GA 536 | Building a Company Culture in the Age of Remote Work with Jessper Maquindang

That has a strong sense of purpose. And when you can inspire that, helping other people achieve their dreams, that's when you can get leaders to really step up and really find ways to just get people to get more inspired about the work they do.

Today I am excited to welcome Jesper McQuindang to the show. Now, Jesper is a leadership consultant who works with companies to. What are they phases of leadership. And so we opened a conversation with an interesting discussion of sort of an assessment approach that he takes with organizations and talks a lot about, well, we're all familiar with, like, Myers Briggs and, you know, disc profiles and different things like that. So we had some really interesting conversation about that and about trying to understand what makes people tick and how that can impact the work that we do and really how we interact with one another. Then we sort of pivoted and got into the whole idea of the whole of remote hybrid in person. You know, organizations are doing this differently now. And so we sort of talk about how people, especially those who might be doing more of a hybrid approach, like, how are they navigating that and how is it working? This then led into the whole idea of culture. And so, like, if people are working from home quite a bit, like, how do you maintain a strong company culture and what are some practical things that leaders can be doing to make sure that we foster this strong sense of belonging and purpose and all that kind of stuff? Then, oh, yeah, in the very end, I sort of again pivoted again to ask him his opinion on those times to where, you know, in our case, many of us are continuous improvement practitioners. We're trying to invoke change out there, but we're hitting resistance from colleagues. In some cases, it's leadership is giving us resistance, like, what are some practical things that we can do if that's ever the case. And yeah, Jesper had some good thoughts on that as well. So show notes can be found over@gemba podcast.com look for episode 536 and again, scroll down on the app and you can connect with Jesper and all his social media platforms and thank him for coming onto the show. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Jesper, welcome to the show.

How are you, Ron? I'm doing well. I'm excited to join you today. How are you? Doing great.

I'm doing great. Doing great. Where are you calling in from?

I'm calling in from the Los Angeles area.

Oh, okay. All right.

All right.

Not much traffic, anything like that. Everything's pretty calm, you know, I wish.

It was that way.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, my gosh.

I love going, going there, but boy, oh, boy. I suppose you get. I don't know, do you get used to it or is it just something you just kind of learn how to cope with or plan accordingly? I don't know.

I mean, rush hour is rush hour. Yeah, you'll get there eventually, but I mean, it is a pain every once in a while.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my gosh. All right, well, hey, Jesper, as you know, we like to get things going out of the gate with our guest sharing a quote. So what do you got?

Sure. So I have a John Maxwell quote. And it is, helping others grow and develop brings great joy, satisfaction and energy. And I'll share that again. Helping others grow and develop brings great joy, satisfaction and energy. And that's from John Maxwell.

What's that mean to you?

It just growing up in the world of continuous improvement, it's really encouraging others to really reach their full potential and see what they can do in the world.

Yeah, yeah. It's all about people, right? It's all about people. So. All right, well, hey, tell us a little bit about your background, Jesper. Tell us how you got into this line of work that you're into now and tell us what that is.

Absolutely. So I want to share a story, and it is an early memory from my mother. And she told me a few years back that when I was growing up, this was probably around age 5 or 6 when I was growing up, I said, when I grow up, I want to be a leader. Fast forward to today. It sounds all fine and dandy, but when you think about it, a five or six year old. What does a five or six year old know about leadership? But growing up, I realized all these opportunities just landed in my lap. When I went to college, I was just involved in extracurricular activities, for example, new student orientation and student government, where I just learned more about leadership. And then when I landed my first job right out of college, I actually became a supervisor and started leading a team and learned more about how I can serve others. And then from there, inspired by what I did, I went back to school to get my executive master's degree in leadership and just really gained a lot more knowledge and experience about that field. And then after graduating, I landed a internship for a management development program at a Fortune 500 company. So I have an academic and corporate background in leadership. And then just throughout the years, I've just gained so much about learning about continuous improvement, personal growth, professional development. It's really just inspired me to really take everything that I've learned and wherever I go in this world I'm sharing those best practices with others.

So that five year old boy who said he was going to be a leader, like what do you think influenced that? I mean were you, did you, were there others in your family like who were themselves leaders at that time or like it had to come from somewhere, right? Or TV shows you're watching or what?

