Episode 41 - Interview with Daren Martin, Architect of Company Culture

Speaker 1:

People of Earth, we have come to upgrade your cosmic consciousness, DNA activation ready in three, two, one.

Lou Quinto:

Hi. Welcome to Q&A on Breakthrough Leadership. I'm Lou Quinto.

Craig P. Anderson:

And I'm Craig Anderson.

Lou Quinto:

Today, we're going to do something a little bit different on our episode. It's not just going to be Craig and I talking back and forth at each other. We've invited the bestselling author, Dr. Darren Martin, out of Dallas, Texas, to be our guest today. And we're going to interview Darren. He's known throughout the business world as the architect of company culture. He's got five bestselling books out. And one of his first books that he has that really is a very popular one is called A Company of Owners. And if you don't have it, you can get it on Amazon. And so what we'd like to do is we'd like to introduce Darren to talk to us about company culture. Darren, thanks for joining us today from Dallas, Texas. Hope everything's treating you well down there. You're our very first interview that we've done on the podcast, and we want [crosstalk 00:01:09].

Dr. Daren Martin:

I'm so stoked about that. I'm stoked. I get to be the first ever.

Lou Quinto:

Trust me, I'm sure you have a lot of firsts in your life. And so you can just add this to the back of the line. But Darren, you're known as an architect of company culture. And obviously with the pandemic, we've experienced significant amount of change and everything in the workplace with remote workers. Well, Craig and I want to talk to you about three particular points when it comes to company culture. One, we want to know what's happened to it, what has it done to company culture? The second area that we want to talk about is has it solved some of that company culture that may have not been the best company culture because offices had the opportunity to air out a little bit because everyone's working from home? And then the third thing we want to talk to you about is does this pandemic put a reset on everybody's company culture, whether it was good going into it or whether they had problems, and now that we're into it, has it put a reset on it? So I'm going to ask you the very first question, what has this done to company culture?

Dr. Daren Martin:

Well, when you look at the state of culture in the first place, it's not good. Okay, I'm talking pre-pandemic. We started the whole Global Company Culture Association because culture is just in disarray. And you asked, but really in the world, if you look globally at the engagement rate, 85% of people either don't like their job or hate their job. So you take a patient that was already in the ICU on life support and something like this happens to it, I think it's become a big litmus test. Because companies that had great cultures, I think have gone into this much, much stronger because they're already running on all cylinders, they can operate in a different way. But companies that were already in trouble, yeah, are getting hammered pretty badly.

Lou Quinto:

In your very first book, The Company of Owners, you talked about culture being... And you just mentioned with engagement being down and people don't like their jobs. Is this continuing now with the introduction of a flexible work style that people are liking their jobs a little bit more?

Dr. Daren Martin:

By the way, when I saw Mark Cuban six, eight months ago, I was at an event and I asked him a question. I said, "Hey Mark, in your opinion, how important is culture?" And it was interesting that he said culture is everything. And then he repeated it. So we can't minimize the importance of culture. When you look at studies, there was a study that showed a 756% increase to net profitability when you get your culture right. So why it's not been more front of mind, I'm not sure, because I've been sounding that gong for a long time. You contrast that with 16% of executives say their culture is where it needs to be.

Dr. Daren Martin:

So as you're going into something like this, some of the changes that I think needed to happen anyway. Work from home, what a novel idea. We live in a digital age. What we're finding out, and this is probably to our benefit, is a lot of what I call old man-ism. I did a radio interview, a guy called me up and his question was this, he says, "Well, how are we going to be sure they're working if the bosses aren't there to keep an eye on them? And I said, "Your question is the problem. That mentality right there is the absolute breakdown." So we've had this archaic kind of draconian thing that, "Hey, if you're not on top of people, they're not going to work." Well, look what we're doing. We're all working, right? Who Who told you, Lou, to get up today, and Craig, and do this show and everything. You work for yourself, you end up working probably a lot, right?

Lou Quinto:

Yeah.

Craig P. Anderson:

Yeah.

Dr. Daren Martin:

So I think we're going to see some shift certainly from just that element, because it was forced on us to be able to work from home.

