Why Your Culture Might Be Holding You Back

I can't tell you how many companies I've walked into where everybody knows who the problem people are welcome to the let's talk business podcast a project of the PEX group gain valuable actionable ideas from the world's top Business Leaders to help you take the next step in your business journey and now here is your host Manny Hoffman coming to you from the PEX headquarters in Brooklyn New York this is the podcast for no anent advice to help you learn grow and lead today I'm so excited to welcome our guest Dr Darren Martin Dr Martin is a business strategist best-selling author and a trusted adviser to Fortune 500 companies and small businesses alike in our interview we dive into the power of company culture why's not just part of the game but it is the game you learn how to assess your company's culture avoid common pitfalls and implement the four C's which is call it craft It cast it and cultivate it Daren also shares why perks are in culture and how real leadership drives lasting change this is one of my favorite topics without further Ado let's get right to our conversation with Dr Darren Martin before we dive into this week's episode I wanted to share an opportunity that many business owners are already taking advantage of now we're about to wrap up q1 if you're feeling stuck or unsure about your next move in your business there's still time to turn things around that's where a Clarity session comes in this is a focus one time strategy session with me personally where we'll break down your biggest challenges identify opportunities and map out your best next steps for your business you walk away with a clear action plan to move forward with confidence now I want to make this clear from the get-go this is not an ongoing Consulting offer you know your business best this session is simply about giving you the clarity and Direction you need to take action and make the rest of the year a success many entrepreneurs have already gained incredible value from those sessions so don't miss out reach out to me now by emailing podcast pexg group.com I look forward speaking to you and seeing how I could bring more clarity to your business Dr Darren Martin thank you so much for joining me on the let's business podcast I am so excited we we started this process a bit back and it's finally coming to fruition so I'm really looking forward to visiting with you and your listeners sure sure sure so some of the guests that um that come to the show is people that I know in the industry some people get referred through others I think um I reached out randomly to you because I've seen your content I've followed some of the stuff and I figured that this is a topic that our listeners are pretty familiar with and we're all struggle with as Leaders we always struggle um to get better at it so I figured that bringing you on to the show would be a you know our our listeners were really appreciate the content so thank you for making the time and being here with me today I'm thrilled to be here and we're talking about my favorite absolute subject so even better bonus I'm always up for talking about uh culture very cool so so give us a little bit of a background obviously you have a a long history you've been a bestseller author you've been a speaker that's been traveling the world give us a little bit of the backstory of how you got to to make culture the you know the focal point of your career and something that you're passionate about teaching so I will back way up but uh accelerate it you know through college Etc I worked I worked at Kroger for four years I worked at a fast food place for six months uh and then ultimately and I did a lot of things then uh ultimately I started and ran my own company for 20 years and the reason I give some of that because sometimes uh people that are advisers Consultants haven't necessarily done anything in the business world so with especially building a a company from the ground up uh you know up to around 50 people I've awake at 400 in the morning worried about making payroll and some of those things that you know a lot of folks can relate to it wasn't till um later though when I left that world and did go into Consulting I I was fortunate to get out with the little Boutique consulting firm and I started going into Fortune 500 but even a few Fortune 50 I I was had a very large defense contractor for a year and a half sat next to the president uh was there a week and month working on basically their initiatives and culture and as I say over time when you're in I was in a big oil and gas company2 billion oil and gas company when you're where you're in those environments and also a lot of Mom and Pops you start to see The Good the Bad and the Ugly and that's where the books came from and the further into the work that I was doing the more I came to see that culture is everything when gersner I don't know if you've read who says elephants can't jump but when gersner went to IBM he made a very profound statement he said when I got there I knew that culture was an important part of it long with strategy and finances and all this other stuff and he says in the book halfway through I realized I was dead wrong culture is not an important part of the game he said it is the game if you don't change culture you don't change the company so it's ironic that only 16% of Executives say they're is where it needs to be when all this data says it's it ought to be the number one thing yeah so so we're going to get into the nitty-gritty part of culture and I think um giving real live examples for business owners to understand how they measure the temperature of the culture and we'll talk about it um I want I want to