Guest Speaker 1 5:16
what it called a difficult and disappointing year, UPS announced its cutting 12,000 jobs. On its earnings conference call Tuesday, UPS said the move would help save the company $1 billion. The world’s largest parcel delivery firm is in part being squeezed by higher labor costs from its new contract with the teamsters union, which was ratified in August after contentious negotiations. UPS also warned of declining daily volume, which it expects will be weak in the first half of the year before recovering in the latter half. But even then, growth will be constrained. The delivery giant said volume revenue and operating profit declined last quarter for all its business segments. It also forecast revenue for this year, that was below estimates that sent shares down nearly 8% in Tuesday morning trading. But ups which is viewed as a bellwether for the global economy did say business conditions would improve in the second half of the year.
Rolando Rosas 6:15
That’s a mouthful. Well, what’s going on right now with big companies, tech companies, and something that wasn’t said there but was in other outlets that reported this, they were saying that one of the things that is going to happen is that they intend on using more AI to replace some of those managerial roles that would be laid off. So they’re not rehiring. They’re not outsourcing. They’re not bringing in low cost labor, I guess, unless you define AI as low cost labor. What do you think about what you just saw? Well,
Dr. Randy Ross 6:44
that’s a whole ball of wax, you know,
Rolando Rosas 6:49
you can go in any direction you want. Yeah.
Dr. Randy Ross 6:51
I mean, we’re we’re facing some really interesting economic times. There are a lot of challenges on the horizon. It reminds me back at the end of the Cold War, the Army War College came up with an acronym that pretty effectively described world conditions at the time, and it was VUCA. There’s actually VUCA training, you may be familiar with Abba VUCA stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. And I think we live in a VUCA world, I think, post COVID with not only all the political unrest, the economic unrest, the forecast on the horizon, you know, are we going to hit a recession are things that continue to escalate in terms of living costs, I mean, all of that affects not just the economy, but individual organizations as they tried to negotiate and navigate all these tumultuous waters. And I think for me, one of the things that I really enjoy doing is helping organizations get a different perspective, changing VUCA into Kaboo, Qaboos. Another acronym that you may be familiar with, but it’s used by pilots, and it stands for ceiling and visibility unlimited. That’s interesting, you know, you just change a few letters, and you go from VUCA to Kaboo. But Kaboo means that when you are experiencing stormy weather, if you can elevate yourself to the point that you get above the cloud banks, and you probably experienced this, you know, commercial flights all the time, when you take off the the weather is bad that the plane is being tossed around by the winds as you climb through the clouds. And the window is being striped by the by the moisture in the rain in the air. But then once you rise above the cloud banks, it’s unlimited visibility, it’s all blue sky is clear sailing is not bumpy. It’s not Rocky. And I think the key is to help organizations turn Luca into Kaboo. And you introduced our whole segment, this conversation about culture is the very heart of you know, what is culture? How does it work? How do we improve it? Is it is it something that we can seriously impact? Or does it just naturally evolve? And so this is a very good conversation, if we’re talking about transforming VUCA to capital.
Rolando Rosas 8:54
And do you believe that and as Dave and I were talking in the intro, do you believe that organizations have company cut and again, this is a generic term and means different things to people and with our evolving work environment, because the work environment today in 2024, is not what it was in 2014 is not what it was in 1914, essentially, when Henry Ford brought in the five day workweek, 40 hours, right, basically at an assembly line. And we’ve been stuck more or less with that model, up until recently for more people to participate in remote work, and people are throwing the word company culture around, and it tends to go to company culture means what we do in the office. Do you have a different definition for that? Well, culture
Dr. Randy Ross 9:45
is something that’s bandied about quite a bit. I mean, that whole conversation about what culture looks like what it involves, but let me define culture from our standpoint. Culture is the collective expression of The values, the beliefs and the behaviors that individuals bring to any work experience was the collective expression of those values. So culture involves not only the behaviors, but behind the behaviors are a belief system. And that was fundamental. And is the bedrock for the belief system? Or is the values construct which gets into some principles of, of axiology, which I think are impactful and transformative when it comes to building a strong culture. Now, you
Rolando Rosas 10:28
mentioned axiology, you mentioned that during our first conversation, please tell us what that means for those folks that don’t know and of just hearing it for the first time. Okay,
Dr. Randy Ross 10:38
well, axiology is a strain of philosophy. And it by definition, it’s a an attempt to define and measure good, but it has to do with values of value constructs and value creation. value creation, again, is one of those terms, we throw around a lot, we want to bring value, we want to create value, we want to add value, but very few organizations. And people actually know how to do that by applying practical plants principles of applied axiology. So what I like to do is take this very heady concept, and simplify it, and deliver it to organizations in such a way that they can not only understand the principles, but they can apply the practices that will move their culture in a northerly direction. And so it’s a very, very powerful group of principles. It’s about it’s about creating movements of good within organizational life, if you just kind of wanted to have a synopsis of it.
