Build a Vibrant Culture with NICOLE GREER

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, the podcast that transforms female corporate executives into powerhouse leaders by showing them how to shed the challenges and overwhelm along with any fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negativity holding them back. I'm your host, Bernadette Boas of Ball of Fire Coaching, bringing you powerhouse experts each week to share tips advice, and sometimes tough love that will allow you to create the riches in your work and life you deserve. So let's do this. I am talking with Nicole Greer of Build a Vibrant Culture all about how organizations need leaders who know how to get lit. Leaders must lead With Clarity, Leaders Must Integrate Integrity and Transcend the Ordinary. She'll help you answer the question, how do I motivate my team? How are you, Nicole?

I'm doing fantastic. Thank you so much for having me on your show. It's exciting to be on the show.

Oh, you're so welcome. You're so welcome. So before we get into all the building a vibrant culture, tell our listeners and viewers, kind of a little bit about Nicole. Where do you live? What do you, you know, what are your passions? What do you do as hobbies? All that kind of good stuff.

Yeah, it'd be my pleasure. Yes, I live in Concord, North Carolina, and I've been a North Carolina girl since birth. I did get kind of drug around the United States a little bit growing up, but that's good. I never met a stranger. That's what came out of that. Uh, in terms of business, I started out as a young, you know, eager gal in the restaurant business. Then I got into property management, and then I raised two beautiful children children who are functional, tax-paying, mortgage-holding, car-driving people. So I feel like I did a good job there. I'm not paying for their cell phone anymore either, and that's good. Uh, so, uh, got those kiddos. And then in my spare time, I love to travel. I just went up to Blowing Rock, North Carolina. There's a little plug for a great little weekend— Blowing Rock, North Carolina. You got to go up there, it's so fantastic, especially this time of year. Beautiful. And, um, and I love to go sailing on Lake Norman. So those are all the things I do for fun.

Oh, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. That's great. And yes, to get the kind of kids actually successfully raised and out of the house. Yeah, a beautiful, beautiful thing. Just absolutely love that. So I love this whole topic and answering this particular question because a lot of leaders do struggle to motivate their team. But tell us a bit about what your philosophy is around building a vibrant culture. What's that all about?

Yeah, so here's the thing I know is I know that some people move in the world in a beautiful way, and wherever they go, they shed light on what, uh, is possible. They live in a place of probability. They live where they think the glass is half full or overflowing, dare I say that. And I think that is what builds a vibrant culture. So a big thing that people are doing out there is they're trying to change the culture as an entity, you know, like, let's change the culture. But really what we do is we change the culture one human at a time. And when we start to have leverage around these people who are positive, outgoing, enthusiastic, excited about what they're doing, that is when we actually have a lit culture and it becomes vibrant. It's just one person at a time. I gotta do 1 1 1 1 until I get, you know, a major group of people, and then I can tilt the rest of the organization. Organization that direction. So it's all about getting each human going the right direction, not changing the culture.

Right, right, right. I love that, Nicole. I love the whole idea of LIT. So taking one per human, one human at a time, um, and what does LIT— what does a human who is LIT look like?

Yeah, I think that's a great question. So that's my little formula for getting your head wrapped around how to be a great leader. So the first thing we need to do, uh, individually individually is Lead with Clarity. So one of the things I love about a great employee or a great associate is that they know what the job is. They've been onboarded correctly by their organization. There's great clarity about what is expected from them, and they begin to live into those expectations. So the L stands for Leading with Clarity. So there's been an awesome onboarding. This person understands their job description, and the people that work inside the organization have taken them by the hand and said to them, you know, "Here's what your next 90 days looks like." So I think it's very, very important to do performance management with every single person on your team. Then there's, there's no loss of clarity about what it is that we need to do. I had a master coach that I worked with for many, many years. His name was Dave Cowan, and he said this very important quote. He said, "Uncommunicated expectations are a premeditated opportunity to be disappointed." And I know that's a mouthful, but—

Oh, wow!

