges on a hybrid, working from home, working from the office. How do you go about building an inclusive environment that respects the way everyone needs to work?

We have so many amazing guests coming on the podcast this year, and still some to plan. We've done several recordings. We've recorded over 10 episodes at this point of the season. We haven't even started the season yet, so that's exciting. We have many, many to go. We're going to be sharing lots of interesting content over the next nine months that we're together.

The podcast is going to drop same as always, every Wednesday morning, every week. You'll be able to get that on YouTube, on Spotify, Apple Music, iHeart, podcast, wherever you get your podcast. The season is really This season is really all about learning how to learn faster and solving problems quickly. There's a lot of problems in the world right now. I think we all feel it. I know I feel it. There seems to be an overwhelming, almost like an impending sense of doom is what a lot of people, how a lot of people are describing it. If you're feeling an overwhelming, impending sense of doom, know that you're not alone. You are far from alone. I'm certainly one of those people as well. I'm very good at keeping everything in perspective and focusing on the positivist, but also thinking about, I think about things very scientifically. I like to think about research and statistics, and it helps me ground myself. But there's this something in the background going on, even though that is all true about me, maybe about you, too. Even though we're trying to keep everything in perspective, there's still something that we're sensing.

There's something we're sensing, and we're all sensing this. There's a lot of patterns that are challenging right now, that are challenging us in the world at different levels. At the global international level, there's a lot of patterns. There's lots of patterns at the national level or the In North America. There's political shifts happening. There's economic shifts happening. It's a very interesting time. A lot of people are leaving their jobs. Something is stick to stick. I heard the The other day, something like, it was like 85% of employees are looking to... They're looking. They're just looking for jobs. People are constantly looking for new opportunities right now. It's a little tight. Money is a little tight for people. I think there's some people that are in trouble, for sure. There's always some people that are in trouble. But I think even people that are used to being all okay are feeling a little bit of a crunch. It's not about reacting, it's really about responding. So thinking about how to make smarter decisions. And that is literally why we are doing what we're doing this season and bringing 40 people with very diverse backgrounds onto the podcast so that we can provide you with interesting solutions or different ways to think about specific problems.

Within the learning and development in space, we call this vertical development. So we're looking to build context. We're not helping you build skills, we're helping you build context. So connecting the dots and seeing the patterns and Building what we call a mind map, a map of the information that you have in your head that you can use to make decisions, to pull in quickly in order to make faster decisions. So there's a lot of common problems that businesses are having right now and that people are having right now. It doesn't even matter what age you are. Although I think that a lot of folks who listen to this podcast do tend to be on the younger side Often, millennials and Gen Zs, Gen Zs and millennials who either own businesses or want to own a business someday. It's a real or maybe very soon in the future is a goal, and often neurodivergent in way. You identify with being a rebel, being a little bit of a weirdo. So, weirdos and rebel-rousers, unite. We're going to help you through the podcast, through the mentorship that we'll get from these amazing folks who are coming on the podcast, we're going to give you our wisdom, and hopefully maybe give me their wisdom, too, because I'm always looking for wisdom.

Maybe they can lend me some of their confidence, I hope. Confidence that we're going to get through this, and we will. Most days I feel very confident that things are going to improve, but even sometimes I need to borrow a little bit of that confidence from somebody else. So let's lean on each other. If you're a business owner and a business leader, and you're listening to this right now, I want to know what you want to hear. There's still lots of time to give me feedback check so that I can know exactly what problems you need solved. So send me an email at erin@positivist. Ca, or hit me up on any of those social media platforms, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, although I'm really bad at checking Instagram, so maybe not there. I will definitely respond, and we'll have a good chat, hopefully. But I want to hear what the problems are. What are you struggling right now? What are you sensing? What are you feeling? What have you identified? Let's talk about that. For anyone who wants to become part of the podcast, if you are a professional problem solver and you consider yourself a subject at our expert in some way, I'd love to hear from you and see if there's some synergy.

So hit me up. Linkedin is probably the best. Linkedin.com/in/erin-patchell, E-R-I-N-P-A-T-C-H-E-L-L. Whenever I'm I'm feeling a little bit unsettled, a little bit ungrounded, a little worried, a little bit sensing that there's something off about the universe. The book that I usually go to is The Tao Te Ching, which is… this is the Steven Mitchell version, but I'm going to read verse 45 for you. True perfection seems imperfect, yet it is perfectly itself. True fullness seems empty, yet it is fully present. True straightness seems crooked. True wisdom seems foolish. True art seems artless. The master allows things to happen. She shapes events as they come. She steps out of the way and lets the now speak for itself.

I'm so curious to see what this year holds, and I'd love for you to follow along with us, and I want to follow along with you, so reach out.

In the meantime, don't forget to stay weird, stay and don't stay out of trouble.

Visit us at positivist.ca and trainedtohelp.com.