Rolando Rosas 11:34
Right. So let’s just let’s put on our, let’s use that UPS, for example. Right? We’ve got an announcement of layoffs, it’s going to hit the company quite hard for a lot of people who’ve been there for a long time. And you would you would probably agree that this is some change, that’s going to be happening, some transformational change. And if we want to create a movement for good, how do companies like UPS and others that are doing just that? You know, I’ve just read something the other day about a lot of tech companies gutting their D and AI program, and it’s super red hot right now, because there’s, you know, being thrown around in a lot of different directions. How do you create a movement for good in this current environment with companies like ups that are transforming the workplace that are doing layoffs that are going in the direction of AI? How do you what do you start with that, to create that movement? And good? Yeah,
Dr. Randy Ross 12:31
boy, this is a great, great conversation, I think that if you wanted to just make it really simple, you do everything you can to take care of your people. It’s as simple as that. Because there are two kinds of organizations, there are organizations that use people to grow the business. And there are a lot of those out in the world. But the other organizations are organizations that use the business to grow, and then the people will grow the business. So the question becomes, you know, what difference are you making in the world? What difference are you making not only for your clients, but what difference are you making for your own for the people that that constitute the organization? And I understand this is not a simple thing. It’s very complex, because UPS by laying off such a large amount of the labor force, yes, they’re saving a lot of money. But what in the long run is going to be impact of that on the culture? Will they ever be able to once again regain the confidence that they’re going to lose through such a severe layoff? Anyway, so
Rolando Rosas 13:37
it’s your experience? And let me jump in here? Because you’ve you’ve talked to really big companies, you’ve talked to delta and consulted with companies like delta, Berkshire Hathaway, Chick-fil-A, you have a long list of companies that you’ve advised, what’s your experience? Because the layoffs have been happening as long as I’ve been in the workforce? Seems like it’s a little different breed this time? What happens? or what have you seen when this type of movie plays itself out?
Dr. Randy Ross 14:06
Okay, well, first of all, let’s talk about the simple fact that sometimes there’s no way around it, it’s absolutely necessary to to eliminate some positions or scale back on your workforce. But in those circumstances, how you do that how you go about it still plays into Are you taking care of the people? Meaning that are you educating them? are you informing them? Are you providing them with resources to make a Healthy Transition? Are you just saying, Hey, thanks, guys, we appreciate it. So you like that? And that’s first and foremost is how now you create that employee experience because that employee experience is going to cascade down into your customer experience. How you treat your employees will directly impact how your customers will be treated? And does your organization take pride in the fact that you put people above profit? In other words, if you want to get down to the essence of it, thoughtful asked me, What’s the purpose of business? A lot of people would say, and most MBA programs would tell you through some, you know, very flowery language that the purpose of business is to make money. And day No, no watch, you know, I would say, if you don’t make money, you’re not going to be in business. But is the purpose of business really to make money? I think there’s a deep purpose to business. And that’s this, the business exists to improve the human condition. In other words, businesses should exist to solve problems in the world. And as we solve problems, we’re talking first and foremost about problems that we can provide answers for, for our own taking care of our own people. And then they take care of the product, delivery the customer, all the way down the line. So the question is, do you put making a difference above making $1? Or do you put making $1 above making a difference, if you put making a difference above $1, here’s what I can do, it will take place, people will gladly pay full price for those things that they mean bring true value to life. And another universal axiom is that people like to do good business with businesses that do good. So the balancing act that every organization has, is, do we cut out those things that are important for the growth and development of our people to save $1? Or do we make those cuts, knowing that it’s going to impact our people in a negative way? I think one of the challenges is, and you’ve already mentioned this, when the economy gets tight. When there’s fear of recession on the horizon, some of the most impactful people programs are eliminated learning and development. The DNI all those areas that help elevate the people are first things to go in are eliminated. But those
Rolando Rosas 16:56
why is that mean, you would think you just said it? And I would imagine, I know, we talked to a professor from University of Chicago, and she’s basically saying what you’re saying, and added that you treat your people, well, you pay them, well, you’re fair with them. You’re profitable, even in good and bad times. But why is it so hard for companies to embrace what you just said, knowing knowing that investment in r&d and people is what keeps the company going, the engine keeps chugging? Why is that so hard?