Isn't that good? And so he taught that to me, and he said, that's one of the biggest problems that we have is that there's not that communication about what it is exactly we want you to do. And I think a secondary part of that, of leading with clarity, is that we leaders need to give people amazing feedback right from the get-go, right out of the gate. And I'll, you know, also, also tell them in the onboarding process, we give lots of feedback. So don't be surprised if somebody tells you you're doing an amazing And don't be surprised if somebody asks you to tweak something you're doing. We really care about you, and we want you to be super successful. So I think two things, setting expectations and giving tons and tons of feedback, help us do the L, which is leading with clarity.

Nice, nice. All right. So is there something with the I?

Absolutely. So the I stands for integrating integrity. And here's the thing about integrity. Integrity is a funny thing. Everybody thinks they have integrity. Like, if I had a whole, you know, auditorium full of humans and I said, "Are you men and women of integrity?" You know, all the arms would shoot up in the air and they'd be like, "Absolutely!" But here's the truth. Here is the sad, sad truth. Integrity comes and goes. Now, people are probably— dare I say this, you know, they're like, "What is she talking about? She's crazy!" I know I'm not crazy because I've personally lost my integrity. Now, hold on everybody. Don't be upset. You're listening to somebody who cares a whole lot and wants to do good in the world. But every once in a while, I'm hungry. I'm angry, I'm lonely, I'm tired, and I'm not on my best behavior. Can anybody relate? So I call that HALT— H-A-L-T— Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. And so sometimes I don't act my best, or I'm not on my best behavior, and I don't do what I need to do. Now, since that is just the truth of being a human, one of the things we have to do is we have to learn to ask for forgiveness and apologize for our bad behavior. So Integrating Integrity is about looking at the quality of your integrity and being able to like acknowledge when you're, you've fallen out of integrity, you're not done what you said you're going to do, or, you know, various sundry things that we, that we mess up in this life, you know, admitting your imperfections, I think is huge.

Yeah. And I halted for years, not just moments or not just hours. I halted for a very long time. So I totally understand. And I love that acronym, HALT. Um, yes. Uh, and hungry, I'm always hungry.

But, uh, me too. It's sad. I can't get enough to eat. What is wrong with me?

Seriously, seriously. Um, all right. I absolutely love that. And the T. Yeah.

So this is a, this is the T is for transcending the ordinary. Um, so, uh, I, I think, you know, it's very simple in this life to do a little extra. It's very, very simple to do a little extra. And if you want to transcend the ordinary, I think what you need to do is to get very clear about your skills and your talents and the values you bring. So one of the things I do when I work with individuals where I'm trying to get everybody lit inside of a culture is I have them focus on a couple of things. One, make a huge inventory of all of the skills that you have, not just the ones you're using for this particular role, but like all the skills you have in general. I find that one of the biggest things missing for leaders to take advantage of is like a database of who can do what. And I can give you a quick story. Would you like to hear a quick story about it?

Absolutely.

We love stories. OK. All right. Awesome. Well, I was working with a gentleman who was a restaurant owner. You heard earlier I have restaurant experience. So I was working with this gentleman who has a restaurant, and one of the young ladies was on his waitstaff, and she was going to school to become a graphic designer. This is not on his radar at all. He simply thinks she's waiting on tables out here. Well, he was talking to me about marketing and this and that and the other thing. And I was like, oh my gosh, well, you have a young lady that serves your food, works inside your business, that could probably do a little bit of social media for you, do some graphic design, work on the menu, blah blah blah. And he's like, oh, what? I never thought of that. And I'm like, okay, well, that's what I'm saying, you know, like you have people right under your nose that have some things that you're not aware of. So, um, she ended up continuing to wait tables because truth-telling, honesty, and candor, she more money waiting tables than she did doing these flyers. But then she began to build a portfolio that she can use for work ahead of her in her career. So really worked out fantastic. I think another thing about transcending the ordinary is to be super helpful and willing. So I find that a lot of people are like, I'm just doing my job over here. Yeah, that's, that's what I'm doing. But I mean, gosh, you know, there's a lot of things that need to be done inside organizations. And leaders usually are working leaders, meaning that they have an output or some kind of list of things they have to get done in a day. So actually, you know, doing that old thing, managing by walking around, we all learned a long time ago in The One Minute Manager, they don't have a little time for that. So things aren't as, you know, seen as clearly by the leaders. And I tell you, leaders catch heck for that too, that they, that they don't see what's going on. But to transcend the ordinary, one thing you could do is you could bring to the attention of your leaders that there is an opportunity for something to get done. And that you in fact would like to help with it, um, and, and help that leader take the business where it needs to go. It's only going to benefit all of us if the business is more successful. That's one of the big things people miss, right?