It had to come from somewhere. Whenever I think about this, I grew up in the world of Nickelodeon and then there was a character in the Rugrats, main character Tommy, who always led everyone to adventure and I think that's really what inspired my view of leadership. At the age of five or six, you had a cartoon character who really brought everyone's imagination to the forefront and took those steps to really call to adventure and see what's possible out there. So just growing up in the world, Nickelodeon, maybe that's what had influenced me. I'm still trying to figure that out. But it's a likely, it's a likely explanation at that age.

Yeah, yeah, that's something else. I mean, yeah, that's why in a way it's like be careful what your kids watch but also let them watch your experience things because look at you now, you know, I mean if it, if it was that, then good thing that you watched it. Right? So. All right, well, good stuff.

It's just been an interesting journey overall.

Yeah, this sounds like it. It sounds like it. All right, well, so I understand now, Jesper, that like in your current line of work and the help that you're doing with other organizations that you've, you've experimented with different types of assessments and obviously there's lots of different sort of personality quizzes and Myers Briggs and you know, all different, you know, everything in between. So tell us a little bit about your approach.

Absolutely. Just over the years I myself, I guess I've been a guinea pig and all these assessments, I mean I've taken Myers Briggs, I've taken Disc, I've just taken Kobe, I've just taken a series of different assessments and like you said, they all measure different things. But for my approach I use something called the Behavioral Elements program. And what it does, it really helps you understand what drives you in your decision making. And it's based on the elements. So that's air, water, fire and earth. So for air, these are the people who just enjoy the sense of creativity. There's that metaphor where you throw spaghetti at the wall and See what sticks and this is what would energize them for the waters. These are the people who are driven to bond. They really value the relationships in their lives, you know, at work and at home. Next we have the fires. And these are the people who are. They see things as a competition and that's not necessarily a bad thing. But for example, if you give them a sales goal, they are determined to crush it. Give them something to strive toward and they're after it. And lastly, we have the earth. And these are people who are looking at ways to keep things organized and structured because if everything's running efficiently, it's easier to really implement whatever projects or processes you have in place. And of course, every person has all these drives at the same time, but one tends to be more dominant than the other. And the approach I use is to really give a better understanding of what drives our decision making.

Why does that matter?

Yes, because when you look at different assessments, for example, the personality, it's generally the things you see on the outside that we can, when we work with people, they're generally things that are obvious, but within the inside, what is influencing our behavior. And once you get that understanding, for example, oh, Jesper is a water. I know he's going to spend, he's going to really enjoy the socials that we're playing at work with. With that knowledge, you're able to just get a better understanding of what Jesper can contribute to those events. Or on the other hand, oh, Jesper's a fire. We have a deadline coming up and our sales, they really need to pick up. I know, I know as a fire, I know that he can really look at these numbers and try to really work on improving them. So let's give him a sales goal of reaching X and let's see how well he does. And then with these, with these understood, with this understanding of what drives behaviors, you just get a better overview of how people can be more effective in the work they do.

Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. We actually recently did the disc, disc profile and, and, and with our sales team we were particularly interested and you know, there's some thoughts and like a high D dominant, you know, they might be a good closer but you know, does, but it doesn't mean that someone who's a, you know, more introspective or something that couldn't be a good sales professional. But like, do you see like with this, with, with this, you know, air, water, fire and so forth, that different characteristics sort of lend themselves better to certain career Aspirations or does it not really matter?

It can go both ways, but it is complementary to other assessments. The great benefit of what the Behavioral Elements Program does, and I wouldn't use it specifically for hiring, but I would use it to really understand where people find their zone in how they want to get their work done. And when you understand how people get in their zone, you know, you have that opportunity to really leverage that to get the best work out of them.

That's interesting. That's interesting. So I also know that you've done a lot of work and a lot of research and just general experience with the, the environment that we're in. I mean, obviously during COVID everybody. Well, not everybody, but a lot of people were forced to work remotely. And for some, they had never done it and some loved it, some hated it, somewhere like in between. But. But now, you know, the new reality is that in a lot of organizations there is a. Well, maybe Hybrid is probably, I would argue, maybe the most popular. It would seem anecdotally to me, but there are still folks who just work 100% remote. Even again, by Academy, we're a small company, but, you know, we've got folks that come in to our office here in Texas every day. But we've got gentleman who lives in Michigan, you know, and he never comes in. Right. He's always at home. So I'm curious to see if you've, like, what you've seen just out of the, just to open up with, like, what are you seeing in this remote Hybrid world? Like, are you, are you, are you seeing the same things as far as, like, Hybrid seems to be really popular, or are you seeing something else?

