Work Positive

How's that strategic plan working out for you? Are things going according to plan? What if you could grow forward when things don't go according to plan instead of losing it when things go off the rails? How do you build resilient teams when 70% of change initiatives fail not because of logistical issues but because we're not preparing the people? Transform your approach to resilience and adaptability on this episode of the Work Positive Podcast with Dr. Joey Faucette and Anne Grady. 

Anne is a bestselling author, entrepreneur, and expert in building resilient teams, leaders, and organizations. She's spent the last 20 years working with some of the largest organizations around the globe including Google, Lockheed, Johnson and Johnson, and Microsoft. Her new book is "Evolvability: Growing Forward When Things Don't Go According to Plan." She lives on a ranch outside Austin, Texas with her husband (VP of Everything), two donkeys, and four cows. 

Listen as Anne explores:

☀️ Why the average adult spends two and a half months every year on their phone (11-14 year olds spend nine hours a day)

Anne transforms how leaders think about change by proving that evolvability is a learnable skill, and when you focus on what you can control and meet people where they are, you create cultures that navigate uncertainty together.

🔑 Key Insight: "The best cultures come from curiosity instead of judgment. Pay attention to what people are paying attention to and where they are right now, and meet them where they are. Validate those difficult experiences because when you don't acknowledge the difficult emotions they don't go away, they leak out everywhere. About 80% of employees who leave cite lack of appreciation as the number one reason. Use the word 'because.' You did a great job on that report because it synthesized really complex information and made it simple."

💡 Your DOT (Do One Thing): Listen. Ask good questions. Be curious instead of judgmental. Meet people where they are and validate those difficult experiences. Be incredibly appreciative and grateful with your employees, and use the word "because" to make appreciation specific. "You did a great job because..." or "I really appreciate the way you spoke in that meeting because you allowed everyone's voice to be heard." Start every meeting with a quick round of gratitude. Bonus tip: Go 30 minutes in the morning without your phone. Charge it in a different room. They make alarm clocks, and this one change will reduce stress and increase focus.

Connect with Anne Grady:

#Evolvability #Resilience #AdaptableLeaders #AppreciationMatters #PhoneFreeTime #CuriosityNotJudgment #CultureEatsStrategyForBreakfast #WorkPositive

🎙️ Love the Work Positive Podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover how to grow people and profits with a positive work culture!

🔗 Stay connected with Dr. Joey Faucette:

📧 Know someone who'd make a great guest on the show? Email [email protected] with your recommendation!

How do you win the race to develop talent when 70% of employees haven't mastered the skills they need for their current jobs and 80% lack the skills they'll need for their future roles? What if you could apply NASCAR racing strategies to create a continuous learning culture that accelerates talent development? Why do 96% of executives believe their organization exhibits a growth mindset while only 45% of employees agree?

☀️ The communication triangle of driver, crew chief, and spotter and how it applies to employees, leaders, and customers

Dr. Joey transforms how leaders think about talent development by proving that when you apply the L.E.A.R.N. framework, you create a culture where growing people grows profits.

🔑 Key Insight: "The power grid in a company is the culture. It's what carries that energy across, and you don't need a very big breakage for the thing to stop. When you share authenticity and talk truthfully about what's going on, there's a psychological safety that you can almost see people exhale. Top talent wants feed-forward information. They don't want just feedback at the end of a week or month or quarter. They want feedback live time, in the moment, in action, in a forward way."

💡 Your DOT (Do One Thing): Choose ONE element of the L.E.A.R.N. framework to implement this week:

The L.E.A.R.N. Framework:

Featured Work Positive Podcast Guests:

Special Recognition: Eric Coomes of The Knorr Group Alcova Mortgage, former Head Driving Instructor for Petty Enterprises, stunt double and consultant in Talladega Nights and Herbie's Love Bug. Connect with Eric at https://alcova.com/group/knorr-group

Connect with Dr. Joey Faucette:

#LEARNatWork #TalentDevelopment #NASCARLeadership #FeedForward #CenterLeaders #LearningVelocity #CultureEatsStrategyForBreakfast #WorkPositive

🎙️ Love the Work Positive Podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover how to grow people and profits with a positive work culture!