Dr. Randy Ross 17:27
I think it’s harder for publicly traded companies. Yeah, we got this got this fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders, because they want to make money off of their investment. And so there’s a lot of pressure to exchange, short term benefit for long term value. Because if you invest in your people, and it’s costly to do that, it’s going to show a short term loss. Well, if you’re driven by quarterly returns, it’s going to be a very difficult proposition to convince your shareholders that the best thing they can do is invest in something that’s costly, because they don’t see an immediate return. But the organizations that are the best that I’ve ever worked with, and that I’ve seen are those that don’t sacrifice long term value. For a short term gain. They play looking at the long run, they look, they play looking at the long view, because they know that in the short run, it may cost them a lot. But in the long view, they’re going to gain immensely more than they lost. So for instance, an organization that’s large looking at, you know, really constrictive times, what’s better to lay off a huge amount of the workforce and go back to the workforce and say, Hey, we’ve got we got a choice here, we can either lay a bunch of you off, or we can all agree together, we’re going to tighten our belts ride out this rough season, we’re all going to have to take a bit of a loss in the process. But would you rather be laid off or have a setback temporarily, and we try to maintain as many as we possibly can on the team, so that when the economy expands again, we’re ready and we’re willing, I think if organizations were transparent, and they gave people that option, that choice, many people choose to tighten their belt and they will say we will take a short term hit. If it means in the long run, it’s going to be best for the organization and best for us. The problem is that there’s such a low level of trust in corporate circles right now because of all the we’ve been through.
Rolando Rosas 19:32
What do you do to build that trust? So we we’ve like you’re saying trust is at an all time low, you know, people, some people one of work from home or some executives they get back in the office or, or else and managers are caught in the middle and they say, you know, my team wants me to do more of remote and hybrid. How do you get to those people may be caught in the middle the between the executive team investors and the frontline employees that may be having some differences in where they what they want to do versus what’s being demanded at the investor level of the C suite. How do you talk to those managers that are not sure exactly how to navigate this environment and build trust with their teams?
Dr. Randy Ross 20:23
Well, you’re touching on the thing that right now is the biggest challenge in corporate circles. Because we all know that people don’t quit jobs, they quit managers.
Rolando Rosas 20:32
Indeed, I did.
Dr. Randy Ross 20:35
And people thrive in relationally rich environments. But the challenge is right now, managers are being stressed out. Because they are caught in the middle. They don’t know what to do, they’re ill equipped to create a relationally rich environment, they don’t know how to take care of their people that got the demands being leveled on them from the C suite. But yet they know that in order to have a productive frontline team, what’s being forced upon them is not going to work in the long run. And so they’re caught in this quagmire. And most people are ill equipped, and ill prepared to face that. That’s why this conversation about culture is so critically important. Because how you take care of your people is going to define your success. If you have a revolving door, there’s low trust, if there’s, here’s how we define a remarkable culture, this might, this might be helpful, go for it, or remarkable culture as we set forth in our book. Remarkable is a culture that possesses a trilogy of characteristics. And we say it’s a place where people believe the best in one another, they want the best for one another. And so therefore, they expect the best from one another. Now, believing the best in one another speaks to trust, right? Where trust is high, resistance is low, and change and progress can come quickly. But where, where trust is low resistance is high. And we’re seeing so much resistance right now, in the workforce, that it’s, it’s alarming to be quite honest, and low levels of productivity, low levels of happiness and low levels of engagement. There’s just not this high degree of trust, which leads to a low degree of connectivity, and compassion, which is the second part, wanting the best for each other. And then lastly, believing the best so that we expect the best withdraw the very best out of people, that all has to be intentionally cultivated. Because every organization interesting, you know, the way he phrased it, when we first started, every organization, wherever people gather, you’re going to have a culture, that is the culture is either going to be by design, or by default. Either you’re consciously thinking about it and always trying to improve it, or one day, you’re going to wake up with a culture that by default, it’s just going to be there because you didn’t give it priority. You didn’t keep your hand on the helm of culture, you started sliding sideways, you got caught in the storm, you’re adrift. And it’s not a place where people are happy.
Rolando Rosas 23:11
Let me ask you something is that then the culture piece? Is that the let’s call them the pill are the guardians who will use a Hollywood term the guardians of culture? Is it the C suite? Is it the managers? Or is it the entire collective? It’s up to everybody in that organization to maintain that the culture or values within that company? Or again? Or is it just kind of just kind of spontaneously happening? And again, we’re just kind of going along with the plan?
Dr. Randy Ross 23:42
Yes. Yes, it is, it is spontaneously happening. But it’s best if we all together are on the same page. And our values are not only established, but they’re embraced, they’re embodied. And they’re imbued by everyone in the organization. Now that let me just put it this way, you’re absolutely right. The best organizations, it cascades from the top, there’s no doubt about it. But everybody comes together, they’re unified. They’re excited about those values, they, they embrace those values, they live at those values. But even if the top two your leadership hasn’t supported or bought into it entirely, you can still have phenomenal culture within your work subgroup within your team. Now, it’s hard for that to be productive long term, because if you don’t have support from above, you’re only going to be able to have a limited impact with your immediate team. But it’s interesting. You talked about coaches in athletic organizations, I mean, I see this all the time in college athletics, what professionally as well. A lot depends upon the tone that the coach sets no doubt about absolutely they, they set the culture, they established the values they, they demonstrate what they want everyone else to do. But it’s interesting to, you know, when you when you read or talk with guys like Coach K, Coach chef ski,
Rolando Rosas 25:18
you know, he writes, those who don’t know, Coach K, he’s the head coach at Duke.
