101. How to Build a Killer Company Culture, Increase Staff Performance and Talent Retention

It's your outlook and behavior. And if you were to apply this to your business, this would be what is your company? What is the direction, what is the vision? What values do you have in your company? And do people have that in their normal lives? Because if they do, and then they can then extend that through your company, you're going to have a very good, loyal, high performing employee. This is about the employee, where they want to go. You can find out what they want to achieve and then align their personal goals with the company goals because they're achieving those things from their intrinsic motivation and executing for the company and getting that outcome. We're a crypto startup, we can't pay people a lot of money, so what else can we do? We provide an amazing working environment, we give them the authority and autonomy within their roles, we trust them and a lot of the time that is more valuable to these people, their money. You've actually got a really good history with hiring people. It pains me to say it, of course, you hired me, right, so.

Oh, first mistake.

Welcome back to the Ben and Bergs Podcast. I'm Ben, your favorite high school dropout and founder of Collective Shift. Alongside me is Bergs, your favorite MBA and CEO of Collective Shift, Australia's leading crypto portfolio insights company, providing professional analysis and portfolio strategies for crypto investors. Like you, we are a unique blend of the established and the self made and we're here to break down crypto business and personal growth. We're not here just to talk crap though. We're giving you the insights you need to make better investments, build successful businesses and level up your life. And today Bergs has a great topic for us. He's going to be walking us through how to build a killer company culture, increase staff performance and talent retention. How are you, mate?

I'm really well, man. And honestly, I've been thinking about this all night. Last night Ben did a talk, God knows why people wanted to hear him speak.

Honestly. It was a really captivating and brilliant, brilliant story about how Collective Shift came to be. And it was a fireside chat. Ben said at the front there was about 30, 40 people in the room and he talked for an hour about the history of Collective Shift, everything that he went through and really the origin story and right up until where we are today. And one of the questions, so the audience was all business owners and one of the questions came through was how did you manage to retain all of your staff through everything that you guys went through? And she said, I can't even retain like any Staff member, they just keep swapping jobs, they'll move, they'll go to wherever. And we rattled off a couple of things. You answered and then, well, you're like, base. You're here and you stay. Like, what made you stay? And then I said a few things as well, which I've written down here. But then I really thought about it at nighttime when I went home, and I was like, why did everyone stay? And I came up with a few things and I thought this would be really valuable for everyone out there that's in a company, that's a leader, that's in a management position.

For us to go through and let you guys know what we actually did and why people stuck around. So let's get to the first thing, Ben.

First thing is when you're hiring someone, you've actually got a really good history with hiring people. It pains me to say it. Some great people, of course, you hired me. Right.

So.

First mistake, when you're straight in.

The face, mate, straight away, when you hire, yes, you hire for skill, but it's predominantly for values. So all the people that you hired in the business, what was it that you saw in them? And the kind of value alignment, like, what values did you see within those people? You knew they would be a good fit, they would stick around, they would be good employees.

I think they were very selfless people. You know, they were. They were in it, in crypto, in life, there to. To provide to others, to help others. They were very empathetic. They would.

You know, I could see them wanting to learn and grow and make mistakes and ask questions. They wanted to. They wanted to be better. They weren't already at a point where they were the best and you need to hire me for, you know, and I've made those highs before, and they're definitely the wrong ones, but they're also passionate about something. One of the questions we asked in most of our interviews is teach us. Teach me something in the next minute and a half that you're passionate about that, you know, would be unique and, you know, our best highs. Crush that.

Yeah.

Because they have something they're passionate about that they, you know, like to teach and like to learn and, and just also, just generally people that I like to hang out with, you know, if I was stuck at an airport and the flight was cancelled, who would I be able to sit with this person and. And hang out with them? And I think that's. That's an important one.

I remember one particular hire where we asked him all these questions. It was amazing. I'm like, yeah, this guy's great. And you're like, no, I'm gonna go and have a beer with him. He lives like on the outskirts of Melbourne. So he went out like an hour, an hour and a half, had a beer with him. And then he called me up like, yeah, he's a good bloke, let's hire him. Like, that was the test as well. Can you, you know, can you deal day to day with this person in your office or in your business? And what are they like? Go and have a beer with them. How do they act towards other people? What language do they use? You can get a lot from people just from that little interaction.

And also passionate about crypto was a big one for us. So I've hired people in the past that weren't passionate about crypto. And it doesn't work because you don't fit in the culture. You don't have the, the language, you don't have the jokes. You're not in the conversation. And that's, that's, that's an important one.

This is very important. We've had some poses that would jump from train to train. We had people that were in the business that aren't anymore. Now they've moved on to generative AI. They just. On to the next trend. When you're in crypto, you like, you love crypto. You love the scene, you love the shit posting. The irreverence, the innovation, the pace. How you sticking it to the man? Because there's something off to the side, away from our norms in society. And it's very interesting because we've probably got two people that are only just like, like 10% into crypto, but they have all those same values displayed in other ways. Like, even for me, it's like I had all of that where it's through pinball, which you wouldn't even think, where it's just got that, you know, that humor, that irreverence and just this weird subculture to the side. There's actually a lot of overlap with crypto.