Yeah.

Wow.

Okay, but a bunch of questions are coming up for me. Oh good. So first I want to go back to the inventory, and then we're going to come back to, um, your whole conversation just then about, um, transcending the ordinary by seeking out ways that they can contribute. So the inventory, and I think that's brilliant, and that was a great story about the, the waitress who, who is also a great marketer or working to be, you know, a great marketer. When, when they look at the inventory, the— so you have the individual employees of a team of a company. Taking this inventory, correct?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So they're going to sit down and they're going to do a laundry list, a very laundry list of everything that they have experience in. One of the things about today's modern employee or modern associate is people are changing jobs way more often than they did, like, when I was coming up. And, and, and, you know, we used to kind of— dare I say this— poopoo that, but really this gives people a, a much better perspective on business when they're in all sorts of different places. Um, and because now it is so easy to apply for positions and, uh, you know, go out. In fact, one of the things I do in my business is recruiting. Uh, you know, people can go online today and apply for 70 jobs if they wanted to, just by like a couple, couple of clicks, and then, you know, it just goes out. So So, so people are gaining wide various backgrounds of experience, and so you just don't know what they've done. And unfortunately, we don't do a good job of inventorying that.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. And the main question too that I had was, do you have them considering skills and talents that maybe haven't even been applied in their work, like in a paying job, but more so, you know, they're told that they're really good at something, or they, you know, it's, it's not something that they had considered, you know, a skill to be paid for. And yet they are skills and talents that could be contributing into their current role or a future role. Do you have them looking at all of that, or just kind of what is career-based?

I would say in all of that. So I'll give you another quick story. So I had a young lady that was selling Mary Kay. On the side, and she was working inside of, uh, you know, the company in a different role. Well, she was one heck of a lipstick salesperson, and she was, you know, she's building this little entrepreneurial thing over here with her Mary Kay business. Um, and, you know, everybody— and it was, again, things are right under our noses. So she, uh, is selling tons of lipstick and blush and mascara and the dream of having a pink Cadillac and all that to everybody, and, um, she's doing a fantastic job. I mean, and we— and you and I both know that today, business needs to be more entrepreneurial than ever, you know. So this young gal, she really needed to be, you know, more in a sales role, right? Really in a sales manager role. And so, you know, having this inventory that, you know, like, I have sales skills, I have marketing skills, I have recruiting skills, which were not any of the skills that she had in her normal day job, which was, you know, basically being an administrative assistant. So I think it's any skill set that people have, because again, when we go to promote people from within, I think there's still a lot of like old-school thinking. You know, like, we wouldn't take somebody from this department and put them over here. And I'll tell you another quick story. I was working with a company in Denver, North Carolina called Bloom. They're actually, their home office is in Austria. And they had a young man that was working on the manufacturing floor. He was trying to just have a, you know, a job to pay the bills while he was going to school, graduated with a degree in marketing. And then, you know, you know, what a wonderful thing for a marketing guy to have worked the warehouse floor and the production floor, right? And then he turns around, he goes into marketing. So I think really making sure also, and it's a lot about messaging, we have to tell people, you know, let us know what's going on in your head. Let us know what's going on in your school life. You know, let us know what's going on in your world. And again, that brings us back to the L, leading with clarity. You know, letting people know we need to know what you're up to so we can keep you with us.

Yeah, I absolutely, absolutely. I love that.

LIT.

Lead with integrity, integrate in tech. I'm sorry. A, LIT. L is lead with clarity, integrate integrity, and transcend the ordinary. Did I get it right?