🔗 Stay connected with Dr. Joey Faucette:

📧 Know someone who'd make a great guest on the show? Email [email protected] with your recommendation!

Would you have started your own business or accepted that promotion to senior leadership knowing what you know now? What if you could take 18 weeks off each year for personal travel with your family while your business continues to grow? Is your business a well-oiled machine or an intelligent ecosystem? Transform your approach to business freedom on this episode of the Work Positive Podcast with Dr. Joey Faucette and Michael Walsh. Michael is a senior leader of his own business who takes 18 weeks off each year and has been helping companies grow for 31 years. His latest book is "Freedom by Design," and he shares the exact methods he uses to create increased freedom using 21st century strategies that work. Listen as Michael explores:

☀️ Why you can't sustain culture, you're constantly recreating and evolving it as you go

☀️ The critical difference between a well-oiled machine (people are cogs) and an intelligent ecosystem (works for everybody)

☀️ How he includes a 70-page detailed hiring process free with his book (questions, what to listen for, assignments, reference checks)

☀️ Why we spend more time on marketing products than attracting the people who make everything work

☀️ The four elements of human behavior: survive, thrive, connect, and adapt to changing environments

Michael transforms how leaders think about freedom by proving that when you focus on relationships and understand where people are, your business can flourish while you enjoy 18 weeks off per year.

🔑 Key Insight: "Is a business really a well-oiled machine or is it an intelligent ecosystem? If you treat it like a well-oiled machine, the people are the cogs and nobody wants to be a cog. They're getting ground up every day. In an ecosystem, it has to work for everybody. Half the game is getting the right people on board, and who are the people? The people that actually want to be there and want to contribute in a meaningful way."

💡 Your DOT (Do One Thing): Focus on two things. First, focus on the relationships between and among the people in your organization. Second, really listen to see who people are. We all have biological instincts to survive, an innate desire to thrive, both the need and the ability to connect, and the ability to adapt to a changing environment. See how these four elements apply to each person. If you see somebody acting out but realize they're in survival mode, you'll treat them very differently than if you just think they're out to hurt somebody. When you stop and listen to understand where people are, you can develop richer relationships, have your business flourish, and enjoy the process along the way.

Connect with Michael Walsh:

Discover how companies in engineering, architecture, medical, e-learning, stone and tile, insulation, and interior remodeling achieve freedom

#FreedomByDesign #IntelligentEcosystem #HiringSmart #BusinessGrowth #18WeeksOff #RelationshipFirst #CultureEatsStrategyForBreakfast #WorkPositive

🎙️ Love the Work Positive Podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover how to grow people and profits with a positive work culture!

🔗 Stay connected with Dr. Joey Faucette:

📧 Know someone who'd make a great guest on the show? Email [email protected] with your recommendation!

How do you navigate the choppy waters of having four or even five generations working together? What do you do when three out of four hiring managers say Gen Z is the toughest generation to manage, 30% are firing them within the first month, and three out of ten are avoiding hiring them altogether? What if Gen Z holds the key to your company's moonshot? 

Transform your approach to generational leadership on this episode of the Work Positive Podcast with Dr. Joey Faucette and Tim Elmore. Tim is an expert who has spoken to about 500,000 leaders in corporations like The Home Depot, Chick-fil-A, Ford Motor Company, and Delta Airlines. His curriculum has been used by sports teams like the Kansas City Royals, New York Giants, and Houston Rockets, as well as athletic departments at Alabama, Ohio State, Stanford, and Duke. His latest book is "The Future Begins with Z: 9 Strategies to Lead Generation Z as They Disrupt the Workplace." Listen as Tim explores:

☀️ Why Gen Z is different from millennials (grew up with smartphones vs. cell phones, Alpha with AI)

Tim transforms how leaders think about Gen Z by proving that when you connect before you correct, ask questions, and genuinely listen, this generation becomes your greatest competitive advantage.

🔑 Key Insight: "Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person it's indistinguishable. You gotta connect before you correct. If we'll start getting really good at asking questions and listening to them, they start feeling loved. Make this job the best launching pad for their dream job. The best way to keep them is to let them go from the beginning. Approach your role not as a manager but as a mentor."

