Leading with Values: Cultivating a Flourishing Organization with Patrick Criteser

You have to invest in yourself. And we talk about this in our leadership development programs and when I speak with teams and leaders throughout the company. As a leadership is hard and you have to invest in yourself. We're investing in you and we're asking you to invest in yourself. And that applies to your personal life too. It's just, you know, people with this high service orientation prioritize everyone but themselves and you're not serving others if you're not serving yourself.

Hey there friends. Welcome to Happiness Squad. This is the podcast dedicated to helping you unlock your full potential by mastering the art and science of happiness. We bring on the best leading experts on these topics to help you unlock your true potential and live with more joy, health, love and meaning in your life. Your host is no other than the star combo of Ashish Kothari and Anil Ramjiani who are both on a mission to provide you with an unfair advantage to be the masters of your experience and leaders in your industry. Get ready to be moved, challenged and enlightened on this podcast. It may change your life. Thanks for being here and joining the squad.

Hey Happiness Squad. It's great to have you with Ashish and I as we continue to discuss with our guests who are industry leaders helping individuals and organizations unlock their inner happiness and flourishing. Imagine leading your company by placing the values and well being of employees front and center. You grow employee engagement, you cultivate your culture and as a result revenues grow to over $1.3 billion in seven years. All organic. Let's learn how. Meet Patrick Kreitzer, the President and CEO of the Tillamook County Creamy Association. During Kreitzer's tenure at TCCA, the cooperative increased revenue by over 50% while growing return to farmers and expanding its presence as one of the leading consumer food brands in the U.S. kreitzer is an experienced executive with a track record of leading growth in positive transformation at companies who large and small, including the CEO as Coffee Bean International and co CEO of Farmer Brothers. Management and strategic development roles at some of the world's most respected brands including Nike, the Walt Disney Company and Procter and Gamble. Our conversation with Patrick was brilliant. We discussed the importance of relationships, the success of multiple initiatives that Patrick and his leadership team lead at Telemuk that focuses on daily and weekly on practices that amplify their core values in new ways. As Ashish and Patrick discuss when you unlock organizational flourishing, you lead higher productivity, growth and innovation. Stay tuned because Patrick shares his routines that help him stay on top of his practices on a monthly basis. Join Ashish and I as we welcome Patrick to the happiness squad and rewire for happiness together Foreign. Hi, Patrick. Hi Ashish. How are you both doing?

Doing well, doing amazing, Anel. Thank you. Awesome.

Well, you know, we are grateful to have you here with us, Patrick. And you know, one of our favorite questions to ask our guests to get us rolling is what does happiness mean to you and how has it changed from your younger years until now?

Well, that's a great question. I mean, first I'll say, hey, thanks for having me today. I mean, I'm really excited to be talking to the two of you today. But yeah, happiness certainly does seem like it is something that kind of evolves or at least our concept of happiness or evolves over time. And I think my answer is going to be probably fairly stereotypical or common in that when I think back on my younger years, particularly early years in my career, you know, I was certainly tying happiness to the sort of achievement oriented kind of mileposts and you know, the things that I saw as, as would be representative of success and, and you know, as I've, you know, evolved in my career and in my life and as a person, I've certainly come to appreciate the extent to which my happiness is derived from the relationships I have with people around me in my personal life and at work. And honestly, I've been able to appreciate a lot more the moments, you know, moments in nature, moments of solitude, moments of reflection that can, I think can be a big source of happiness as well. And I suspect that certainly as I think back on my earlier years, I think I just didn't have an appreciation enough. Appreciation for the relationships and being present in the moment and how that can impact happiness.

Yeah, on some, you know, it's beautiful, Patrick. And I think it's the sooner, you know, we wake up to those, those insights, right. The more powerful we become and the better the journey becomes. So like, you know, like you. For me, that realization also happened much later in life. Right. So there were 20 years of my that I, like you, was driven by, you know, it was all about success and through success I was going to be happy. And it was about the milestones once I reached that milestone and you know, there's so much beauty. And actually you said it's moment to moment, it's enjoying the journey rather than kind of the milestone come and then we chase the next one. Right. So you're always chasing and you think it's success that makes you happy, but once you realize it's being in the moment, it's the relationships that truly, truly matter. By the way, that's also what the longest running study at Harvard found, which is now there was a recent TED talk by Professor Waldinger, who's also the fourth director of the study. It's our quality of relationships that really drive whether we are thriving or are we happy or not. It's not success, it's not the financial gains. It's none of that. At the heart of it is relationships beautiful that you highlighted that for our listeners.