Ron, you are right on point. I do believe Hybrid is the popular choice. I know a lot of organizations and businesses are trying to bring people back to the office, but if you, when you're looking at remote work, it has brought new levels of efficiency. Because when people are, when people don't have that to take that time to commute, especially LA traffic. Yeah, especially you've given yourself a little bit more time to really catch up on the work you need to do.

Yeah.

And then I know another thing is distractions in the office. A lot of people have learned to really find a quiet place at home and that's really given them a better opportunity to just stay focused.

Yeah.

But right on point, Hybrid work is growing now.

What about then, like, how does a company then sort of build and protect and, and foster a strong company culture when many people just don't ever see each other? Unless it's over a zoom or teams call.

As we've seen in many leadership books, leadership studies, leadership research, communication. Communication is key. Gone are the days. Well, not necessarily gone are the days, but when organizations were still in person, many managers still had the opportunity to work, walk around the office and just check in. Nowadays you'd have to schedule a zoom call to really meet with your employee. However, that's still valuable and that is still important. And I would encourage managers and leaders to still schedule calls to really see how their employees are doing. Gone are the days of, you know, how are things going? I encourage leaders and managers to ask, how, how have you been? The days of, you know, being in the office five days a week, it's not the same. So I came in and checked just to see how you're doing, because I want to know, I want you to know that I'm here for you.

Yeah, yeah. We, here at Gamba Academy, we have again, there's a handful of folks, mostly in our content development team. They come into our office every day just because all of our equipment is here and that sort of thing. They just, in some ways they just can't do it at home. But, but Nick, our sales, our customer success team, they, they come in like Wednesday and Thursday. Typically over the years it's weird, it's days of change, but now it's Wednesday and Thursday. And, and, and yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting seeing the dynamics. We have a sort of like a big bullpen area where there's a lot of people sit out there. And, and so if you're a salesperson or a customer success person, you're on the phone a lot, at least for, for in our company, you're talk all the time and it can get noisy and to your point, they'll be like, go try to find a quiet office somewhere and close the door. It is really interesting to see the dynamics of different types of profession and really the design of the workplace.

That's right. It's just changed, especially with the pandemic just moving things around and just really influencing the way we work. Run. Excellent point. You know, this dynamic, it's just interesting to see, but I'm just interested to see how it will look in the future as we adapt to this, you know, this new normal.

Yep, yep. Now what about like, keep building on the whole idea of a company culture? Are you seeing leaders change or, or make any sort of adaptations to their approach to, you know, make sure that we're, we're maintaining a Strong company culture, aside from just communicating and make sure people are talking with one another.

Absolutely. For leaders, I would really encourage them to find ways to increase that sense of belonging, because I know especially with people working remotely, they don't get that FaceTime. And in addition to that communication, you still want your employees to know that you're there for them. I know with many leaders it hasn't been the same because they're not getting that same amount of interaction. And many leaders had to change their approach to be more present with their employees. And that includes different technologies like Slack, WhatsApp, different ways of opening up channels to really find ways to still connect with each other. So this sense of connection, it's changed, but I would encourage leaders to really find ways to improve that within their team and then a sense of belonging. I was reading recent research, I believe it was Stanford University, where a team that really experiences a sense of collaboration and that sense of belonging to is 50% more productive than a team that's not experiencing that same level of collaboration or belonging. So that really makes a big difference in employee productivity and engagement.

Talk a little bit more about, like, when you say belonging, what does that.

Actually mean, sense of belonging? For me, I would say it's that sense that employees are really there for a mission that's bigger than them for employees. There are organizations where employees feel like they're just showing up to work, but there's no sense of meaning or purpose. They go there for a paycheck. On the other hand, the employees who are there and they sense that mission, that vision, they really feel like they're part of something that makes a difference. And when you're part of something that makes a difference, you're working with others in your organization to really make that happen. And when everyone's working together, you have that sense of camaraderie and belonging. And again, when you have that, that inclusiveness, people are just more inspired and motivated to really make a difference in their organization. And that all comes from a sense of belonging within their organization and their team. So. Excellent question.