Craig P. Anderson:

So the one thing, and I was a big culture guy at my last place, we were ranked great place to work here in Indy. We did culture surveys and we felt pretty good about where we were at. And part of that was building a lot of what we called intentional collisions, kind of building spaces for our people to interact. So the marketing people talked to the call center people, and those kinds of things. Surveys we've seen with some of the work we've done on a prior podcast said that's the one thing people are missing is that interactivity they had with their colleagues. So how does that impact the kind of culture change when you talk about more and more people working from home?

Dr. Daren Martin:

Certainly a huge impact. And I love the environment you're describing. Stan Richards, The Richards Group, has a very similar thing where he said it, open office, so everybody's meant to kind of interact and connect with each other, especially in a company like that or yours. When you get into a creative environment, there's something about that connecting with people. My hope is that companies that have great cultures have been intentional about not just doing meetings and some of that kind of stuff, but they've been very intentional about, "Hey, we're just going to have movie night where everybody watch the same movie, will be on this..." whatever tool they want to use, Facebook Watch and connect. "And by the way, we're sending you a bottle of wine and dinner for the family. And let's connect something outside of work." Because that's where the magic really happens is when people are interacting with each other. This doesn't preclude that from happening, you just got to be really creative about making that intentional and really doing something that the employees, team members like to be connected with.

Craig P. Anderson:

Got it.

Lou Quinto:

So that leads us into the next question that we want to ask you about. And with the remote workforce, I know in past podcasts we talked about how the workforce went from about 35% remote prior to COVID to almost 65 and 70% remote post-COVID. Has this aired out the office space as far as culture goes? And for those that did not have a good culture, is this giving some companies an opportunity to have a leg up on changing their culture in the future when we get back to whatever normal we may be finding that we're in?

Dr. Daren Martin:

Well, first of all, it's super easy to have a fantastic culture when nobody's in the office. Yeah, it is aired out and it just, the air you breathe is awesome. But I think this is more of a shaking out, Lou. I don't think it's going to fix broken or ineffective bad cultures because that just tends to feed in on itself. Cultures, it's easy to do and it's hard to do. You have to do it on purpose. So I say cultures either happen by default or they happen by design. And I don't think there's anything about this experience, unless it's been a wake up call to a leader who goes, "Whoa, we've got real issues." I do think it's a bit of a shakeout too on who's on the team, who's not on the team. A friend of mine said recently you can be on the payroll, but not on the team. Big difference, right? So I think that's probably being revealed. And the fact that we can work with probably a lot fewer people. So I think it truly is going to drive the biggest evolution we've ever seen at work and the way we think about work.

Lou Quinto:

Right. Do you believe that many instances when it comes to this remote workforce and what we have going is that you've got a situation where the culture will be starting from scratch when people get back to work?

Dr. Daren Martin:

For some of them, it'd be great to start from scratch, because it's only up from there. But I think we're going to take some of the bad habits that were persisting before. It'll be interesting to see how companies adjust to this. If they say, "Hey, post COVID, this worked pretty well, why don't we make some optional days and so forth?" But you can't solve a problem with the level of thinking that created it in the first place. So if there's not been a fundamental shift on the thinking of the leadership within the company, it's not likely to just happen because of this.

Craig P. Anderson:

I appreciate you saying that, Darren, because there's companies I'm aware of that have a lot of remote workforce and a toxic culture. And I don't see where that gets... I don't think remote, or do you think the remoteness isn't what makes the culture? I understand people like that as part of a culture. But you can have a really toxic culture in a remote environment, can you not?

Dr. Daren Martin:

100%. And you can have a great culture in a remote environment. I had a buddy of mine who had his little company, and he had people that worked with him all over the world. And they were close, close, close, and they never even met face to face. But they really made it on purpose to make sure that they were connecting outside of just the work and those conversations. And if you think about it, years ago if I told you, "Well, I have a pen pal that's in Brazil, never met him, but we write every other day and we've been writing for 10 years and I feel closer to that person than probably any of my other friends," we would think yeah, okay, that makes sense. Because it was about the quality of the communication, not necessarily the actual presence of it. Somehow in a digital world, we think, "Oh, well they can't be..." I'm sure you all have Facebook friends or social media friends you've never met but that you feel really connected to you because you've kind of shared your life in some way on one of these platforms.