Is it when you think about the trajectory of happiness as, as the question asked, it's interesting to reflect on relationships that you've had over that entire time. You know, certainly with family and a couple of friends and then you know what one obviously very significant and meaningful relationship in my life is with my wife. We've been together, you know, 30 plus years at this point and how we each contributed to each other's happiness. Back in the time periods I was talking about before where our sort of focus in terms of where we derive happiness was different from where it is today. And the ways in which all of us, as we develop or hopefully I have, I think developed to a point where we're consciously focused on contributing to other people's happiness around us. And how that plays out in a relationship with that kind of an arc is sort of an interesting thing to reflect on.

Absolutely right. And you know, relationships with, you know, our significant other, with our wives, with our husbands, with our spouses and also relationships. Patrick, I'm thinking with friends, right, Those who have had a meaningful partner life and colleagues and these change. But in many cases, you know, it's, it's interesting I reflect on what you just said and the words of, you know, the words that come to come to my mind are around the work that was done on the five regrets of the dying. Right. Anywhere. Like I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends is the other one. We just lose track of that, you know, as time.

Yeah, we do. You know, I'll tell you, one of one of my most cherished friendships is with a friend of mine who actually he lives, he lives near you, Ashish, but in a town nearby where you are. And he, he and I lived together, worked together 30 years ago and have not lived in the same location since then. And we speak almost weekly and have for 30 years and it's just, and we do see each other. We see. Get the chance to see each other more now than we, we did for a period of time. But just maintaining that consistency, that familiarity and that genuine investment in each other has been, has been important and a big source of happiness for me as well.

Yeah. And listen, if you can do it as a CEO of one of the fastest growing companies and throughout your career, right, which have all been high, high achieving, you know, high demands career, so can anybody else. Right. So can everybody else. That's an invitation for our listeners to kind of think about that and say, who is that? And it doesn't need to be a lot. It might even be one person. But who is that one or two that you want to stay in touch with and make it, make it a part of our weekly rituals? Right. To.

I have a colleague of mine from Yash from a previous company and he made a New Year's resolution where he traveled quite a bit. And he said every Monday when he gets off the plane, he gets into the taxi, he's like, I'm going to scroll through my address book and find one person that I've lost touch with that I've not spoken to and just give him a call. Not a text, not an email, just a phone call at the start of the week. And it changed him because he got back in touch with people, new ideas, new thoughts. So again, back to your point. It may not be persons that you are constantly in contact with. It could be people you've lost touch with that you want to reconnect with. So I think it's a beautiful way to, you know, grow your, grow your community and kind of retain that connection with those, those friends, that peer group.

Yeah, absolutely. That's inspiring. You know that because as much as I was talking about this one relationship, I've been, been able to maintain from afar very productively. There are many that I haven't and I wish I would have. And so that's, that's an inspiring call to action to, to do a better job of that.

So, Patrick, you know, you described your journey, how your definition for success and your insights around what makes you happy shifted. And I know how much of a caring leader you are. I've been privileged to spend some time with Tillamook when. With your leadership team. You know, when we launched the book, you were one of the first where we launched it. I am curious about what are some two or three really transformational experiences that have shaped you into who you are today.