Dr. Randy Ross 25:21
There you go.
Rolando Rosas 25:23
There you go, Man basketball, amazing,
Dr. Randy Ross 25:25
amazing career. And he talks about in his book, how he creates the culture. And it’s interesting, because what he does is he breeds pride within the team. And he says, he says, You’re, you’re not just living, you’re playing for your family first. Or your team, you’re your teammates, second, for the school. Third, take pride in what you do. And so therefore, he has very, very few rules and guidelines and policies, he just simply says, you represent your family, this team and the school, so do what’s right.
Dave Kelly 26:10
Interesting. And so in that, in that scenario, you know, when they’re putting the families first, are they at the same time using that to, to motivate but kind of in a in a tough way your family is, first you’re not doing your job, you’re letting your family down? Like, do you see how, when they put the family first, you’re working for your family, thus, you need to work twice as hard for us, you need to work on the weekends with us, you need to dedicate more time to us, you know, I’ve worked bird sales organizations that they put you at the head of your family, you’re doing this for your family, but then they’re threatening that against you you want, you know, if you fail at this job, or if you don’t do it exactly the way that we want it to, you are doing your family at the service, like I do see that kind of both sides of the coin, and that type of leadership for that type of culture. Well, you bring
Dr. Randy Ross 27:06
up a real good point, because here’s the reality is values always compete in an organization, let’s just say in in the utility space, they have a value of timeliness, and they have a value of safety. And the organizations that I work with, say was safe to use first. That’s great, unless someone’s out in the field trying to fix an electrical line. And they’re being pushed to compromise safety protocols in order to meet, quote, a deadline to get things back up and operational within a certain window. So you can’t have it both ways. You have to establish what’s priority. What coach case as is, is basically make your mother proud. I mean, that’s what he’s saying. Don’t do anything that is going to bring disgrace to your family. Make your mother proud. Now how that boils down. If an organization says, Therefore that means you do everything we asked you to do? Well, no, that’s not. That’s not the essence of it. The idea is, we don’t have to have a lot of rules and policies and procedures. Just make your mother proud in organizational life. I mean, think about, think about the policies and procedures manuals that most organizations have. It’s very heavy, it’s four inches thick, and it’s heavy. Why don’t we just say something like this, Hey, we trust you to be an adult. act like an adult. But you
Rolando Rosas 28:34
know this better than either you’ve been on college campuses in I don’t know if you’ve played college sports, but I’ve heard those words. And I’ve been in that locker room where coaches say that, and you know, guys on Saturday night after the game will be guys when they’re 19 or 20. And I say that to bring that over the corporate environment, because people will be people. And they sometimes take shortcuts, because that’s the most for them most efficient way to get the job done with and sacrificing the values that you’re espousing.
Dr. Randy Ross 29:04
And that’s where coaching comes into play. And that’s one of the things that is horrifically undervalued in corporate circles is that coaching element? How do you have good healthy, real time coaching conversations? Most organizations just do what you do. If you do something wrong, we’ll let you know. And so the hammer, the hammer falls pretty hard when it falls. But the reality is we should be having good healthy coaching conversations with our teams all the time. And back to the to the whole idea and I’m being a little extreme and obviously we do have to have some policies and procedures manuals, I’m not suggesting or throw all those out. But what I would like to see is more organizations have this attitude, hey, act like an adult. And if we see behavior that we don’t believe represents you Who in the organization? Well, we’re gonna immediately bring to your attention will tell you when you’re not acting like an adult. Right. And the back to Dave’s point is that if that demand from the organization does not meet your personal value construct, and there’s conflict and what the organization is asking you to do, that’s definitely a huge demotivator you need to stop and assess and go oh, enemy is this the environment that actually represents my values? I think one of the biggest responsibilities of corporate leadership is to attach personal passion and values, personal values, to corporate objectives. Because when we can do that, then we have a dynamic workforce.
Rolando Rosas 30:43
You know, I hear that and, you know, I think about you are probably familiar with Southwest Airlines, and their, the way they work the way they operate. And also, if we were to stay in the airline industry, prior to the United merger with continental continental was very much the same way, in creating a company culture where people actually wanted to be part of the company, even down to the call center level I, I had a lot of interactions with their call centers, and people within the call centers, they were proud of the work, they liked it. And from the CEO down, it seemed like people were very aligned with goals, motivation and, and incentive structures. How can more companies exercise this type of philosophy and culture building, so they align their goals, their corporate goals, the values as well as the incentives?