Yeah, it's like, you don't need to passionate and be a degener about crypto. I think it's the, the, what's, what's the word I'm trying to come up with? It's like the, the thinking or the, the way you think about the world and life and like, are you, you know, are you pro change? You pro innovation? Are you pro, you know, everything that crypto stands for. Freedom.

It's your outlook and behaviors. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly right. And if you were to apply this to your business, this would be, what is your company? What is the direction? What is the vision of your company? What values do you have in your company? And do people have that in their normal lives? Because if they do and then they can then extend that through your company, you're going to have a very good, loyal, high performing employee.

Yeah. And I think the other thing too is also like, I remember when we first hired a couple of analysts that have been around for a long time, like also explaining how hard it is in crypto and being brutally honest that at any point in time the market changes, that there might not be a role here. And being open and honest about that and having that trust and transparency has gone through our business this whole time. Being able to communicate that to these, to the staff, I think is super important because making everyone, you know, bring them all into the tent and bring everyone along for the journey like co owners. And a lot of our staff have options in the company, so everyone does have ownership in the business. And treating everyone like, you know, like co owners in a sense of bringing them on to the strategy and the decision making and not everything. But, you know, they're not just a cog in the wheel. They actually see the fruits of their labor is really important.

Exactly right. And incentives drive behavior as well. So if you want people to feel ownership, let them be a owner. It doesn't have to be a massive stake, but it needs to be something so they can see the effort that they're putting in is going towards a reward. That reward is growing. They can see the direction of the company and they will be rewarded for it. Rather than then if you do bad or if you do good, you just get your salary.

Yeah, 100%.

It drives that behavior. And you said something critical there, where we're very open and honest with our employees. We're a startup, we're in crypto, we're remote. This is very hard. The market is difficult, the funding is difficult, customers are difficult. And we tell them, like, if you join us, you could be out of a job at any point in time. We're also very honest within our company. We do feedback really well, which we'll get to in a moment. But, but even about our financials, we'll say, hey, this is where we're at. This is how much money we made this month. We report it to everyone. They can ask questions, we tell them the direction we need to go, what the focus is. So they're really invested. Everyone knows what that mission is for that quarter, that six months, that one month, and the actions that they take tie directly into that. That has been critical for us. Yeah.

Yeah, it definitely has. Especially being in a volatile market like crypto and like, you know, because we've had to make decisions, people have been cut, time's been reduced, we've been added on. There's a lot of change and volatility. And I think having people understanding all the reasons why you're doing that really allows them to not be worried and buy into that strategy as well.

Absolutely. Another thing is that our staff see the effort that you put in, Ben. And just hearing your story again last night and reliving it, because I was there for pretty much all of it, is incredible. You're very relentless. You will take anything on, and the lengths you're willing to go to to succeed is incredible. The thing that matters is the success of the business, the continuity and that it keeps going. And we see the effort you put in and we are just like, shit, I can't half ass this. I need to put my maximum effort in. I need to support Ben. I need to support the company, and everyone supports each other in the business. If someone is struggling, five hands go up, and we've only got seven people.

Right? Straight away, I will help you. Let me know what you're doing. Even if I don't know what I'm doing, I'm there to support you. I will help you. That has been critical as a company culture for us to support each other, because it's very difficult. It's not us against each other. It's us against the market, us against the problem. We have that unity.

And that creates a real team environment, doesn't it? Because everyone's like, right, how do we solve this problem? Let's come together. And that's actually a big thing that I love about it. You know, our culture is that. That, you know, people just want to help each other. Like, there's a. There's a problem that comes up. You know, our bookkeeper's helping the IT guy, and then analysts are helping the marketing team. And, like, you know, it's a very.

I don't like to use the word family, because it's like, it's just not the same. It's cohesive, you know, like, it's business. Business cohesiveness. So, yeah, it's. It's. It's really cool.

That's a key distinction. We're not a family, we're a business, but we're cohesive. We Work as a team, as a tight unit.

Yeah.

And look, we've got. We've also got a culture of shouting people out. So every week in our huddle, at the end of our weekly huddle, all company huddle, we will have our company values displayed on the screen and we will shout out someone. And all the time, it's multiple people in the company that have displayed those values and people are honestly in awe of other people in the company and what they're able to achieve. I still am and I've been there for 18 months and before that as a contractor for years. The things that people do and how they continually improve. Once you've built that culture, you were like, holy shit, how are you doing this? This is getting better week on week. And they're displaying our values of, you know, continually improving, getting shit done, keeping it simple, play as a team. And that is incredible because everyone gets a boost. Even if you don't get shouted out, you still get a boost from everyone else and you feel amazing about it. You get that recognition from your peers.

People always comment about how jacked up they are after that Monday morning.

Ye.

Like, everyone's like, right, let's go. Like, everyone's ready to go.

Let's get amongst it.

It's a big one.