Yeah, well, you know, a couple of things that I think about from, from early career on to more recent days that, that, that I think had a big influence on me. One, I had the great fortune of starting my career after Undergrad at Procter and Gamble. I was in a manufacturing facility and I was a, I was a team lead in a soap packaging operation. And I remember the very first day coming up to the plant in the dark, you know, because it's very early, and being met by, you know, one of the, one of the team members who as between the time he let me in the gate to walking me to meet my team, he pointed out that I was the youngest person in the plan and didn't know anything. And you know, in reflection I don't, I probably didn't respond super positively to that when he was telling me because I was probably already quite nervous. But in reflection that that level setting and I don't know what he intended by it, but it certainly had a really positive impact on me that whole experience working with that team and in that facility because you know, coming in to a situation where I clearly had expertise or experience to contribute put me into a very significant learning orientation which helped me value the, this, the significant contributions and amazing people that I was getting an opportunity to work with and to figure out how do I support these folks and add some value to the situation. I mean, presumably, you know, these 27, you know, team members that work on this shift who are all around, most of them around my parents age report to me technically in the org structure but what do I have to contribute to this situation? And so it helped me understand who they are, how they would like to contribute, their level of expertise and skills. And that certainly was an important moment. I'll tell you Another one was when I was in my first CEO role. We moved facilities of this coffee, this amazing coffee company. It was 40 plus years old at the time and it had been operating out of this really old brick building where folks had to run up and down the stairs and accommodate for a lot of the constraints. And we had the opportunity, we recapitalized the company and had the opportunity to build a new manufacturing facility and office for everyone to work in. And the day we moved everyone over there, I could just see the look on everyone's faces in terms of the pride and in what they had created in that company and therefore the success that we'd been able to have. And the result of that success in this physical manifestation of nice facilities to work in and a production environment that was commiserate with their attention to detail and fanatic approach to ensuring quality and everything that they do every day. And so for me it showed that connection between identity and personal pride and teamwork and relationships and the Work and the work environment and the output of our work. And it helped me along that journey of understanding what, when we talk about culture, what that means, at least that means in my interpretation. And so then later when we were able to, you know, when I came to Tillamook and we spent the first couple of years sort of addressing some of the more acute opportunities for the business and then we had a time, a minute to just kind of say, okay, where are we headed from here and what kind of company do we want this to be? Building on the amazing 100 plus year old history of the business. Where do we want the future? What do we want the future to look like for this company and its employees? And one of my reflections there was this idea that, you know, we talk about culture. It really, for me it means two things. One is I see culture as a competitive advantage. When we're competing in the marketplace. The extent to which we can, you know, we can execute well, serve our customers, serve our communities, serve our employees through strong execution is based on our ability to get, you know, get the best contributions out of everyone, have everyone to be super engaged and, and the relationships developed among folks and then. But the other really, in my mind, equally important objective in culture building is creating a fulfilling and enriching experience for employees. And you know, the theory was that by anchoring our values in that concept of culture building and holding up the employee experience as equally important to the outcome of the business success, that we were going to achieve lots of success doing that and create a great fulfilling and enriching experience for employees. And you know, we've had some years now to invest in that theory and to prove it out. And I think we've been a good example of how that can come to life.

There's so many things that resonate with me there, Patrick, that you brought up. And I want you to know I actually did pick up your article in Fortune around culture and I want to come to that here in a minute. But just reflecting on what you've just shared with us, there are a couple things I want to talk about. One is I love how you talk about listening there. You walk in with a group of individuals and they're wondering who you are. And when we were first getting to know each other earlier, before we hit record, and you were talking about just your power of listening. And there's one thing Covey says, seek to understand and then be understood. I am sure they just really appreciated you as someone coming in, listening to them, hearing them, knowing what they are looking for. And what they need from you. I think the second part is just the beauty and the power of the culture, the environment that people work in. I think, you know, Ashish, you and I, we had a conversation with a colleague on a prior episode where when you connect with the space you're working in, the people you're working with, the environment you're at, you're willing to go leaps and bounds, you know, even if you're struggling at work, you're going to like figure out, okay, doesn't matter because I love where I work, I love who I'm working with, what I'm doing, I'm going to make it happen. And I think that culture that you allude to is just incredibly powerful. And I just love the fact that you talk about the past, the hundred years and how you now look to the future. So how do you maintain what makes the culture very strong in the past, but then how do you look forward into the future and bring in the right energy, the right people and cultivate that future culture looking ahead?