just get you you know on the surface level um there's a line I've been using um speaking to business owners and even on this podcast probably many many times has you know that line has been shared which is when you speak to some people about culture and you say name a company that has a great culture they'll mention Google because they have ping pong table and babysitting service H and they confuse culture with perks and stuff like that uh in your definition what is a good culture a good culture is uh a place where people actually want to come to work on Monday morning and there's a quote going around I'm sure you've heard I don't know the origin but it says culture is how you feel on Sunday night right and my definition of culture is it's the behaviors the feelings the words people use about your company and the results they produce culture is both a leading indicator but it's also a trailing indicator if people don't speak up in meetings they're either bored or they're fearful and it could be either one so great culture to me you know we can use historic no longer valid necessarily examples but Zappos Patagonia but the crazy thing is people go yeah well those are Boutique you know that's a a niche it's harder for a a different company but I think in and out burger for example has amazing culture and I could point to some of the things I believe they do that create that but the r Carlton you know so it's every there is no respector of culture or company size when it comes to culture you can have a mom and pop with a six people in a terrible culture and you can have a a 6,000 employee you know deal I was actually talking to somebody recently who said that the and this was firsthand so I give it a little validity but that uh their friend works for apple and says they love it they absolutely love it and I said well why do they love it and he said because they don't care uh when you work if you want to if your cycle is you want to work at 400 in the morning you work at 4: in the morning I thought wow that's you know that's unique interestingly mentioning because you mentioned apple and I've I've had a a very close friend in the tech business that actually visited apple and visited Google on many occasions and he said both companies have an amazing culture but so different that you almost feel it in the air you feel it in the air you walk into that building in the campus you feel it so different and I tell people this it's palpable I can walk into a store or a business and immediately get a read for what the culture is like uh I'm sure you can as well it's just it's it's in the energy in the room and the way people do or don't greet you the look of the all of that and what people get you know they they do what I call uh uh copycat culture oh Google does this we should do that no your business might not be set up for that at all you know that might be the terrible strategy I'm I'm at a company now and I'm I'm not exclusive to the oil and gas base but I just happen to be a company that is in that space and they drill they're an investment fund but they also do Drilling and I go out to the field where they're drilling you can't do a Google culture with a bunch of you know oil field uh Drillers in fact some of their culture is about talking trash to each other and you know things you would go well that's a terrible culture and yet they love the company they love the people they work with so so let me ask you um a followup question and this is something our listeners would appreciate because every company has a culture even if it's if you um you were um definitive about creating a culture or not it's like like there is some sort of culture even if you if even if you have zero effort towards culture something developed there and this is a mistake some business owners think they say you know what now I'm going to start working on my culture guess what there is a culture you might want to work to change it but there is a culture out there yeah so my question to you on that is um have you seen a lot of the examples you gave and a lot of the companies we use in in case studies about culture these are from the ground up was developed with that mindset with that vision from a leader founder that this is the type of culture I want to build have you seen leaders taking initiative and saying you know what I don't like where my culture is going I don't like how the team feels about the company in the culture I'm going to turn things around have you seen successful companies do that absolutely in fact that's the first C I've got the four C's of company culture in my book architecting and Company culture and the first C is call it by the right name that's the hardest part for executives call it by the right name and I say if you want to know what's going on you know get out of the suite and into the street you got to go find because in my experience the larger the gap between the stated culture and and the actual culture the more dysfunctional the company and I can't tell you how many leaders tell me oh we got a great company culture but it's not evidenced out right so that's the start we were uh you know going into Co I got a call from my my buddy Larry Larry buys up old historic properties in Dallas and repurposes them for hotels or things and he built this amazing we've been at the Open House hotel that was like originally rata end he turned it into a art forward Boutique really trendy hotel and in fact it was named the top or the most instagramable hotel in in um in Dallas so he calls me up says hey something's wrong can you come help me figure it out so I said sure So I went in and you know long long story short as they say I interviewed the top 10 people the leaders