Dr. Randy Ross 31:40
Again, I think it gets back to an attitude and disposition of value construct that the organization establishes, and then lives by it’s not a matter of just having the values on a plaque in the lobby, they have to actually live by those. And again, that’s what the book Remarkable about is about. Because there are some axioms or universal truths of applied axiology. A couple of things I’ll just throw out here real quickly, that helped codify a culture. And the first one is the principle of creativity, which just simply says that we’re all designed to create value in life. Pretty basic concept. We’re all we feel good about doing good. So the question that comes up is, on a daily basis, do you bring more value to the table? Do you create more value than you take? That’s a great, that’s a great question. It’s a great, great conversation to have. Because when you’re talking about individual performers, do you bring more to the organization to your team on a daily basis, then you try to extract? Now the organization should be asking the same thing do we bring more to our employees, in terms of growth opportunities, in terms of them being able to pursue career objectives? Do we give them an opportunity to learn, grow and develop? And do we bring more value to the table for our team in terms of employee experience, then we expect in return, when everybody comes to the table, and they create more value than they take an interesting thing happens. At the end of the day, there’s more on the table, that can be shared by everybody who helped create that value. But if everybody who comes to the table is a value extracted, meaning that the organization is trying to get the most they can out of the people and the people are trying to get the most they can out of the organization. And team members are trying to get the most they can from each other rather than bringing more value to each other, then it’s not too very long until there’s nothing left on the table. When there’s nothing left on the table, the game is over go home. And that’s what we often see in a lot of these corporate negotiations is everybody’s trying to get their piece of bigger piece. Well, everybody can’t do that. And I think one of the things we’ve got to do is we got to think about not just our shareholders, but our stakeholders, who are stakeholders, while they’re our employees. First, there, our supply chain. There, all of our vendors, those are our our stakeholders, they all have a stake in the success of this organization. And if we robbed the stakeholders in order to produce for the shareholders, then we created a toxic environment where we’re our stakeholders are not going to trust where the organization is going to go. And it’s a very, very difficult dynamic for organizations that are publicly traded. And,
Dave Kelly 34:40
you know, we were talking about people over profits, you know, this example with Southwest. When I had flown southwest. You had a feeling that was a positive culture, the employees that I spoke to, they were like, excited to share their culture and how They were treated as the stakeholders, they were treated, the employees were almost treated as the customers. And then that would trickle down to a positive experience. I think about another associate another business that you’re associated with. Chick-fil-A, my wife recently went to Chick-fil-A, and they were closed. It was a Sunday, when she came home, she said, I was really craving this and they were closed. But that’s right. That’s right. They’re closed on Sundays. I’ve only been to the that restaurant two or three times in my life. But every time that I have been, you’ve been waiting in line, you’ve had exceptional, exceptional customer service, they’ve come right up to your car door before you even had a chance to get to the window. They’re smiling, they’re greeting you, once they get your order. They’re using your name. And when I’ve driven away from that restaurant, I’m left with like, these are fast food workers. These people must be treated fantastic. This is just a fast food business. And like you’re totally taken aback by this experience that was so positive. So that’s one example. They’re closed on Sundays. They’re giving to their stakeholders. They’re not just taking and then what we receive as consumers is this fantastic experience. Right next door to that business is Hobby Lobby. Also, when I’ve gone into Hobby Lobby, fantastic experience can I help you sir cannot be find anything did you find everything right there, you know, it doesn’t come off as sarcasm comes off as you’re looking to offer assistance. Also close on Sunday. People over profits. So I that’s an interesting piece. That’s probably part of their culture that they built in at the very beginning of when we open up this is going to be part of it. And they’ve held they’ve held to that they they don’t seem to have deviated from that that value pillar, if you will.