Yeah, well look, that, that's a great question Neil, and particularly important one for us. I mean we're 114-year-old farmer owned cooperative and that history and that farmer ownership and connection to the agricultural, you know, kind of center of the business and the community. I mean we're the name of the company's Tillamook, that's the name of the town, the name of the county that we're in. The high school mascot is the cheese maker. So we're very much an important part and a critical part of this community. And the community is very much a part of who we are. And so that heritage, that hundred plus year old history is super important to the multi generational farmer owners of this business and to the employees that work here, many of them for decades, and to the community and all of our other stakeholders at the same time. We understand we're operating in a very competitive environment, you know, and for, for to attract consumers attention, develop deep relationship with consumers as well as competitive employment environment. And the world is changing, you know, in ways new ways more rapidly than you know, we've ever seen. The last several years have certainly proven that. And so we understand that we want to hold on to what has made us great in spirit and foundationally in terms of our values, but also adopt a posture, approaches and to some degree emphasize certain values that are going to help us navigate the future. So for example, when we went through an exercise of talking to our employees and kind of examining how we might redefine our core set of values. It was very important to carry forward some of the things that had always been true about this cooperative. So for example, one of our values is uncompromising quality that has been a cornerstone of this business, thankfully for generations and is a key focus area of our farmer owners. And so that needed to carry forward with us. Same with stewardship, which is our commitment to serve all the stakeholders that, as I mentioned, the relationship with the community, the environment, animals, our employees, consumers, everyone that's involved in this business. We have always had a strong commitment to that concept. But we look at things like, you know, one of our values is play to win. You know, we know that we're in a very competitive market place and the, the business we hit and we now had aspirations to move beyond being a regional heritage brand into a national market leader. And we were going to have to take some risks and we're going to have to have intense focus on what the consumer needs and how to be a good partner with retailers and really to compete against some of the largest, more well resourced consumer products companies in the world. And so we were going to need to adopt a posture that was a little more aspirational around that play to win, that was aligned with the aspirations for the business. So the idea was to care to, to both stay true to what had been true about the company forever, you know, over over 100 years, multiple generations of ownership, and at the same time adopt and emphasize elements of the culture that were going to help us stay relevant and help us win in the marketplace.

And Patrick, how did you go about doing it? Because it's so hard, right? Because obviously if you just keep everything the same, then you're just kind of bolting more and more on, but in some cases making a break from what has served us, almost contemporizing it, you know, evolving it rather than rejecting it. Share a little bit with our listeners around, you know, some of the ways in which you were able to do that and actually get all the people enrolled versus lose some people in the process.

Sure, yeah. I mean, look, a lot of what we have done with the culture and what we've emphasized here within the company has been amplifying the core values in new ways. So one team, for example, I think if you, if you talk to folks at the company a decade ago, they'd say, yeah, we're, we're one team and we work together. But since then we've added locations, people in 40 different states. You know, we've got the complexity of the hybrid and technology enabled work environment. And so what one team means in today's world is different than what one team meant when almost everyone was located in the town of Tillamook. And so it's not so much about abandoning the concept of one team, it's about adapting it and evolving it in ways that are beneficial for the individuals at the company and for the company overall, you know, so that we can stay true to that core value but move it forward into relevance for the current environment. The other thing is, I'll say about that is that we. So I talked about us sort of defining our core values, and we were at the exact same point that gets told in all the stories as sort of a warning tale, which is that, you know, certainly we had posters that had the five values on them and we rolled it out in a video. And so that part, all stories start at the same point there. I mean, I know people like to say, like, don't do the poster. And it's more than that and all that. Well, you kind of all start there, but it's what happens after that that matter. And so the way we continue to reinforce our values through our, you know, performance management systems, through our pay systems, through our. Through the way we made decisions and ensuring that the decisions we make, business strategy, you know, internal, the company, whatever it happened to be, were clearly reflective of those values. So, y', all, everyone has to say it. It's whether you do it after you say it, that. And, you know, it's been years and years of reinforcing the values. One of our values is genuine care. We don't see that as at odds with the value of play to win. We think it reinforces the value of play to win. And what genuine care to mean means to us is we care for the whole person, not just what your contributions are to our. The outcomes and our success and the key business metrics or overall strategy, but we care about you as a person and we are going to behave in that way. We're going to train leaders to behave in that way, and we're going to invest in you in ways that reflect that genuine care. And so if we put genuine care as a value, like everyone makes the poster, and if we did that, but then that never showed up, and that wasn't your experience at the company, then it would not have embedded itself in the way that I think that it here.