and it was an absolute disaster I called him I said Larry not only do I know what's wrong I know how to fix it the guy at the top was running a boutique um fashion Ford you know Art Hotel with thousand piece of original artwork like it was a like it was a pawn shop I'm like dude you know he's cutting Corners the the controller as it turns out was stealing money not or not depositing checks uh the head of housekeeping told me uh one of my leadership skills is I'm really good with the little people which point he was out in my brain took a little bit but the head of sales said uh he was also the head of social media and he said social media can't help you it only hurt you and somebody come on and post a picture and say hey here's me at the pool 11 life at and they Tagg the hotel he'd come on and say you got to take that down so we came in about half the people were gone for very good reasons brought in a GM that hotel in 15 months went from 57 on trip advisor to number one they want all sorts of awards because the owner recognize something's not right now would the guy that was in charge have ever done that on his own no but have I seen leaders do that it's few and far between because we tend to uh stay in the bubble we've created for ourselves but it absolutely can happen and I love that I love seeing something like like that where somebody goes hey this isn't going well and we're going to do an about phase so so let's continue because you mentioned you mentioned the four C's that you write in your book um we spoke about the first one um if you could touch on the other three um just to give us a full picture of of what is the makeup of a good culture so call it by the right name then you have to craft it and I say all cultures happen by default or by Design I love your statement about you have a culture I was in north Texas woman came on the radio and said there's a lot of weather in North Texas today and I'm like there's always weather you mean it's good weather or bad weather same same thing with culture and then you have to cast it and of course you know everybody's familiar with the old get the right people on the bus but we don't often talk about and I try to talk about it in the book what are the right people and what are the wrong people and how does that fit for our particular culture someone can be wildly competent successful and yet like a complete Fish Out of Water I was at a oil and gas company they hired a controller he' worked in Europe and he didn't get it he'd walk in all you know European style and he'd go out to the field and have a sweater tied around his neck and a Refinery you know and just had this air about him and he was I thought he was brilliant and could have really done some great things for the company but he didn't last because he wasn't the right person in the right fit and then the last thing is you have to cultivate it you don't wind it up and just let it Loose it's something that you have to be on on a regular basis so that's the for C's hey listeners are you struggling to create beautiful looking proposals is it a hassle every time you need to prepare a quote or proposal for your clients is collecting signatur still a manual process well it's time to upgrade to pandadoc at PEX we use pandadoc for all our proposals employee dentation and so much more it saves us time keeps everything organized and our documents look incredibly professional with customizable templates real-time collaboration and E signatures pandadoc turns creating document into quick and easy steps plus it integrates with so many other tools streamlining your workflow and boosting productivity try pandadoc today by visiting px. c/ pandadoc and start your free trial trust me it's going to be a game changer for your business that's PTX doco slpn da do o let's talk about um um how to go about it um in terms of um a company let's say once there's an owner that wants to obviously one of the places where company company feels the culture uh on two fronts one sometimes it actually shows the up in the bottom line because the company is not doing well and they start figuring out why another bucket of places where it where it comes up is you know employee retention you start seeing that just there's a turnover of people and you figure out why you you went through the recruiting process you hired this great guy but they're not lasting and then they're finding out okay they were expecting a certain culture but it's not there those are the two places I've seen culture show up have you seen any other places where culture shows up well let me let me let me comment on the one you just mentioned because I always say if you want to know if you have a great culture great cultures don't need a recruiting department I did a keynote for Select Medical which is what 50,000 employees and it was their top 500 leaders and they told me oh we got a great com culture I was like okay but I'm in the coffee line I'm talking to this young girl and she said I love working at the company I said well what do what do you love about it she goes well my grandma works there my best friend works there my sister works there you know my neighbor I'm like how did all those people come to work at the country she's like I told them you got to come work here so true and that's you know uh Patagonia mentioned earlier I don't know if this is still the case but got would get 9,000 applications for every deal you know Zappos that used to line up around the block so culture is a magnet when it's a place that people want to be a part of if you are having to beg people to come work in your company well I'll give you another example go unnamed it was one of the five fastest growing companies in the US