Absolutely. You got it. You nailed it. Perfect.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. I absolutely love that. Okay, so then my second question to what you were talking about, especially when it came to the T, transcend the ordinary, is could some individuals see that a leader who steps in and says, hey, I can, you know, do this and I can help with this, is there any risk to them being seen as a micromanager by doing that?

Well, I don't think so. And I'd like to say a word about micromanaging before I go any further. May I make a comment about micromanaging? Okay, so I think this phrase micromanaging is totally overused. Okay, and so again, um, don't be upset by that. Um, here is the thing. Micromanaging is where like the leader is hovering over your every word and, you know, tweaking what doing every second. I get that. However, I do think that for a certain period of time, people do need to be micromanaged. And what I mean by that is that if you want to have a high, high level of expertise, a high, high level of excellence, you are going to have to coach people to do it a certain way. So for example, like if I was going to go— I'm not going to name a lower, a lower level hotel. But I went to a lower level hotel and I was greeted by the person at the counter. They might be like, 'Help you?' when I walk up. Or I can go to the Ritz-Carlton downtown Charlotte. I totally suggest it. You need to eat at the BLT Steakhouse and you need to go to the Cocoa, uh, the store Cocoa on the corner, which is the chocolate shop at the Ritz-Carlton Charlotte, North Carolina. Anyway, so if you walk into the Ritz, here's what they say to you at the Good afternoon, it's so nice to see you. May I get your name? I'd love to help. I mean, like, you know, they say this whole spiel, right? So, you know, you— and people always, uh, always brag about the Chick-fil-A, right? Okay, you're a Georgia girl, everybody's talking about the Chick-fil-A. Well, this whole thing of saying my pleasure, like, it's not optional, right? And so they, they make sure it's not optional. And I mean, and they have a smile on their face and their name tag on and look great and serve you great.

And it's—

that's just what I call training.

Yeah.

Or onboarding. When I said earlier in Leading with Clarity, it's like in that first— but really from the day you set the ad in the paper, uh, there— oh, I just dated myself— put the ad on Indeed, and the, and the, and the recruiting process is you tell people, you know, we're very big on feedback, we're very big on it. So that's my two cents on micromanaging. Some people need it until they have the wings to fly., right? And so we've got— we— micromanaging is not a bad thing wholly.

Yeah. Okay, so, so you're seeing micromanaging as coaching and training and developing?

100%.

Okay, um, because I would call that coaching, developing, and training. So when you were talking about LIT and you were talking about the T, transcending the ordinary, and you were suggesting that leaders seek out ways that they could, you know, you know, projects or tasks or initiatives that they could be working on. Give us a— give us a description of what that might look like so people don't think the way I did. The way I heard it was, okay, they're going to go and start doing someone's job that should be doing their job, and they're going to start like inserting themselves. And as a leader, you don't want to necessarily be doing that. So give us an example of how, what leaders could be doing to find those opportunities where they could be contributing, you know, from a working perspective beyond what they typically do every day.

Yeah. OK, so, so I want to just real quickly on the micromanaging thing is I agree with you, it is developing coaching and training, but the leader has to lead with clarity and say, I'm going to lead, coach, and develop. We're going to get in real tight together.

OK.