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I love that you know Patrick and that was one of the things that I remember, you know, when I was at McKinsey and we first got a chance to meet five, six years ago. That so resonated with me, right? Which was not only were you values oriented as a company in terms of you had values that were really beautiful, but you lived them. You live them every day. And you know, at McKinsey every year the firm has value stake, but it's one year where we stop everything and we actually reflect on that value and talk about how that kind of comes to life in the day to day. And what I found, what powerful was you did it so much more than that. Right. You didn't take one day that we're going to think you actually had values front and center actually all throughout the year in the decisions what you made, but also through how you weave that into your lead program. And I would love to share a little bit about that program because it truly is so special and something that I wish more companies actually integrated into their cultures to truly create that human centric, caring culture that is as much about performance but is as much about health. In fact, it's through performance through health. So share a bit about that lead program and how you all actually engage in growing together.

Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for that recognition. One thing I would say, and this is related to what you're asking me, but is that when you back to this idea of companies reveal their values, what is absolutely essential at that point, and I think we've done a pretty good job of this, is that that has to be a genuine invitation for everyone in the company to engage in a discussion about those and to hold leaders accountable. So when I stand up and I say we have these values that we emphasize here and that we're going to live here and that we're going to have influence, everything that we do, I have to convince everyone that, yes, I'm asking you to hold me accountable to that. That is part of the contract here. And so when we're not doing it, we want to hear it. And what that does is sets the bar for us because, you know, everyone gets busy and you drift and you, you're, you're trying to deliver the results and you' and all that. But we need everyone to hold us accountable to that. So that's, that that's been a key to the way that we've sort of been able to bring it to life. I mean, the other thing, of course, as I mentioned before, is that I don't see creating a fulfilling and enriching employee experience and a culture as an adjunct to the business activity. It is driving our success because we're encouraging people to bring their authentic selves to work, their unique perspectives, their, you know, you know, their, their life experiences in a way, and to speak up and to contribute in the ways that they want to. And when we get that, we get better answers, we get better solutions, we get better performance, we get learning and better teams. And so, you know, we're, we're, we're very focused on creating an environment where everyone is contributing. And then we know that that does create a good experience for folks but also drives a business success. And so when we invest in programs like the one you're referring to, we recognize that, you know, most of my experience working in an organization is going to be my relationship with whoever's leading my team. And as a team leader, we also understand that puts a lot of pressure and a lot of expectations on leaders. And so one of the key things we need to do is support those leaders in their development and acknowledge the difficulty. I mean, leadership is hard. You know, you're put in, in charge of a set of business activities and people, and we talk about servant leadership and you're there to support them. But that's, that's a lot and it's hard to do. And people don't just inherently know how to do that. So you have to, you have to invest in them. And one of the ways we invest in folks is we have a training program that everybody goes through and that's in a leadership position that is pretty straightforward and has some Fairly straightforward concepts, but does a great job of naming those concepts in a way that gives us all the common language. But when one of the best features of that is that it's not just, you know, hey, you're here for a week and we're gonna, you know, you're gonna put the binder on the shelf, as the saying goes. And but what we're gonna do is coming out of that training program, you, you are going to be placed with four or five other leaders from around the business not in your functions, not in your line of reporting. And you're going to get together every Thursday at 8:30 for 45 minutes. And we're, we drive the agendas. So we have, you know, for, I think it's been, we've been doing it for nine or 10 years now. And we have a new agenda that comes out every week. Someone on that team is leading. They either rotate or they have a leader that's consistently leading each week and the team kind of follows the agenda. But also, and I've been in those teams this whole time, I'm in different teams with folks from all over the organization. And sometimes there's a great agenda and you maybe touch on it a little bit, but someone's got something they want to talk about whether going on in their personal life or professionally. And so we're going to invest this 45 minutes in that and what the result of this. And then we rotate those teams every year or so we'll scramble them up and you get a new team. And it's always, no one ever wants to scramble up even though, you know, because we, you know, it's like, wait, I want to stay with these folks. It's been so good. It's the best one ever. And then the next one, they're going to feel the same way. So we, what happens is we're continuing to learn every week reinforcing different themes, different topics, but we're also building those connections and providing that kind of support because again, leadership is difficult and we recognize that and we want to invest in folks to help them be the best leaders that they can be, which we know is one of, if not the critical factor in most employees experience at the company.