my buddy was the top sales guy there he he got a promotion and he quit and I said why did you quit you're making money you're one of the fastest gr company said Darren out of 450 salese 450 of them hate the company oh wow yeah my daughter was getting recruited by them and she said you know I'm at the the Austin location has a team of seven and five of them are gone and they're recruiting me to go I'm like baby it's not worth it it's not worth the money right it's also reflected in um how proud they are they wear the the swag uh when they're outside of the office they're proud to wear the colors and the name and you know I I used to have a friend of mine in Dallas she would introduce herself and she she couldn't wait her turn and then she'd say my name is Kim and I work for the mouse you know she was clearly a Disney Corporation and then the years ago she loved but she loved it that's an indicator so you know this because you've been in the space but the three things that get leaders Minds going is when I say attracting and retaining top talent eliminating silos and employee engagement that's another big one by the way low Employee Engagement which is an epidemic around the world is an indicator of culture so what would you say as somebody listening to this and they want want to first get a good temperature on on their culture what would be those the the couple of steps they could do as Leaders to just even get a good reader where where are they up to right now I would say go talk to people go find out what's going on the problem you know as well as I do is if the culture is not good and there's Culture of Fear and other things then they're not likely to tell you the truth as the leader right and this isn't a plug but someone like you go and it's a it's a very different scenario because for some reason they'll talk to an outside of oh my you know and and simply asking questions like what do we say we do that we don't do what do we say we don't do that we do you know people want to talk about what's going on at their placees employment but a good leader can can also break through that they don't have to do it from that angle but the key is you got to find out the information and a simple poll or assessment won't do that if it's a really bad culture because you've heard it the paranoia about well are they they're tracking who says what you know but it however you go about it you do have to really understand what's going on and what's the reality I'll just share on that because you just mentioned it um I have a a client of mine that took me for some sort of consultancy project and one of the main reasons why they actually hired me was because they felt they grow growing fast and they have great people but they felt something is off with the culture they didn't know what and and and and and the real reason is you know to credit the leader is they were just a young leader that just didn't know what they didn't sign up they didn't know they're going to be growing that fast and hiring that fast a bunch of people from different backgrounds and the first thing I did is I did one- ones with the top leadership team that you know I I would say just bringing back that you know that list of information to the leader was so valuable because that set the priorities for the company for the next six months and we'll get to some of the ownership part that that I know you speak in the book but but just having leaders of the team see that the leader is putting their their requests as a priorities for the company or their suggestions just fire them up and then everybody was like fired up to work together as a team and it was amazing to see how how just this little gesture how to go about it made such a huge change in literally three months you know great leaders do that and it is the lowest hanging fruit uh there was a a town hall at a company and he's out there with the people the CEO one of the best CEOs I've ever experienced and he's at a town hall and they were talking about the and these are people as I say closest to the valve right these are the ones out there doing the work and someone raised her hand and said Hey listen this new uh healthc care plan I think you need to know that that's costing my family uh an extra $4,000 a month which was a very big deal it's a big deal to anybody but it certainly was these folks he said uh and they kind of explained a little bit why he said you know what I'm not familiar with that but I will look into it and get back to you by the next day it had changed it had gone back to what it was now you don't think that built Goodwill do you think they trust that leader and I've seen people just get something done that it can be simple or can be big but go out I recommended a Refinery manager one time I said listen culture is bad you don't have good communication they're complaining about the right things equipment being down these things I said here's here's what you do you go out you sit in the control room with them what gives you headaches what's the problem and then fix something and then come back and say okay we took care of that now what's next I said you will change the culture overnight people want to be heard yeah one thing that's worth than not asking your team um um for feedback or understanding where the culture is is by yes asking them and then not changing anything and then seeing okay now I went above and beyond to share what is going on and zero change now you lose all Integrity right uh yeah I I agree and they you know I had a guy tell me one time he was sharing these ideas and I said man you've got great ideas we should be doing these things he said Darren I turned my idea Mill off a long time ago because he would come