So that they know, so that the employee, the associate knows, that's, I'm not micromanaging you. If it's not clear, then the man, the employee is like, gosh, he's on me all the time. Right. Because I'm training, coaching, and developing you. And I care about your career. OK. All right. So, so I call it that, too. I'm just saying that people love to just throw micromanaging out there like a big sticker and stickers everywhere. And you can't get it off. You can't get the sticker off. All right, so back to what you're saying. Okay, so I'm gonna tell you another quick story about that. So I was working with a manufacturing organization, and I was talking to an engineer, and this engineer was sharing with me that he knew that there was a problem with the powder coating machine. Apparently, in this powder that coats stuff, it has to have the right amount of moisture in it, the right amount of humidity in it. Okay, so all you engineers text me and correct my language. And so he knew there was a big problem because he was called to adjust this machine over and over and over again. So this is a problem. And the, and the thing that I didn't understand that he shared with me is that the powder has one material or chemical in it that is very expensive. So this is costing the company a lot of money because every time the powder coating machine is clogged, we have to take out this powder and throw it away and get it all cleaned up and go again. So we're losing money and time, productivity, and stuff is not getting powder coated, which I'm sure all the way down the supply chain is a mess. Long story short, I said to him, well, do you know how to fix it? And he says, yeah, but that's not my department. And I said, oh no, the whole company is your department. It's all our department. Everything's our department. Like, he— and I said, no, what would we— what do we need to do? He says, well, we need to call the manufacturer that's selling us the powder and make sure that the level of the chemical is above 20%. And I said, okay. Okay, let's do it. So we go, we make the phone call. Come to find out the percentage is below 20%, and that is why it is clogging. So what's your point, Nicole? My point is that's how you transcend the ordinary. It's ordinary for us to have this powder coating machine clogging up every 5 minutes. We just keep throwing stuff in the trash. But like I said, if you go around the organization and you find issues, you could really make yourself super valuable, transcend the ordinary, You know, insert yourself into the process and say, "I know how to fix this. Would you like some help with this?" Now, what I just did was a little communication technique that I call "asking permission." And I think that's one of the best things you can do as a communicator inside your organization is say, "You know, I've got a really good idea. And if you would like it, I would be glad to give it to you." Instead of going, you know what y'all, y'all ought to do? Y'all fix the powder coating machine, it's all messed up and it's a problem and y'all don't know what you're doing. No, see, don't do all that. Um, say, I've got a great idea, would you like it? And see, the other person's got to say yes. And when they say yes, then you can say, here's what I'd like to do, let's call the manufacturer and see what the percentage of this fancy chemical is at. Let's do that first. And then, very, very long story short, second thing they did is they found out that it needed to be transported in air-conditioned truck, and it was not being transported in an air-conditioned truck because the air-conditioned truck keeps the humidity at the right level. Isn't it interesting, all these things I find out all the places I work? So I mean, that's how you transcend ordinary, is you look around, you say, I can fix this, right?

Right, right. Golly, do you have great stories. And I love, I love tying, I love tying stories to these type of of, um, of questions because it just helps everyone viewing. Yeah, to see it, picture it, put themselves in it. Um, yes. So what do you, what do you believe leaders need to understand about their thinking toward building a vibrant culture that they're just not paying attention to.

Yeah. All right, well, the first thing I would say about the way leaders think is that, um, here's some— a cool statistic. Uh, they say that on average, the average adult human has 15,969 thoughts a day, which sounds very impressive. However, here's, here's the sad part.

It sounds overwhelming, Nicole, right?

Well, and if you have a podcast, it's probably twice that. But anyway, it's So, uh, so 15,969 thoughts a day. Now here's the problem with this 15,969 thoughts is that they say 90% of it is the same stuff you thought yesterday.

Oh my God.