You know, Patrick, there's so many elements in there that I want to kind of summarize for our listeners and they're so beautiful. I think the first one, and by the way, you know, I think you have the results to prove for it, right? Like when we met, when you and I met, almost, you know, God, now seven years ago you were $500 million of just crossing 500, 550 million. And you're north of, remind me 1.2.

Yeah, we'll probably finish close to 1.3 this year.

Yeah, 1.3 billion. And most if not all of that growth is organic, right? For a consumer packaged goods company, it is unheard of. That level of growth. You see that level of growth when you're starting from 5 million up, you don't see it at that level. And that performance has been driven through creating that culture of flourishing. It would not be possible without it. How cohesively the team has grown to be able to rise and continue to drive the business. So it's amazing and you know another yet proof point of what we know from extensive research done at Oxford, at Harvard that when organizations flourish, they out compete outperform everybody else in terms of higher profitability, higher productivity, higher growth, higher innovation. Because fundamentally, you know, what are organizations? Organizations are composed of teams and individuals. And so if we take care of our people and our leaders who lead these teams to be at their best, how will they not but deliver the best outcomes for organizations? So really, really case study and I want those who are listening to kind of really take that to heart because we are entering a period right now where economically we're facing a lot of wins and it can be really easy to say we just need to focus on performance, we'll do all this well being stuff later. You cannot in the current context really go make that happen if you don't really continue to invest in flourishing. The other element, Patrick, and you know, I'm such a big fan of this and that's why I wanted to actually speak about you is you know, most companies think about leadership exactly in the wrong way, which is I'm going to send somebody to a retreat, I'm going to do a one week training. But I love this lead program that you have precisely because it is all around micro learnings. It's all about working together. And it's actually a program led by leaders, right. It is not an HR central led effort, which is beautiful. And it's actually, it's every week, right? You're connecting on small topics every week so you can support each other and implement them. In fact, one of the core things when we found, when we research, did research around sustainable transformations when I was at McKinsey and which is a core part now of our Happiness Squad flourishing program is this notion of continuous learning, learning led by leaders, right. And contextualizing it in their context so it's not theoretical knowledge, it's about how do I actually embed it, how do I change it, integrate it into the way we work. So it's something that I highly encourage people to look into. Another company that does it very similarly again, has grown from a billion to 5 billion over the last year. You know, four or five years as crocs. So these are real examples of companies. These are not just pie in the sky. And if you look at the performance, the performance is because of the investment in strong, healthy, thriving cultures.

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, look, it's, it's a, for me it just seems like a clear, it's a clear, bright line. You know, business success is mostly execution. Execution is mostly culture. And it's just, it's just a direct, it's just a direct line, of course, that, you know, thank you for acknowledging our growth. I mean, we're very proud of that and very thankful frankly that consumers across the US have been so receptive and interested in what we have to offer. Especially as a, you know, 100 plus year old company from a small corner of Oregon. It's been very flattering and gratifying and very beneficial for the community and the farmers that own the business for sure. But this issue of building culture by developing people, creating the right environment, developing strong teams was also absolutely critical for us because at the same time we're scaling and there were several years ago we were passing around a video that sort of described the arc of businesses from entrepreneurial to this sort of valley of death when they try to implement a bunch of processes and hire a lot of people from big companies and all that. And whether those exact things were relevant to us or not, the point hit us hard, which is that we're going to fall in this valley if we don't get really intentional about how we build this culture as we get too big for everybody to gather in a room and talk about things on a weekly basis. And so, you know, I'm a big believer in trying to find the smallest, simplest implementation that will, you know, that will have the biggest impact because it'll cause us to create the habits. I think this is very consistent with this concept of sort of daily habits on a personal basis. But that 8:30 meeting on every Thursday is something, it's a fairly small thing with a massive impact. And so it's, it is a big leverage point. The, the risk in those is that it's also small enough that it could just easily get canceled. Like someone could just say, you know, that's kind of hard. Let's just not, let's stop doing that. So you have to recognize, especially when something starts to become part of the ecosystem and you stop noticing it so much, you have to recognize the impact of some of those things and hold on to them. And, and the conversation has come up over the years. Well, you know, it's hard to schedule around this stuff. Should we be doing it still? You know, all that stuff and nope, we're doing it. And it's going to continue to have the impact that, that's been very positive for us.