and say hey we could fix this if we did this and it just died on the vine uh so yeah that's that's a great point so let's talk about again this is something that people look at it very differently um people think good culture means that you need to spend money on your culture which sometimes you do but a lot of times it's way more than that and people say you know what I don't have the budget as a Disney and aapos and or or these companies that could invest so much in culture I give an example I know I spoken to um you know the founder of of zapo he's not with us anymore at one point we started off like a Twitter uh a Twitter chat back and forth and he was he prided himself that he focuses all his marketing budget into customer service and one of the things he shared with me is I asked him like give me some examples he says I'm the we're the first company that will not have a person put down the phone if they have to be on the phone with you no matter how long it is where where most companies say an average you know customer service rep has to be on 10 calls a an hour whatever it is we don't have metrics about that now I shared it publicly and then there was a Q&A and the person says look you need to have a budget for that if you're a shoot you know Sho budget and you have two csrs two customer service reps picking up phones you know you don't want the the phones to be you know ringing and ringing nobody's picking up the phone so I guess my question to you is how do you deal when you get those questions when you speak or you go into a company and they say you know what in order to turn things around it's going to cost a lot of money what's your respon to that I I think that's sheer total nonsense and you you know I'm so glad I wish I had gotten to talk to the great Tony shei by the way uh one other little tidbit with that story is the longest record was someone was on the phone for 10 hours W with the customer I don't know what they were talking about for 10 hours that seems a little excessive but at any rate it's not about money it's um it's about the will and the commitment uh to do the things that are most important in fact well I've got a great study that I can reference that was done they asked um what of these five things would you want that would help you be more successful at work and it was things like more vacation time better pay better insurance program and there was one item the ability to get work done the managers out of a scale out of six items ranked that dead last nobody's going to put that one they don't care the people doing the work they rated that number one now that doesn't cost money you know the ability to get work done but it comes back to when people have agency and when they have uh encouragement or recognition don't go to the carpet for you you know it's so there are so many tangible not cost ly ways to impact the culture in fact that you you you really can't throw money at it uh to fix a culture because you can spend a whole bunch of money and Have Not only no Shi in culture but people now feeling even more entitled and grumpy because well there's the you know that that doesn't that doesn't last so it's not about the money it's about the the will to recognize what people are what's making them TR people lined up for a zapo job it's a $112 an hour call center job they could get one of those like that anywhere else why did they want to work at that company because it was what Tony created there with the culture just uh adding what you just said because um I've heard it from many many um you know we're involved in the marketing World in PEX and we do a lot of um we collaborate with a lot of companies that do large events and so on and so forth and I've heard throughout the years with so many employees with say you know what we had this beautiful event or we had this getaway whatever it is and in you know all kinds of props and food and everything else and I and and like I heard it like oneon-one from employees that says I wish my leader would just go come over to me and say thank me once in a while for what I've done I don't need that lavish party like you know this lavish party them sitting in the front and we sitting in the back and I have some food that's not that I want my appreciation to to show up once a year and I think I think some business owners are just a little disconnected from what's happening in their own culture and I think um for listeners on the show I think the the strongest part just if you want to take away one thing so far it is that you got to feel the temperature you got to speak to your people and get the real temperature of how people feel about your company in order even to know what the next steps needs to be in your company you know let's play a little game called good leader bad leader the great CEO I mentioned we did a supervisor School every year they'd bring in high potentials and and they would have a lot of happy hours and things in after time and he hung out and I was he's he's a little bit of an introvert but I would go get people and say hey Tim you know that uh is a pipe fitter out in the refinery hey have you met the CEO no I hav well I'd bring him over and I'd introduce him and Mike would be like so tell me what you know what's working what's not working they have a great conversation contrast that the that replaced him I go to their location in um I think it was Cheyenne and they were all grumpy when I got there after the Christmas uh season and I said what's going on they said well the CEO the new CEO flew in on the corporate plane which is no big deal Mike would have done that flew in on the company plane got up made a 10-minute speech walked back out and got back on the plane