Lou Quinto:

Okay. All right. That brings us into our third category, talking about a reset. Obviously, the pandemic has exposed a lot of deficiencies and a lot of things that are wrong within companies. And hopefully they're going to take some action on it. But will this provide them a reset to be able to maybe put that culture that has been on the back burner, as you said, but put it on the front burner now to reset the culture that they want in order to continue productivity and the engagement and ownership and all those things that you talk about in your seminars and also in your books.

Dr. Daren Martin:

Yeah, if they want to be successful. To me, I get asked all the time is it the leadership? Is it the team members? People just don't want to work anymore? Is it these darn Millennials? What's going on? And it finally dawned on me, Lou and Craig, that the paradigm is broken. It's not leadership, it's not employees. It's the way we think about work. And I think years ago with the industrial revolution, we narrowed work down to one deal, here's the deal, you come, you do what I tell you, and I'll give you some money for it. That's it. That's the deal. Not, oh, wow, I want to be appreciated or I want to grow as a person or I want to... And when we disconnected the passion from the work, that's how we've ended up where we are today. So hopefully people are seeing that and that we can really do a hard stop on that old, outdated paradigm and morph into a new world, which I'm really excited about and have been a proponent of for a long time.

Lou Quinto:

And Craig and I spoke about that in a previous podcast also, about the extrinsic value or the old business model of the carrot and the stick and really not focusing on that intrinsic motivation of I feel valued, you're investing in me through development, or just I'm glad to be here because the environment is so good. I'm glad you mentioned that because we did talk on past podcasts about the extrinsic versus the intrinsic motivation for engagement and ownership of employees.

Dr. Daren Martin:

You're a smart guy, Lou.

Lou Quinto:

Some people may disagree with you.

Dr. Daren Martin:

McGregor's work pointed back to that theory X, theory Y of leadership. Daniel Pink wrote a book a number of years ago called Drive that taps into that. And that's what we have to get back to you. We've got to get to this... I say if people at work aren't growing, going, and glowing, then they're not going to be happy. They've got to be growing. They got to feel like they're developing as a person. They're learning new skills. Company, something about the company is benefiting them in that way. They can get a promotion. They've got to be going somewhere. They've got to feel like they're on a trajectory that has value to their life. And then they've got to be glowing. If you look around and people aren't happy at work, then your culture is broken and you've got to fix it.

Lou Quinto:

Right.

Craig P. Anderson:

So Darren, for the viewer who's watching this and suddenly becomes pretty convicted that their culture is not where they need it to be, what's the one thing you'd encourage them to do right now, even while we're still in this kind of remote environment to start making a change to the positive?

Dr. Daren Martin:

Well, a great thing, I think it starts, Craig, with listening. I'm amazed, I actually had a 90-day project during the course of this and really a horrible culture that we came in and turned around. But it started with just interviewing people and saying, "What are you thinking? What are you feeling?" And this is a great environment to do that in because people are responding from their home and can feel a little bit of safety, but say, "Hey, I just get this feeling that our culture is not where it needs to be. Help me understand what's broken. And how would you fix it?" And if you'll start doing that, you'll be amazed at what people will tell you. Now you can't be defensive and jump in immediately when they start saying, "Well, this sucks. This thing over here is horrible." I've seen that plenty of times where leaders go, "Well, that's not true. That's not the way things are." Okay. Well, a hundred people just said it is. But I think, Craig, it starts with listening and then mapping out. Like I said, you've got to design the culture you want and do that in a way that is going to create a path forward.

Craig P. Anderson:

Yeah, that's great.

Lou Quinto:

And along with listening too, Darren, I might add supervisors, managers, ownership needs to show a lot of empathy and particularly during these times.

Craig P. Anderson:

Huge, huge. And that's the biggest break that we can get during this time is that it's not just, "Hey, how many hours did you log yesterday?" But, "How are you? How's the family? What's going on?" Doing things, like I said, send them dinner, "Hey, we sent you dinner, here's a gift card or whatever for a Netflix movie for you and your family to watch." Do some fun, creative things that let them know that as leaders, you really do care about them.