You know, I really admire that continuity because you could expect back to your earlier point on, hey, we need to change, we need to evolve and go, no, this is working and you need to retain that because it's succeeding. You know, which brings us to well being. And I know you both have touched upon this and I'd like to discuss that a little further. You know, one study that Ashishu and I are familiar with, 70% of the US workforce have quoted for just literally surviving at work. They're either suffering from anxiety, from stress, from burnout. 70%. And I know in conversation with you at Tillamook, I know that you really prioritize well being of your team. And earlier this year you launched an initiative around that, you know, could you please share a little bit more around that? And like, why is it that you keep well being not only front and center for the company, but maybe even your own self, your own personal well being?

Patrick?

Well, I mean, first of all, when we, you know, we talked about the values that we have here and if we're going to adopt genuine care as a value, then, well, being needs to be a prominent feature in programs, our promises, how we invest in the culture and how we invest in our employees. Because you know what we, I mean, you just talked about it. I mean, we're in a well being crisis as a result of a lot of different factors. The bigger arcs related to technology and all the pressures of sort of daily life and work. And then more recently, you know, with a global pandemic and all the other challenges associated with, you know, the kind of economic trends recently and all that, that the issues have just become more acute for folks. And so based on our genuine care value, we have to focus on folks well being. I mean, and then the other thing is, as leaders, and I'm speaking for all the leaders here at Tillamook and certainly my executive team, we care about what people's experience is at work. And it would just pain me Honestly, to think about paying people to come to a place for eight or nine or 10 hours or engage these days, engage, you know, in their, in their home office for that amount of time or in one of our factories and go home depleted and, and feeling drained and feeling like they, they, they've left something behind, you know, at the end of the day. And what we want is to create an experience where folks are feeling like they learn something and they're energized and they're, they're maybe even more grounded because of their work experience and because of the, you know, the programs that we can provide around well being. And then they take that out back to their families and out into their communities and to their, you know, civic organizations and their churches and everywhere else they spend their time and they, they're bringing that energy outward. And so, you know, this model of having folks have a great experience at work and having that work experience be fulfilling and enriching in a way that supports their well being and then have that emanating out into the community is, is sort of our little part that we feel like we can be doing.

That's incredible. I mean, proof is in the pudding. You've doubled the business in the last seven years. You know, staff are happy. I mean, Ashish, the work that you were both referencing earlier, I mean, the team absolutely admire what you're doing, Patrick, and how you're taking them forward. So I would just say an invitation to our listeners. This works. You know, putting well being of your team front and center works. It matters. Especially after we've been through in the last three to four years. It's even more important than it's ever been. I want to start to wrap us up, Patrick. I mean, I'm just really grateful for everything that you shared today. One thing that's really powerful for me and I'm sure for my listeners would be maybe two or three tips that you have that you'd recommend to them, whether it be from your own life or folks that you admire, folks that you look up to, that they could start practicing literally as of today and to unlock their own personal flourishing either in their own life or in their organization.