and went back there was no that a killer sure you know that's the the biggest thing you can do is invest in your people if you are so bridled down as a as a leader making decisions then you that you can't talk to people and and uh you know get them get them leveraging their their smarts their ability than something something's jacked up now look that happens sometimes with startups or things where you know it's it's an army of One and then it takes everything's on you so I'm not criticizing that of people in that spot but greatest change comes from getting building trust and then getting people to be honest with you that's malow when he came into Ford Motor Company uh I was glad to share the stage with him years ago phenomenal guy he was named one of the top three leaders he turned Ford around but he built it first by building trust and then the people started doing the work because they've been held back for so long just ruled with a in a tyrannical way and he he built trust and then they're like hey we know how to fix this oh yeah pretty amazing so let me ask you because I know that um um the title of your book and you've been around um you know speaking on the on the on the concept of company of owners so there's one thing about having a great culture I think company of owners is a whole new level it's the next level so talk to me is it even possible to have a company of owners yeah so and you know I always want to point out because people say oh well we have an ESOP or we do that I'm like no I'm talking about attitudinally not necessarily you know names on the deed but that was born out of a conversation I had with the uh Co of a 20 billion company and I said Dave you need to fire your employees and he said what are you talking about Martin you called me Martin by the way this guy uh also called Consultants blood sucking leeches oh wow and I told him dude you know I'm one of those he's like I'm not talking about you Martin you know and he also said company culture was uh a phrase that a consultant made up to sell more business I'm like oh my God anyway the the ironic thing was he really did invest a lot in the culture he just didn't know that's what he was doing but I I said yeah you need to fire all your employees and I said you don't want employees you want people who act like like owners a little light bulb with off owners and the rest is history you had me speak on it and then do this thing and then I thought man this is getting a lot of traction show so I wrote the book uh company of owners and that thing has been perennial I mean it's it was I was thinking the other day it's what eight years old now but it's still going strong because what executive doesn't salivate about that so I'll have people ask me well how do you get people to act like owners and I say treat them like owners you know that's the shorthand there's a lot more to it than that but most people go to a job where they have very little decision-making Authority very little input very little interest and it kind of goes back to I think the Industrial Revolution where work got reduced down to one deal you come to work you do what I tell you and I'm going to give you some money and that's it that's our agreement and when we reduce it down to that then people die on the vine so when you give people I've seen people at companies no real formal education but with some incredible thinking skills and other things given some Authority and just watch them Thrive they will die for that company because somebody has recognized them you know I always say that culture is super easy and then I follow that up quickly with cultures really really hard uh having a company of owners is really really easy but having a company of owners is also really really hard because you got to get rid of a lot of ego and hubris and you know to trust people and to empower them to do their job you you can't want somebody to act like an owner and then there's bureaucratic road blocks at every turn or half the equipment's broken people just get get sucked down by that but it's not a it's not a pipe dream it's it's actually a reality so what is the makeup of that so obviously um building trust and giving people autonomy um is obviously part of that what what would you say um you know on the lack of time obviously people could read your book and we'll get to that in a minute but what are the other ways you could say quickly like where are the places where a leader could could could spend some time in order to create that um company of owners I think one of the key things is you know most mission statements aren't worth the paper they're written on I talk about the book uh the you want a business actionable Mantra and I'll point to two companies Ritz Carlton uh their Mantra is we are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen right that covers everything if I'm washing dishes am I washing this like someone with some pride in my work and am I Wasing it for people who I care about out I treat like but it is also the same with In-N-Out Burger when In-N-Out Burger opened here in Texas my daughter wanted to go and I said baby it's going to be so we got there line was long but it went like that and I got up to the front and I said how are yall doing this she said oh no you you don't understand when we opened a new location half the people you see here from California they're experienced and we come in and we train our counterparts now what fast food company does that right they just throw them in there give them a couple days or maybe a couple hours and then go to work they ended up doing $250,000 their first month in Burgers right but when I talk about the business actionable Mantra they also have a great one