Exactly. It just aligns us. Is brilliant. And on top of that, we've built in a real culture of feedback too. So at any point in time, anyone in the company will give someone else feedback. We've taught them how to give them feedback using the SBI model. Everyone's quite good at it now and we do it immediately. We don't let things fester and we've built it into our meetings as well. So in our huddle, in our exec meeting, in our OPS meeting, straight away, are there any elephants in the room?

Yeah.

Is there anything that'll have. And after that? So elephants for us are. What is bothering you? Is there something that's eating your brain? What do you need to bring up? After that? We have, is there anything urgent and important? They have urgent needs to be handled now. Important is significant impact to the business. And then we get into the meeting, everyone has that opportunity to say, hey, you know, I had this interaction earlier, this is what happened. This is how I'm feeling about it and things are just dealt with immediately. People want that feedback and they want to get better because we built it.

Into our culture and people take responsibility for things. This is one thing I learned really only business is like, there's nothing more humbling and you know, gratifying than just take taking responsibility for something even if it's not even your fault. I'm not sure if you, you know, you've seen this, but I always put my hand on, say that's probably my fault and just take responsibility. Even though probably wasn't or there wasn't even a mist. But I think leading through that and not creating a culture of blaming each other and pointing the responsibility elsewhere and just taking responsibility for it, taking on the chin and just fixing it is what other people have sort of caught on to as well.

Yeah, it's us against the problem, not us against each other. And it really. People want the feedback because they want to improve. It improves their self awareness as well. And people have blind spots. We're humans. Some days we're going to be pissed off, we're going to miss the mark, we are going to anger someone, we are going to say the wrong thing, we're going to put our foot in it. And when you do that, don't let that little thing just sit there and fester and you just build animosity for that other person. No, be like, hey, you're definitely below the line, mate. What is going on? And have that conversation and just care about that other person. That is critical. And as part of this feedback, we also do quarterlies with all of our staff members and we ask them questions about what do you really enjoy work doing here? Like, what do you enjoy about your work? What do you hate or want to stop doing? What would stop you from coming to work? What can I stop or start doing as a leader? And we actively work on this with them throughout the quarter. And it's funny because we do these reviews and they're like, guys, you already know all this because we talk about it every day, because we've built it into our everyday conversations. That is the culture we have in our organization and with the way we run these quarterlies is we'll give them the questions ahead of time and then we'll have 45 minutes to an hour with each employee. And they talk and we shut up, we take notes, we shut up. If they want to ask us something, they can. Or we can ask them a question. We can probe them further. We can say, hey, have you thought about this? But it is their opportunity to speak. Because in these kind of reviews, all too often when you ask an employee, they will say, well, my Boss spoke for 90% of the time and I didn't get to say anything. And then the reverse is also true. You ask the Boss, they'll be like, yeah, they spoke for 90% of the time. And that is not true. It is always the boss speaking. This is about the employee, where they want to go. And you can reiterate to them the company goals and values. You can find out what they want to achieve and then align their personal goals with the company goals. When you do that, performance is off the charts because they're achieving those things from their intrinsic motivation and executing for the company and getting that outcome.

And a lot of people in our company value freedom, time, flexibility, working from home. And that's all amongst the company values, because that's what I value. And I think that's another thing that's shared values is people all like the similar things in their own life.

That's right. We're a crypto startup. We're a startup. We don't have a lot of money. We can't pay people a lot of money. So what else can we do? We provide an amazing working environment. We give them the authority and autonomy within their, their roles. We trust them, we give them a very long leash. You can learn anything you want. You can do the hours you want. You know, we do have things like, you know, you need to act in a certain way. You need to be respectful. These are the values, these are the things you need to achieve. We are outcome driven, but we really allow people to mold the role into what they want. You know, we can't pay the millions of dollars for a salary, so we have to give them something to stick around. And a lot of the time that is more valuable to these people.

Their money is, it's bigger than an individual. It's a mission, it's a, it's a vision, it's, it's helping others.

It's almost a calling.

Yeah, yeah. 100% for, for some of our same. 100% is fantastic, man.

So look, they were just a few things that were mulling around in my mind last night about that question on how to get your people to stick around. Talent retention and how to build a killer company culture. And from the things we've talked about, if you just go through those and just picture a flywheel in your mind and that thing accelerating over time. Performance goes through the roof. People stick around. Recently we've made some changes in the company. Most of the time people just get pissed off and angry, go f you and leave. Every single person said, how can I help more?

Yeah, people don't down that.

Exactly. That is just testament to the culture that we have built at collective ship, man.

Top stuff. Great little summary, mate. You did sleep on that last night. That's. That's. It's growing a little bit from where we were last time on that.

There we go, mate.

Thank you, everyone, for listening. That is how to build a killer company culture, increase staff performance and talent retention. If you love this episode, we'd love for you to share it with a friend, family member, maybe someone in a startup, maybe someone running a business, maybe yourself. Maybe you just found it valuable. We'd love for you to send us in your feedback. And as always, you can hit us up on Twitter at baby backburg at BenSimpsonau, and also Ben and Bergs on Twitter as well. You can search us up and see us there. Thank you, Bergs. Great episode.

Thanks, mate. And thank you, champions, for listening.