Yeah, sure. I mean, I'd be happy to share some of the things that I'm trying to do. And I say trying because, hey, it's, you know, that we're building habits, we're all struggling. None of us is perfect at it, or at least I'm not. Certainly the other thing I'll say in preface is that probably it's not gonna be anything anyone hasn't heard before. It's just, again, it's the practice it's doing right. So one of the things that has really been beneficial for me is that, you know, I recognize that, you know, six, eight months into the pandemic, you know, we were still kind of in that mode where it was, is this a crisis for the business, for the people? How are we staying connected? What's this zoom thing, teams thing, you know, how are we going to make this work? I was doing twice a week, all company town halls, you know, where I was trying to keep everyone, just talk about anything. You know, my wife and I went up to the cemetery and sat in the car kind of for as like a little date, because we couldn't go anywhere, you know, whatever, like, just trying to, like, connect with people and under that pressure. But one of the things I recognized was happening is I was waking up in the morning, I was opening my laptop, and I was scrolling the news, and I was getting sucked into that. And. And it was not a good way to kind of start my day right? And so I said, okay, what can I do? And so I developed a little routine. For me, it involves stretching, it involves meditation. You know, I commit about 40 minutes to that, and it's the very first thing I do, because otherwise I will end up getting consumed by the day. And then that happens all the time. And so I don't do it every day, but I try. And it's most, by far, you know, the lion's share of the days. I get up, I do the same exact thing. And then by the time I'm done with my stretching and my meditation, I'm feeling more grounded, I'm awake, in a more productive day. I probably run through some things in my mind, you know, especially, hopefully premeditation. But obviously I've wandered into the meditation like we all do, and. And I've. I've gotten to the point where I've started to sort the world, my day, into the things that are more important rather than the things that you wake up with that are more urgent. And so for me, that morning routine has been a big unlock and something that's been new. I started new kind late 2020, and I've stayed consistently. The other thing that I do is I have a ashish. And I've talked about this in the past, but I have. I have a tracking sheet that I started around that same time where I have these different habits. And the way that works for me is that I set a target per 30 day. Because if I set a target, if I say I'm gonna do this every day, then I miss a day. I've failed. And now how do I recover? And you know, I have this problem, right? So what I say is I'm going to do this 15 times this month. I'm going to do this four times this month. I'm going to do this 20 times this month. And I, you know, I'm kind of. I'm an engineer by trade so I, I like to track things. So I track this and it inspires me both to, you know, and I don't always do everything but both to recognize what I have accomplished in the month and, and honestly just to recognize the love, the commitment to myself. So these are things sometimes they have, you know, I have different categories. Some of them are in support of family members or friends, but of it is just investing in myself. And you know, I'm going to, you know, meditate this many times this month. I'm going to exercise this many times this month. Usually I have some more specific things than that but, but I'll, you know, so. Okay, I didn't quite make it, but good for me for, for being interested in it, for prioritizing it and for tracking it. And I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to do that and thankful that I've invested in myself in this way and we got a new month coming and going to do this month. And so that for me has been very helpful. And look, I think, and I like to stress this with folks here at Tillamook and in my personal life, you have to invest in yourself. And we talk about this in our leadership development programs and when I speak with teams and leaders throughout the company as a. Leadership is hard and you have to invest in yourself. We're investing in you and we're asking you to invest in yourself. And that applies to your personal life too. It's just, you know, people with this high service orientation prioritize everyone but themselves. And you're not serving others if you're not serving yourself.

Patrick, thank you. That was so beautiful. And listen for those are like, I mean it's, you know, for our listeners if you want to say, wow, this is amazing, I want to do this. That is the Neuros, you know, habits is what drives us. Right? So this first notion of you do something early and or you do it over 30 days and you know, it becomes a habit. Also this notion of positive gratification that you highlighted. Right. So don't set yourself an Impossible goal that you now then don't even choose to do it because you're like, oh my God, I failed now, so why do it again versus you say hey, I'll do it 20 times in 30 days. So what? Even if I failed, I'm going to go, you know, tomorrow is another day. I'm going to try on another day and do it with self compassion, right? Hey, at least I tried. There's so many people who didn't try. So one of the ways in which, you know, we are supporting this happiness revolution and all the listeners to kind of integrate these practices is, you know, we've designed a happiness program which is exactly around that. We took a lot of inspiration from the work at Telemuk. So it's a one year program, so it's not a five day go have a huge download. It is all around micro practices that are five minutes and it uses fundamentally this method that, you know, let's set goals that are kind of longer term goals and we can track them and we can do them together so that over time we can build the habits that allow us to invest in ourselves. Because if we don't invest in ourselves, we can't invest in the way we want to for our families. We can't invest and truly be our best for our work colleagues and collectively achieve the results that we want. The difference in those who perform at the highest levels and succeed versus those who burn out is the investment in individuals, in yourself. Patrick, this was so powerful. Thank you for amazing insights, the inspiration that you are and then the bright light that you're shining as an organization where flourishing is not a nice to have, it's not outside of work, but it is fundamentally integrated into how you work and that's driving the results out there in the business world. But more importantly for all the stakeholders, employees, customers, suppliers like, truly making the world a better place. Thank you for this amazing conversation.

Well, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you. I've really enjoyed it and thank you for the, for the work that you're doing, the two of you. I mean happiness revolution. I'm in. Let's do it.

It was a pleasure. Have a great day. Big hugs and lots of love everyone. Thanks Ashish. Thank you Patrick.

Take care. Bye.

Thank you.

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Sam.