that is we we sell fresh food created in a pristine environment served with a smile I know everything I need to know if they really live that and I have a bad tomato that looks kind of bad I throw it in the trash can I don't ask the manager can I throw this tomato away I I I've been told so sometimes it's just we don't give people the the the you know the rails of as long as you're operating within this um I was getting married and I was buying a bunch of wine and the g at uh at uh Trader Joe said wait she came running back and gave us you know this huge bouquet of roses these for y'all didn't ask the manager didn't do that's cultured that's that she that wasn't a oneoff they've been instilled to do whatever you need to do to take care of people right mhm yeah that's that's beautiful uh let me ask you have you seen anything um um like some sort of Pitfall when companies are trying to improve their culture like things for let's say leaders listening to this if they want to improve their culture what to be at the lookout not to do or to do slowly so if if it's disingenuous if it's viewed as disingenuous on the part of the people there oh they're just doing that for this reason and the reality is it could be that that's the case but it may not be you have to be patient patient patient because you can't turn most of these ships just like overnight it's not magical you're going to wave one and say we're going to have a great culture people are going to be suspicious why are we doing this so the key is to demonstrate it in some really significant ways where people say wow we're serious about this and that could be you know burning some sacred cow in the middle of the office and just saying this is done and you take a hammer to it and destroy it whoa people are like oh my that thing has made made my life hell you know it is about the process of getting the you know there's people that get on board immediately but then there's those have to see the proof and the pudding and you got to follow that process don't give up too early that would be my quick thing don't give up too early yeah and I think I think um when it comes to culture is um the same way we we said that you need to ask feedback um before you start improving the culture is within the process figure out what are the the places where you're going to get feedback if if you're seeing Improvement so sometimes you say oh I think I spent some effort some time and all of a sudden everything is fixed on the patient side the same time is get the feedback to see if they're seeing the improvements I'll tell you a quick one that can have far-reaching eliminating I'll say with malice but I don't want to be too over the top uh poison and low performance low performance you either trade them up or manage them up manage them out you know I can't tell you how many companies I've walked into where everybody knows who the problem people are you know either they're poisonous or so my process that I would encourage people to follow is that you start at say here's where we've been and who we've been and here's how we've operated and here's who we're going moving forward this is how things are going to be different but if you say that and come to work every day is still the same uh that doesn't happen and and when you've got someone who is a constant drain on other people in the company and negative and you know you know i' I'd have a very serious conversation about this changes and I've seen it happen by the way this changes now or you will not be here come Friday and then people go oh they're serious you know that was a senior person that was our top sales producer but they're so toxic that you know it it's just bringing the whole company down yeah I'll just I'll just quickly share a story on that um I was um working with the business owner that actually originally called me in that he needs to you know he has this toxic salesperson but is the top performer and and it just is sucking all his energy like every single day everything is an issue everything around him is an issue and and he he he couldn't make up his mind like what to do with this guy and we were going through a couple of meetings I met with this guy a couple of times and I said you know what this is not going to be fixed it's just a matter of it's your company you could decide and at one point he made that decision he let the guy go that same day he sent out an email the same day towards the end of the day one of his people asked him for a quick meeting and he gave him that meeting to that meeting four people show up and walk into the meeting four other sales people and they say we know how hard it was for you to do this but we also know how how toxic he was for the culture tell us how much he produced the last 12 months and we commit right now we'll make up for that for taking the bravery and doing that many I mean yeah I I love that story and you know I was at I was at a place and they had a uh the top operations guy that had management by screaming and yelling obscenities at people and with tell and I worked on that worked on that I finally got him out of there the guy they replaced him with which uh was perfect they had posters up around the plant with his picture on it saying hope like those old Obama style posters I swear to you that culture changed overnight you could feel it when you walked in now that the ding-dong the witch is dead right but I used to have a professor say uh how much cow dong does it take to spoil a bowl of ice cream and when I ask I have big rooms of leaders CEOs whatever I say how many poisonous people does it take to destroy a company and the conclusion they always come to is just one right yeah yeah that's brilliant oh