Lou Quinto:

Yeah. Okay.

Craig P. Anderson:

Yeah. I've been impressed. My son is in an internship program here in Indianapolis and remote, he has this big major just before his senior year internship remotely, and they've done all the right things. They had dinner together, they all got Grub Hub or something like that. They're just doing all those things to make these interns feel like they're part of a larger team. And it's really been something to watch. It's really progressive. Yeah.

Dr. Daren Martin:

That's awesome.

Lou Quinto:

All right, well Darren, at this point in the show, what we normally do, Craig and I, is we go back and forth and talk about some key takeaways. What are the key takeaways that you would give a manager or supervisor or business owner when it comes to culture, particularly in these times?

Dr. Daren Martin:

Your number one responsibility to the team and to the company you lead is culture. If that's not first and foremost, or maybe even exclusively on your job description, then you got to take a look at why not. And if there are a bunch of other agendas that would get in the way, because research, everything shows, Gary Ridge took WD-40 from $250 million valuation to $2.4 billion. And he did that, he would say, just doing culture. And you're the keeper of the people as a leader. And it's your job to come around and nurture them and grow them and develop them in a way that then they'll take care of you. If you take care of your people, your people will take care of the company and they'll take care of the customers. And that's proven to be very effective for companies like Southwest, In-N-Out Burger. Look, there are some really bright spot cultures out there.

Lou Quinto:

Okay. Craig, do you have any key takeaways?

Craig P. Anderson:

Well, one, I just will give an amen to what you just said, Darren. There's way too many CEOs who tell the HR person, "Go do that culture thing and make that happen." That's one of the more frustrating things I've seen out there. But no, I think my key takeaway is really just this idea that the culture isn't about exactly the office space, it's about what you're building no matter where your people are working and how you can have great cultures with remote work. And you can continue that if you bring them back in or if you never bring them back in. So I think it's really just that idea that focusing on culture is what's going to matter, not so much where they're sitting doing their job.

Dr. Daren Martin:

That is a great point. Love it.

Lou Quinto:

And my key takeaway out of all this is to establish culture, and I think Darren, you said it best, listen, you need to listen. You need to listen to your employees because they're on the front lines. They know what's going on. They know the problems, they know the inefficiencies. And if you don't listen and you become defensive with everything they're bringing up, you're not going to change culture. You have to listen to the people and you have to be empathetic with them also. Because that empathy is going to go so much farther, particularly in these times of crisis.

Dr. Daren Martin:

Amen and amen. Well said, Lou. And my other takeaway is turn off your cell phone when you're about to do... Or at least put it on silent. Sorry about that.

Lou Quinto:

I will say in all of our podcasts, that's the first time that's happened, Darren. So again, you're with a first.

Dr. Daren Martin:

I win.

Lou Quinto:

So, Dr. Darren Martin, we appreciate you visiting with us and talking to us about culture. And everyone, if you want to, you can go out to Darren's website, drDarrenmartin.com, purchase his books on Amazon. He's a wealth of knowledge and somebody that if you need a resource when it comes to you changing your culture, Darren Martin is one of the people to talk to. Thanks, Darren, appreciate it.

Dr. Daren Martin:

Thank you all. Thanks, Craig. Thanks, Lou.

Craig P. Anderson:

Thanks, Darren. That was great, Lou. Thanks again to Dr. Darren Martin for joining us to talk about culture, such an important topic, especially in these interesting times we're in with remote workforce. I really appreciated his comments there. But even more, I appreciated him using the word intentional on this episode so I didn't have to.

Lou Quinto:

I think I'm going to have to start adding intentional every now and then to brighten your day.

Craig P. Anderson:

Thank you very much. It's my word for the year. So if you enjoyed us having an interview on the episode today, let us know in the comments. Please like, share, and subscribe if you have friends or colleagues that you think would benefit from listening to our podcast. And you can also find us not only on QALeadership.com, our website, as well as Facebook and LinkedIn, but you can also find an audio version of our episodes on all your favorite podcasting platforms. So until next time, I'm Craig Anderson.

Lou Quinto:

And keep your hands washed and keep your distance. I'm Lou Quinto.