Dr. Randy Ross 37:01
I love this conversation. They let me just go back and let’s talk about those three examples just real quickly. Ginger hardage, who for years was responsible for the culture of Southwest Airlines is a good friend of mine and southwest they they built a reputation on hiring happy people and their customer service their their customer experience has been stellar. You recall what was almost a year and a half ago now when they hit that huge debacle where they had the the crash of their systems during the storms and they couldn’t get everybody rebooked and it was a nightmare. They struggled immensely during that period of time because they weren’t able to deliver the kind of service that people had expected. And they’re still struggling to bounce back from that but but they they’re intent on trying to regain you know what they lost previously, Chick-fil-A. The book Remarkable by the way that we’re talking about that this is all based upon Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A wrote the foreword to the book. And David siders, a friend of mine co authored the book with me the book is not about Chick-fil-A but it’s about a lot of the principles that have made Chick-fil-A great through the years and they’ve used our book and training. But but the key I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but just recently it was brought out in the in the media that Chick-fil-A, this is Chick-fil-A just surpassed 18 almost $19 billion dollars worth in sales, meaning that they sold in 2020 to more chicken than their top five competitors combined. That’s Kentucky Fried Chicken Popeyes chains Wingstop and Zach
Rolando Rosas 38:48
bass and some bigger competitors. Now even KFC, you know, they’re around the world with tons of 1000s of outlets. Well,
Dr. Randy Ross 38:56
interesting. So So those five competitors have almost 11,000 11,000 outlets, distribution outlets. Chick-fil-A did that with 3000 outlets. Wow. Yes. Thank you. So you’re talking about here’s here’s what makes it so special. I don’t know if you’re familiar. You know what Chick-fil-A’s motto is right now. I don’t tell us to be the world’s most caring company. Hmm. That’s what the that’s what the Red Couch commercials are all about acts of kindness, taking care of people taking care of people putting so you
Rolando Rosas 39:35
can do that. So. So you can do that and be profitable. That’s kind of what I hear you saying you can take care of your people. They can be happy. They can go home at least a day. In this case, it’s a retail business right? They can go a day counting on it to do whatever they want. Family Travel whatever they
Dr. Randy Ross 39:54
want. Take people love your people. So Hobby Lobby Hobby Lobby. Chick-fil-A cut out of the same plot, give them a day off, invest deeply in their growth and development. They both have incredible internal programs that elevate and provide resources for their people to learn, grow and develop to become better. So they, whether you stay there, or whether you go anywhere else, you’re gonna be well educated and well prepared to be a powerful force in the workforce. And so you train and develop your people. So that they can be successful anywhere they go, but you love them so deeply, they want to stay. And that’s the key. And I think when you look at Chick-fil-A statistics, and you realize that that’s the the atmosphere, that’s the culture, it permeates the employee experience is what they put on the front burner. And then consequently, Dave, to your point, you see that cascade down to the customer? But what is being the world’s most caring company how to do a selling check? Not well. I mean, it’s not what you do. It’s how you do it. So
Rolando Rosas 41:10
can you do that? So if you can do this, I mean, I worked at Wendy’s when I was in when I was in high school. And it’s not an easy environment. People come through the drive thru sometimes yelling, screaming drunk, all of the above, right? You get all of all of America comes through the drive thru window at times. If you could do this at retail, can employers that are non retail, you know, financial tech, healthcare, they could also do this in their workplace. Now, of
Dr. Randy Ross 41:46
course, of course, she can win. I think the one of the most challenging places to do it is in a quick service restaurant, like you’re talking about. You have to do this in the hospitality space. But it’s so incredibly impactful. But these principles transcend. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about personally, or whether you’re talking about corporately, all these principles of axiology are transcendent, meaning that they are agnostic in terms of vertical or industry that can be applied anywhere with great impact.
Rolando Rosas 42:18
Interesting, I, I am just surprised and amazed when you know we have we’ve had similar conversations with the one of the first HR executives over at LinkedIn, we’ve had a number of people come in and talk to us about exactly what you’re talking about putting people first, and the people will take care of the profits. And we we had a professor come on and tell us that there’s a number of studies, numerous studies that already proving this, and showing the positive impact on stock price. And so for me, when I hear, you know, in everybody got fired on an email, and that’s it, they’re gone. It just is as if they don’t know better. Or, like there was a lack of information on how to do this properly, when there clearly is data, hard data that shows like what you’re talking about with Chick-fil-A, for example, that there’s a better way. And there’s a way that it’ll create more profits than we ever think about. Oh,
Dr. Randy Ross 43:21
absolutely. And the whole idea is pretty simple to understand, more challenging to put into practice, but it’s simply this, that happy people do better work. And people do better work when they’re happy doing the work alongside people that they enjoy. And so the key is, how do we as leaders create relationally rich environments where people can flourish. And that’s, that’s what remarkable is about. But it’s also about it. I wrote another book not too many years ago called a Relationomics, the power of healthy relationships to drive business. And back to the crunch that you’re talking about that frontline manager is oftentimes the most ill equipped person, they’re well intended. Maybe they were a great subject matter expert, or they were a great individual contributor. Now the organization has tapped in to be a leader of people, and they don’t know how to create that relationally rich environment. But those skills can be learned. And that’s what we talk about in the book Relationomics. And that’s what we consult with organizations about all the time is how can managers apply principles like open loops of continuous feedback? How do you develop good coaching conversations? How do you address toxic behavior? How do you eliminate toxic behavior? How do you know whom to invest in who to give a second chance? All of these are basic concepts and principles that many people might say, well, that’s just common sense. But I can assure you it’s not common practice. In the book relation, Amex tastes the principles of remote markable. And it’s very practical tools that can be used to help organizations grow, leaders are worth following. Because that’s really ultimately what we’re talking about. We’re talking about helping leaders mature to become leaders that are worth following.
Rolando Rosas 45:17
And for those that are, are listening on the audio side of the podcast, we have the book rRlationomics on our video site, and looks like and on Amazon, which is a very hard place to succeed, we are on Amazon, we sell a bunch of IT stuff, you’ve got a 4.7 rating on that book, which is not an easy feat. To get anything above four is and sustain that on Amazon is not an easy thing to do. So people are getting a lot of value out of that book.