that's such a great story Vinnie I love that way to go too by the way because and it did take a lot of Courage from that leader but I'm sure that paid big dividence it took a toll on him it took a couple of months but I what I liked about is how it ended up because you think sometimes it's a decision between you and that guy you don't know that everybody's watching and everybody's waiting what will you do what will you do as a company as a leader yeah y very cool let's let's um let's talk about how people could find out more about what you do about your books what's the the best way to get in touch with you so well I'm going to I'm going to give you the the shortest way but Darren d a n you have to spell my name right d aen Daren martin.com so that's my direct email that is my website heck I've been doing this when I speak and sometimes to very large groups and almost nobody takes me up on them but I'll even uh give out my phone number if you think that's okay sure if you want to read out 469 47155 48 the books my Wall Street Journal USA Today bestseller company of owners of course there it's available on all the outlets it may not be in the Barnes & Neville but it's on their or Barnes & Neville wait that's the one that survived right yes borders but it it'll be in there like if you can get off the Walmart website Etc but you know there's always the th000 pound gorilla Amazon or reach out to me if you want to do something I've got some companies that buy hundreds of copies every year that they give to all their employees so I'm very easy to find if you Google me because my parents spelled my name with one R and an e I'm like the first eight pages I'm like thank y'all for not using the standard spelling of my name so like likewise people ask me why I spell many with an E I said if I spell it with an a there's a ton ton of Google results if you spell it with an E not a lot of results that come up hey in this day and age the the more odd your name the better uh because you can own the social media that you're you know if if you're in the public sure for the links resources mentioned in this episode check out the show notes at www. pexg group.com podcast where we link to um the books that uh we discussed and ultimately to our guest's website let's close with a four rapid fire questions are you ready ready great Minnie let me say one more thing let me say one more thing I'm going to give you a free digital book called an evolution at work that you can post and people can just go to your site or your deal and get a free book I'll I'll make sure beautiful we'll actually link it we we'll link it in the show notes uh let's close with the four rapid fire questions are you ready ready number one a book that changed your life uh the eth Revisited my first book and the first guest on this podcast Michael Gerber a great friend yeah oh wow yeah number two a piece of advice you got that you'll never forget people say life is too short too I don't care how life short how short it is if it's a million years don't spend a second of any day doing something that sucks your soul live your bliss as uh Joseph Campbell says beautiful number three anything you wish you could go back and do differently a whole lot except that I don't live with regrets because I'm where I am today because of that broken road so no beautiful last and final question what's still on your bucket list to achieve I want to I want to speak in a Stadium sometime like you know I had a end of the year I closed out with Caboto which was 3600 people that's a big room I say I want that I probably don't actually want that but oh no and and uh you know I've got a Wall Street Journal yesterday today I'd love to get an iny uh New York Times bestseller at some point as well cool Darren thank you so much for joining us I know your time is valuable that is why in the name of our listeners will forever be grateful for sharing some of your time with us today it's been a blast absolutely I'm honored to be here thank you I'm glad we made this happen and you know let let's commit to each other that this relationship doesn't end here it's it's going to go on so exactly thank [Music] you that's my conversation with Darren Martin my takea away from this one number one spend time with employees in various roles to understand the day-to-day challenges and successes showing genuine interest in their work and listening to their insights number two offer employees the autonomy and decision-making power so they feel like an owner recognize their potential to contribute to the company's success and trust them with more responsibility number three develop a clear actionable plan that reflects the values and the goals of the company this helps employeers understand and align with the company's vision and Mission Number Four imp Implement a system of recognition to motivate employees a simple thank you or public acknowledgement of the hard work can significantly boost morale and and number five understand that culture is more about how employees feel and how engaged they are rather than just perks cultivate an atmosphere where employees look forward to coming to work and are proud to contribute to your business and that's a wrap for today's episode of the let's look business podcast I hope you enjoyed the Practical non-nonsense advice that our guest shared if you found value in listening I would be so grateful if you could share the episode with your friends and if you could give the show a fivar rating on Apple podcast or whatever platform you listen subscribe to the show and get notified every time we publish a new episode The let's talk business podcast is a Pex group original production until next time make it a great day [Music]