Yeah, that's, that's, that's. It's interesting. I mean, you know, we think about Simon Sinek's famous TED Talk, you know, with the. The power of why. Like why? Right. The what and the how, that's the easy part. But why, that's the hard part. Right. And I think it comes back down to. Yeah, like, what's the what? What's our purpose? What's what are we fighting for? What's our cause? Right. And yeah, so I guess if, if a leader, first of all, sometimes I've. It's been my experience that not all leaders even really know what the purpose is. You know, that is, hey, this month the quota, sales quota is this much money. And, and that just becomes your obsession. Right. They hit that number or whatever it might be. And, and obviously, sure, if you're a for profit company, yes, you need to, you know, make money and grow the business, you know, to, you know, survive. You know, just a Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You got to have enough money to keep the lights on. Right. But that can't be your ultimate purpose, I would contend. Like, what do you think? Like, do you, I mean, do you see a lot of organizations or a lot of leaders who might not have a crystal clear understanding of their authentic purpose?

There is a great temptation for organizations to really focus on the bottom line. When you're focused on the bottom line and only the bottom line, you're really, there's the potential that employees will be turned off because they don't see the organization as having a purpose other than that profit. But when a leader sees what they stand for, that really increases the productivity, engagement. And back to the question you said about leaders not seeing the purpose. That can be scary. And I know that can happen when the leadership team does not have the opportunity to discuss what they're striving for. That's those types of conversations that has to be taken place. Because for example, let's say you're a travel company and you're just focused on getting all your clients from A to B, from A to B, you know, day in and day out for a while, that can get tiring. But on the other hand, if you have a discussion about what your travel company stands for, you can say, for example, this is an example. We're helping our clients achieve their dreams by reaching the destinations they've always been wanting to reach throughout their lives. That has a strong sense of purpose. And when you can inspire that, helping other people achieve their dreams, that's when you can get leaders to really step up and really find ways to just get people to get more inspired about the work they do. So again, back to your question. Leaders, you know, not seeing the purpose, that can be scary. And I really encourage leadership teams to really discuss why they're there. As you mentioned with Slime and Sinek, start with why.

Yeah, I guess in fairness to, you know, a lot of leaders out there and say, yeah, that sounds great, Jesper Ron, I appreciate it, but we're a publicly traded company and our stock is whatever. And you know, when we're talking to Wall street or whatever, we better have good news or I'm going to lose my job. Right. And so that sense of fear and, and again, I always like to return back to like Maslow's hierarchy of, hierarchy of needs. I mean, if you don't have your basic necessities taken care of, aside from, you know, having air to breathe and food to eat kind of thing, but as you get up there, you know, it can be debilitating. So it's all nice to talk about purpose and this and that, but the reality is, again, especially for publicly traded companies, I would say a small private company like Emba Academy. Yeah, sure, we've got different pressures, but not like Boeing or Nike or somebody, you know what I mean? Like, it's like what do you think about with some of those larger organizations where they've got real pressure? What we want to admit it or not, and we can have all these books and talks about purpose and Simon drawing circles on a flip chart. But like how do you balance the reality of for profit organizations with something as authentic as trying to get your purpose?

Absolutely. So especially with public trading companies, I know there's, as you mentioned, that pressure to really perform and work on that bottom line because in a publicly traded company, you want to impress your shareholders. On the other hand, strong company culture has been linked to profitability. And another thing I want to point out, especially with the organization that you brought up, for example, Boeing, they've been cutting corners lately and it's been reaching headlines about taking shortcuts and not really focusing on that culture where engineers have that opportunity to really focus on that safety. And then with that lack of safety culture we've seen, especially Boeing recently, their stock price has been dropping. So culture does play a difference. You may not see it in the near term, but over the long term it does help with profitability in the long run.

Okay, good stuff. So maybe to wrap things up, Jessopar, I wanted to sort of pivot a little bit now and talk about the whole idea of here in our continuous improvement world. Everybody listening, many people listening. You know, we're trying to invoke change in organizations and sometimes we hit resistance and unfortunately, sometimes as resistance is even towards the top of the organization. So I'm wondering if you've experienced that and if so, what are some ideas or some, some practical advice that you can give for working through that.