Dr. Randy Ross 45:50
Well, I appreciate that. And again, it goes back to Remarkable! and let me just let’s talk about that word for one. Second. The the word is powerful. It’s the name of our company. It’s the name of the book. But remarkable means that you deliver a service or a product. And you do so in such a way that you blow people away. That you exceed expectations that you deliver world class service, you go above and beyond. And you make a positive impact on someone’s life, even if just for a moment. But you do it to such a degree, that when people leave your presence, they have this irrepressible desire to talk about you and the difference that you made when you were there in their presence. And that’s what because when people are remarking about New, then you indeed have become remarkable. Robert Stevens, who is the founder of Geek Squad, he made this statement in an Ink Magazine article he said, advertising is a tax you pay for being unremarkable. I love them. Because they what you’re talking about, you know, when you drive away from Chick-fil-A, and you’re going wow, that was a great experience. They were friendly people that that double drive thru line went amazingly fast. They got my order, right.
Dave Kelly 47:10
And they call me by name. I know you. Yeah.
Dr. Randy Ross 47:15
I mean, I mean, for for a quick service restaurant. That’s pretty darn good.
Rolando Rosas 47:20
That’s very good. I’ve been worked in it myself, I can tell you it is very challenging. You know, the pay is not like you’re not getting rich, right. But I guess you’d like you said, having a frontline manager that is equipped with the right tools makes a difference. I know I left Wendy’s. I was actually on my way to college, and the manager made me feel a lot less than who I was. And it wasn’t a great feeling. And I was like, you know, I don’t need this, let me a couple of months, I’m going to be somewhere else anyways. And I’m going to move on to something better than this. And I was not going to allow a manager to put me down even if I’m working at Wendy’s making minimum wage. But you don’t have to treat workers like that to get the best out of them. And I really love that about what you’re saying. And so what I want to, before we wind up, I want to ask you to look into your crystal ball. You know, there’s a lot of change happening right now. If you had to look at things and I love also like looking at things half full rather than half empty. Give me some of the good news, what’s what’s happening out there that should inspire or we should be aspired to do with what you see and talking to all the different clients that you’re talking to?
Dr. Randy Ross 48:39
Well, I think the good news is that a lot of organizations are beginning to wake up to the fact that their people the right people are the greatest asset that they have. Now, I often say this in jest, when I’m in a conference, I’ll say how many of you believe that your people your greatest asset, raise your hand, most everybody raises their hand and say that that’s that’s not accurate? That’s not actually true. People are not your greatest asset, the right people are your greatest asset, because the wrong people are your greatest liability. So thinking about the right people, when an organization has a great culture, they are both attractive, and they are repulsive. They attract the right kind of talent, they repel the they repel the wrong kind of talent. And that the good news on the horizon is that many organizations now are waking up to the fact that our productivity is tied to how we take care of our people think they’re beginning to see that, you know, for a long time, the Gallup studies on engagement. It was like Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bright. Nobody paid much attention to it because they say we’re having a hard time seeing the direct impact on the bottom line. Now there’s no question that that that debate is long passed, and we know that how Our people feel about the organization will drive the success of the organization. So the question is, how are we taking care of our people? What are we teaching them? Are we respecting them? Are we helping them grow back to the trilogy? Do we believe the best in each other, want the best for each other, and therefore expect the best from each other. And the best organizations I know are healthy coaching organizations. You know, turnover in QSR, quick service restaurants is extremely high. In most hospitality spaces, it is. But the best companies are the ones that say you know what, we may have a high turnover. But while you’re with us, we’re going to treat you with respect, we’re going to treat you with dignity, we’re going to invest deeply in you so that even if you go as a college student, you know, Dave, you’re on your Rolando, to your point, even if you leave us in a few months to go to college, we want you to look back on this experience as one of the best experiences you ever had. Because we helped prepare you to have a productive career. And we built you up and we believed in you and we launched you into a successful career. Because then as you get into the workforce, you look back on that experience with positive memories with affection. And appreciation not only have you become a raving fan, but what are you going to do
Rolando Rosas 51:23
to talk to people about Wendy’s, you should go eat there, because the burgers are great.
Dr. Randy Ross 51:26
You’re going to be an ambassador for the brand, wherever you go. And just I guess,
Rolando Rosas 51:30
I guess you cannot be a raving fan. Because people are into the fandom right now being on social media, you can’t have raving fans, I guess. Can’t or can you have raving fans? If you don’t have raving employees?
Dr. Randy Ross 51:45
I think it’s next to impossible. I really think it’s next to impossible because your your biggest and best fan base should be your team members.