💡 Your DOT (Do One Thing): Learn to ask and listen rather than correct right away. Go into the office with 5 questions in your head that you know you want to ask. Get really good at asking questions and listening to Gen Z team members. They'll start feeling loved because being heard is so close to being loved. Build that bridge of relationship first. Use the PERKS framework in your next interview: ask about their Preferences, Expectations, Requirements, the Keys to their heart (not just can they do the job), and discuss Salary openly.

Connect with Tim Elmore:

#GenZ #GenerationalLeadership #TheFutureBeginsWithZ #ConnectBeforeCorrect #LaunchingPad #NASAMoonshot #CultureEatsStrategyForBreakfast #WorkPositive

🎙️ Love the Work Positive Podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover how to grow people and profits with a positive work culture!

🔗 Stay connected with Dr. Joey Faucette:

📧 Know someone who'd make a great guest on the show? Email [email protected] with your recommendation!

How effective is your influence as a people leader? Do you think about it very much? What would happen if your first core value was "Family First" in a competitive talent market where you can't match salaries? Transform your sphere of influence on this episode of the Work Positive Podcast with Dr. Joey Faucette and Brad Englert. 

Brad led Accenture for 22 years, 10 as a senior partner, and then served as CIO at the University of Texas at Austin where he influenced technology modernization serving 54,000 students, 4,000 faculty, and 21,000 staff. He's the author of "Sphere of Influence: How to Create and Nurture Authentic Business Relationships." On day one at Accenture, his mentor told him the people you work with today may become your boss or customer down the road, so treat them very well. That advice shaped his entire career.

☀️ Why "Family First" became the top value and how promising an 8-hour day competed against tech giants on salary

Brad transforms how leaders think about influence by proving that when you articulate values, communicate them relentlessly, and move decisively on integrity issues, authentic business relationships flourish.

🔑 Key Insight: "Trust is fundamental to all business relationships. The first thing we did was articulate the values of the organization. Family First was our first value because I live in Austin, Texas where all the huge technology firms are. I cannot compete on salary, but I certainly can promise an 8-hour day. No one joined the organization without going through orientation where they would meet all my direct reports. We had quarterly meetings where we would talk about the values and give examples of where we achieved those values."

💡 Your DOT (Do One Thing): Be strategic and intentional about which business relationships you want to create and nurture. Your boss is obvious. Direct reports are obvious. Your customers? You don't have to meet with all your customers. Who are your best customers? Your vendors? Who are your strategic vendors? Just pick a relationship. Start with your boss and ask: 1) What are your goals and aspirations? Do I understand that? 2) Be better at setting and managing expectations. 3) Genuinely care. If you want your boss to be successful, you'll be successful.

Connect with Brad Englert:

Workshops and Coaching:

Brad offers two workshops for clients who want to build business relationship skills:

One Hour Interactive Session - Perfect for one person or small groups. The session facilitates discussions of the core principles of the book and can be conducted virtually via Zoom.

Half Day Workshop - Designed for leaders, managers, sales teams, and professionals who want to deepen their business relationship skills. This workshop includes opportunities for discussions and role playing.

Career Coaching - Delivered virtually for professionals seeking personalized guidance.

Contact Brad:

#SphereOfInfluence #AuthenticRelationships #FamilyFirst #LeadershipIntegrity #StrategicRelationships #TrustInBusiness #CultureEatsStrategyForBreakfast #WorkPositive

Are you tired of watching your best people walk out the door? Have you spent hundreds of thousands of dollars recruiting and training someone, only to see them leave for a competitor who offered a slightly better title or more salary? What if 68% of employees leave for reasons that have nothing to do with money, and you could provide exactly what they're looking for? 

Discover the proven framework to stop the revolving door on this special LinkedIn Live episode of the Work Positive Podcast. Dr. Joey Faucette unveils his groundbreaking R.E.T.A.I.N. framework, drawing from insights of eight remarkable Work Positive Podcast guests who transformed retention in industries from healthcare to blue-collar trades to global consulting. Listen as Dr. Joey explores:

☀️ Why proper onboarding alone increases retention by 50% and accelerates productivity by 60%

Dr. Joey transforms how leaders think about retention by proving that people don't leave jobs, they leave feelings of being unseen, unheard, undervalued, disconnected, and purposeless.