Yes, so actually I've learned that there are generally three reasons why change is difficult to implement. So the first one is a organization that's established and there's just hierarchy. There's a lot of structure, policies, bylaws for those organizations. You really, when you're implementing change, you want to see what task or items can easily be implemented within that framework. You can start there and then work your way up. Because I know the approval process for many established organizations. There are a lot of steps and a lot of pieces that have to take place for implementation to happen. So I would say start with the easier task and see we can get implemented, but keep going. And then the second one is differences in opinion. You might have a leader who has one idea and another leader who has another idea. For example, Ron, you might say, jesper, can you mow the lawn before 2pm because we have guests coming over at 3. And then I might reply with Ron, on the other hand, it's a hot summer day. If I stay out at 2pm I might melt in that sun. So I would prefer to do it at seven. And then in situations like those, you want to see what, what types of alternatives are available and talk them through. I mean, one solution. I mean, when you look at both solutions, they're both valid, but you want to see what common ground you can find within those three, within those two. And then a third reason I've discovered with change unable to be implemented is lack of process. For example, let's say, Ron, at work, I'd like to implement Ice Cream Social Fridays, and then Friday comes around and nothing happens. Well, the reason is we really didn't discuss, you know, what type of ice cream should we buy, where should we buy it, how much should we buy, who's showing up, all those questions. It's that implement, it's that process itself. The idea, when you look at it, Ice Cream social Fridays gained 100% approval and everyone wanted it. However, we didn't take the time to discuss what needs to be done. So in situations like those, have those conversations about what it takes to implement that project you have in place. So those are the three common situations I've seen when there is a resistance to change. So again, it is that difference of opinion, it is that hierarchy, and it is that lack of processes. So all things considered, when you work on those, you're likely to reach a higher level of embrace for change.

Yeah, yeah. And even our earlier conversation when we were talking about sort of that sense of belonging and purpose, it probably works both directions, right? Like making sure that we've also made it clear the problem we're trying to solve. Right. And why we believe that the things that we're trying to accomplish are going to be good for the organization. I've seen that a lot in the continuous improvement world to where I remember one time I had a, back when I worked in an industry before Gamba Academy had a. I was in financial controller's office and he said, Ron, you, you continuous improvement people, you just, you just deal with Monopoly money. And I was like, oh, you know, and in some ways he was, he was, it was accurate because there would be many things that we were doing that, you know, ultimately didn't, didn't really benefit anybody. It was just sort of wallpaper, you know, and. But there were times to where we were doing things and might not have immediate, you know, impact on the profit and loss statement, but it was still the right reasons and here's why. And we, we didn't always do a good job of that. So I'm curious, have you seen that as well? To where we've got to make sure that we tell our story well and really explain the benefits.

That's right. When it comes to the benefits, I know as you mentioned, people want to see that and it all goes back to discovering the benefits that are connected to those changes. You want to make sure that when you implement a new project or process, what effect does that have on the people? What effect does that have in the organization? What effect does that have on the department? Because when it's lacking that sense of value, people like you mentioned, they're going to bring up that metaphor of Monopoly money and you really want to remind them that the project you have in place, it's really going to have a positive benefit for all those who are involved.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Good stuff. All right, Jesper Way, this has been a lot of fun. I appreciate you carving out some time to come on. You have any sort of like final words of wisdom or any parting thoughts?

I do. So there is a mathematical equation that I like to share with people. I know the, our listeners today weren't ready for that mathematical equation, but it is Dreaming plus doing equals innovating, dreaming. I want people to really take time, take the time to come up with new ideas, stay innovative, and as the metaphor goes, throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. And then dreaming plus doing take action, whatever those ideas are. I know when you have a lot of ideas, you don't know where to start, but really take the first step somewhere. And then when you add that first of the formula dreaming plus doing where you're taking new ideas and making them happen, that leads to innovating. And when you're innovating, that puts you ahead of your competition. So dreaming plus doing equals innovating. And when you look at the top companies in the world, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, what they're doing is they're really taking some big ideas, they're taking action on them and they're staying innovative. So dreaming plus doing equals innovating.

I love it. I love it. Very good. All right, well, hey, Jesper, if folks want to connect with you, what's the best way?

Absolutely. The first way is to go to my website, familyconsulting.com or you can search for me on LinkedIn. Search for Jesper McQuinding open to have conversations about leadership, continuous improvement, team building, anything that really helps you discover your personal growth and professional development. So I love those conversations. Feel free to reach out.

Awesome. Yeah. And we're going to link everything up on the show notes everybody. So just scroll up on your app, whatever you're listening to on it and we'll have everything linked up there to, to reach out to to Jesper. So. All right, well, Jesper, thanks again for coming on. This has been a lot of fun.

Thank you, Ron. This was exciting.

All right, you take care.

Thank you.

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