Rolando Rosas 51:55
Love that. I love that. I love that. I want to let’s, let’s end on that positive note. But before we end, we’d love to play a little game called Rapid Fire. It’s a fun little segment, just to kind of what’s in your brain when you hear some of these phrases and words. So alright, kick off our rapid fire segment. All right, here we go. I want to give it a start. And Dave’s gonna help me out. We’ll we’ll alternate back and forth. Whatever hits your brain when you hear these words. Walmart versus Amazon.
Dr. Randy Ross 52:37
Wow, massive scale challenging to deliver
Dave Kelly 52:43
favorite social media platform?
Dr. Randy Ross 52:48
For me, I have to say LinkedIn, it’s more professionally based.
Rolando Rosas 52:54
Favorite piece of tech.
Dr. Randy Ross 52:59
Oh, man, that’s a tough one favorite piece of tech is supposed to be a flash round. And here I am stalling. Answer. I think learning platforms have evolved. And I would say the one I’m working with rally is a phenomenally interactive, change oriented learning platform that have great confidence.
Dave Kelly 53:21
The first thing you reach for in the morning.
Rolando Rosas 53:25
My coffee. Oh, yes. All right. Coffee. That loved this one because I love finding out if there’s stuff I’m missing. So what’s your favorite podcast if you have one? My favorite
Dr. Randy Ross 53:40
podcast? It’s gotta be What The What The Tech? Hey, all right.
Dave Kelly 53:47
And other than
Rolando Rosas 53:48
other than the Nars, we’ll take others so that we can learn as well from what you’re learning?
Dr. Randy Ross 53:54
Well, I mean, one of the biggest obviously is Rogan, and he’s got such a great way of delivering solid information in a way that challenges you to think whether you agree or disagree with the perspectives presented. There’s great information that comes through that.
Rolando Rosas 54:10
He certainly if I were to right now, he’s the Howard Stern of podcasts, right? He hasn’t been dethroned yet, but I’m sure there’s other budding podcasters that are trying to get there. As we speak.
Dr. Randy Ross 54:25
Good conversations. I think, you know, some good content come from that thought provoking is what I like. Heathrow does that. I’m also a Jordan Peterson fan. So anything Jordan Peterson is on. Okay,
Rolando Rosas 54:37
I haven’t checked him out. I’ll have to check him out.
Dave Kelly 54:40
And Randy, excluding your four books. What’s a game changing book that you’ve read?
Dr. Randy Ross 54:46
Viktor Frankl, it’s a classic he wrote Man’s Search for Meaning. And if you’ve not read that, it will turn your world upside down and inside out. It’s about that You’ve faced embrace some of life’s most challenging circumstances and come out victorious on the other side. I love that.
Rolando Rosas 55:07
I haven’t read that book. But it sounds interesting. There we go, or he’s got it up. It’s it’s Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl also highly rated as well. So it’s available. You want Kindle, it’s there and available for taking. It sits like, I already took it off the screen. That’s alright. Well, we’ll, we’ll go check that one out. So we’ve been having a cover we before we move on, if people want to get in touch with you, they they you don’t want. We want Dr. Randy to come in and talk to us because he’s got something he’s got his finger on the pulse and bring him in and get get the ship going in the right direction. What should people do? Well,
Dr. Randy Ross 55:51
it’s easy to reach out to me. First look at our website. And that’s DrRandy ross.com br No period, DrRandyross.com. And you can find us there. You can get all of our books. They’re available on wherever fine books are sold on any of your online book ordering platforms from BAM to Amazon to Barnes and Noble. And you can reach out directly to me our are at DrRandyross.com. There
Rolando Rosas 56:21
you go. We’ve got your website as well up on the screen, people can take a look at that, visit that website. That’s DrRandyross.com. Check him out. Check them out on LinkedIn to get a lot of posts there as well. And if you want to follow him, we’ve been talking to Dr. Randy Ross, on culture, how to really get your company culture of right creating raving fans. I love that internally. The you need that in order to have raving fandom outside of the company. And if you want to nerd out and learn more about how to work under pressure as a leader, you’ll want to go check out our last episode with the former blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes. He revealed how he went from rags to riches literally remember that Dave talking about his house didn’t even have running water, plumbing in it. He had an outhouse. As a matter of fact, growing up as a kid, so check that episode, I guarantee you, you’re gonna pick up a thing or two you’ve never learned before. It’s definitely stories about blockbuster that are under the radar that people are not talking about on why they did not make it. Alright, so thank you for joining us today. Randy, we really appreciate you coming on the podcast. Want to have you again because we didn’t even get to half the questions that we wanted to talk about with you today. So we got to stay tuned for the second round with you. So thank you. Thank you, Dr. Randy. Go ahead.
Dr. Randy Ross 57:57
Absolutely Rolando. David, great to be with you. I really enjoyed the conversation. And thank you for your time. Awesome.
Rolando Rosas 58:04
Thank you very much. We’ll see you on the next episode.
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