🔑 Key Insight: "People don't leave jobs. They leave feelings. They leave feeling unseen, unheard, undervalued, disconnected, and purposeless. When you show people they matter and they belong, the financials follow. There's proof from research about how productivity is enhanced by 15-20% when employees are happier. When you focus on employee experiences, companies are four times more profitable."

💡 Your DOT (Do One Thing): Choose ONE element of the R.E.T.A.I.N. framework to implement this week:

The R.E.T.A.I.N. Framework:

Featured Work Positive Podcast Guests:

Connect with Dr. Joey Faucette:

#StopTheRevolvingDoor #RETAIN #EmployeeRetention #CultureFit #EmpathyInLeadership #OnboardingMatters #CultureEatsStrategyForBreakfast #WorkPositive

🎙️ Love the Work Positive Podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover how to grow people and profits with a positive work culture!

🔗 Stay connected with Dr. Joey Faucette:

📧 Know someone who'd make a great guest on the show? Email [email protected] with your recommendation!

How well do your employees understand your organization's employee relations process? When they have a concern, do they know where to go, to whom to talk, and when? What happens when your ER function becomes the strategic hub that informs all of HR instead of just playing whack-a-mole every day? 

Discover the transformative power of strategic employee relations on this episode of the Work Positive Podcast with Dr. Joey Faucette and Margarita Ramos. Margarita is an employee relations leader from Northern Virginia whose origin story begins with translating for her Puerto Rican mother in the 1950s and protecting her from unkindness. That experience shaped her practice of leading with empathy and ensuring people feel seen and heard. When ER is done correctly, it becomes a window into culture shifts and the nexus that drives engagement across the organization. Listen as Margarita explores:

☀️ Why employee relations has a unique window into culture and shifts happening in real time

Margarita transforms how leaders think about employee relations by proving that when done correctly, ER drives culture, informs talent development, and creates fairness and transparency across the organization.

🔑 Key Insight: "Employee relations has a window into the culture, into the shifts in the culture. Whatever issues are happening in society spill over into the workplace. Instead of playing whack-a-mole, zoom out and consider what other areas of HR would want to know the information that we in ER are seeing. This isn't an HR problem, it's an organizational issue. When people come to ER, they should feel like they were seen and heard."

💡 Your DOT (Do One Thing): Look at your control environment from an HR compliance perspective. This includes the policies and practices that address how employees raise concerns in your organization. Make sure those policies are legally sound. Hire the right people for your ER function. Ensure your ER function is not compromised when conducting investigations. Apply discipline consistently whether the subject is in the C-suite or not. Track metrics so you can tell a story to business leaders and demonstrate consistency. You cannot do this work successfully and transparently if you're not tracking it with a case management system.

Connect with Margarita Ramos:

#EmployeeRelations #ERStrategy #InvestigatorNeutrality #WorkplaceFairness #CultureNexus #MetricsAndAccountability #CultureEatsStrategyForBreakfast #WorkPositive

🎙️ Love the Work Positive Podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover how to grow people and profits with a positive work culture!

🔗 Stay connected with Dr. Joey Faucette:

📧 Know someone who'd make a great guest on the show? Email [email protected] with your recommendation!

Does your work culture just happen, growing on its own until you hardly recognize it? Or do you intentionally design your work culture, building an environment that works well for everyone? What would change if you created the right space and simply let the right people be attracted to what you're building?

☀️ Why recognition is so underrated and how simple acknowledgment changes everything

Emily transforms how leaders think about culture by proving that intentional design beats accidental development every time, and that the simplest acts of recognition create the biggest shifts.

🔑 Key Insight: "I guarantee you that if you create the space for it, you will attract the right fits and it'll work for you. It's just providing the space and the encouragement and the trust and that integrity. Recognition is so underrated. We're not talking about giving them an award and a big certificate. We're talking acknowledge their presence, thanking people for a good email. How much does that take? Absolutely nothing."

💡 Your DOT (Do One Thing): Start appreciating and recognizing the people around you in your work environment. If you have teams or team members, acknowledge their presence. Thank someone for a good email. Stand in the kitchen grabbing coffee and say, "You did a great presentation earlier, just wanted to let you know," then walk away. Start from the bottom, get your leadership aligned, make sure work-life integration is in place, and your team will be the happiest team.

Connect with Emily Berliner:

#CultureByDesign #Recognition #WorkLifeIntegration #IntentionalCulture #SmallBusinessSupport #LeadershipAdaptation #CultureEatsStrategyForBreakfast #WorkPositive

🎙️ Love the Work Positive Podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover how to grow people and profits with a positive work culture!

🔗 Stay connected with Dr. Joey Faucette:

📧 Know someone who'd make a great guest on the show? Email [email protected] with your recommendation!

How effective are you as a people leader, and how do you actually evaluate that effectiveness? What happens when you involve your team in creating the vision instead of just sharing it with them? How do you listen—are you listening to reply, or listening to understand? 

Transform your leadership approach on this episode of the Work Positive Podcast with Dr. Joey Faucette and Tom Lawrence. Tom is originally from Liverpool, now living in London, and is the creator of the Highly Effective Leader framework. After experiencing old-school, micromanaging, dictator-style leadership early in his career in the UK rail industry, Tom embarked on a self-taught leadership development journey starting in 2015. Today he helps leaders develop into highly effective leaders who create other leaders. Listen as Tom explores:

☀️ Why no one was developing him as a leader, so he had to start developing himself

Tom transforms how leaders think about effectiveness by proving that highly effective leaders measure their success by how well they develop current and future leaders into highly effective leaders themselves.

🔑 Key Insight: "When you listen to reply, you're sort of hearing them. But when you listen to understand, that's when you're really listening. Don't go in there and solve problems for them or tell them what to do. Listen to them, listen to why things are going wrong, and what can you do as the leader to help solve those problems. Ask open questions, thought-provoking questions, dig deeper, and help the person you're speaking to get everything they can to solve these problems within themselves."

💡 Your DOT (Do One Thing): Assess your culture by asking every single person on your team how they feel to be part of the team—because culture is how you feel to be part of the group, team, department, or organization. Once you understand how they feel, write your vision for what a happy culture looks like on a whiteboard, get the whole team in the room, and ask: "What do you think?" Let their ideas develop the vision, not change or quit on it, just develop it. Then work on it together every single day.

Connect with Tom Lawrence:

#HighlyEffectiveLeader #LeadershipDevelopment #ListenToUnderstand #TeamVision #CultureAssessment #CoachingStyle #WorkPositive

🎙️ Love the Work Positive Podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover how to grow people and profits with a positive work culture!

🔗 Stay connected with Dr. Joey Faucette:

📧 Know someone who'd make a great guest on the show? Email [email protected] with your recommendation!

What do you do when change intrudes on your best-laid plans, delivering sucker punches weekly if not daily? How do you lead when you wake up just as tired as you were when you went to bed, exhausted from swimming upstream in a current of negative chaos? What if you could leverage change as your competitive advantage instead of letting it destroy your culture?

☀️ How Dave Sanderson kept his head during the Miracle on the Hudson and what it teaches about mindset

Dr. Joey transforms how leaders think about change by proving that adversity isn't a problem to overcome—it's the raw material for your breakthrough.

🔑 Key Insight: "Adversity isn't a problem, but the raw material for your breakthrough. Like a martial artist uses the weight of their opponent in the leverage of their technique, you turn it around so your offense takes control and you stop playing defense. Culture eats strategy for breakfast—match strategy with culture. If you don't, culture will overshadow strategy each and every time."

💡 Your DOT (Do One Thing): Choose ONE element of the T.R.A.N.S.F.O.R.M. framework to implement this week:

The T.R.A.N.S.F.O.R.M. Framework:

Featured Work Positive Podcast Guests:

Connect with Dr. Joey Faucette:

#ChangeAtWork #TRANSFORM #CultureTransformation #AdaptabilityQuotient #VUCAWorld #ChangeManagement #WorkPositive

🎙️ Love the Work Positive Podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover how to grow people and profits with a positive work culture!

🔗 Stay connected with Dr. Joey Faucette:

📧 Know someone who'd make a great guest on the show? Email [email protected] with your recommendation!