Okay, and so, uh, you know, I'll— and then I often joke and say, so if it feels like you work with a bunch of 2-year-olds, it's probably true because they have this thinking that's left over even though they're 50 years old that they've been having since they're 2. Now, the thing I would challenge people around their thinking is to really step back and put together what I call a leadership philosophy. So I think that it is absolutely imperative that leaders sit down and they decide, they choose, they are intentional about the philosophy that they're going to have when they lead. And so inside that philosophy, you have to have some basic concepts of leadership that you are going to do without fail., and that are very clear. So again, we're back to leading with clarity. You've got to talk about a school of thought. So, you know, this is how we think around here. So oftentimes what I'll do is I'll set up, you know, like I'll be training or something, and I'll, I'll say to people, you know, especially leadership classes, I'll say, hey, can we tell people what to believe? And everybody goes, nope, nope. Nope, nope, you can't do that. You can't. That would be wrong. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, hold on a second. You can, you can tell people what to believe. And, and they almost don't get it for a second, but it's like, okay, let's go back to my friend Chick-fil-A for a moment. Okay, here's what we believe. We believe that it's our pleasure to serve people. That's what we believe. If you don't want to, if it's not pleasurable to you, you should not be here because that's how we roll. We believe that. OK, so the same thing at the Ritz-Carlton or anywhere that has superior service or products is like, "We are excellent, and that's how we roll." So one of our things is we have to have a school of thought around excellence or a school of thought about the pleasure of serving others. And so we have people kind of adopt themselves into that. So we have to have a school of thought, there have to be some guiding principles, and then again, a set of core beliefs, things that we believe in. So one of the things I teach the people that I work with with is my SHINE coaching methodology. So one of the schools of thought I have is that every single human on our team has to be doing self-assessment, which is the S; habit work, which is the H; I, integrity work, which we kind of touched on; and then everybody has to have some next right steps, like, what are you working on? What are your goals? Where are you going to be when you grow up? What kind of career do you want? So performance management, and then energy work. And energy work may sound a little woo-woo, but it's not at all. It's not at all. Every human has 6 energies that you can fire up and get people lit from within. So you got to work on these 6 energies. So I think that leaders have to have a way they think so that they can tell everybody, this is the way we're gonna think. I think that this thinking will move us where we want to go.

Right, right. And have you implemented Shine at a team leader or team level, or do you propose that it comes all the way from the top down to those— to the teams? Or can you— or can you kind of go into a company and start it at a team level and maybe see, you know, where it goes from there?

Well, I've done all of those things. But here's what I want to do. I want to start with the CEO. Okay, so there's this old— there's this old saying, um, is this Maxwell? Tell me if it's Maxwell: everything rises and falls on leadership. Is that his? I don't know. Anyway, yeah, but I think it's absolutely true. And, and I'll tell you a quick story. Uh, so I was working with a lovely organization here in Charlotte, North Carolina, and they're like, we have these brand new leaders, they've never been managers or supervisors before, and we would love to have you come, Nicole, and work with them. I said, "Well, hot dang, I'm in!" So we get it all together. I go down there and I teach them the Shine Coaching methodology. Plus I put, I give them what I call my Vibrant Coaching Toolbox. So it's very easily applicable things you can start doing this afternoon with the people that you lead. And so during one of the breaks, this really cute young gal comes up to me and she says, "Oh, I am so enjoying this!" I'm like, "Oh, me too!" And she says, "Can I ask you a question?" I said, "Of course." She said, "Is my boss going to get this training?" And I said, not, not as far as I know of right now. That would be my goal. You mean they don't— they're not having the same session? I said no. And she went, oh yeah, I guess that's all I have to say about that, right? She knows. You see, here's, here's the thing. This young gal knows that she can't do this in a Right. Like, she can try to do it with her team, but if the guy or gal up here, or the guys and gals over here, or the guys and gals down here, right, um, are not using these tools, you know, she's got to get that leverage. So again, one person at a time, plus another one, we get them all lit, starts to get vibrant in here, right?

Yeah. No, no, that— and that's, that's why I wanted to ask that question, because—

oh, I love your question.

Yeah, I really wanted everyone to understand that, you know, yes, we'd love it to come from the top, but when it, when it can't, if, if you, you know, feel it, I'll try from anywhere. Correct, correct, correct. Yeah. And okay, so I want you though, just really quickly, to repeat each one of what SHINE stands for.

Yeah, absolutely. So the S is self-assessment, and that means to turn the mirror inward. And the research says that one of the the, the most highly valuable tools a leader can do and have in their toolbox is some kind of reflection exercise. So here's a really important question that all leaders need to ask themselves: What is it like to experience me?

That's a great question.

Yes, it is an awesome, awesome question. Everybody take it and run with it and try to go figure out what that is, because Here again, nobody's going to follow you, you know, if, if you're a B, or the other word for the boys. So I mean, it's just not going to happen, um, you know, or they'll give you the minimum. So it's— we're back to the job description, you know, like, so the guy that's like, well, that's not my department. Oh, okay, right. Yes, it is. This is every— everybody's department's our department. It's all together, you know.

Yeah.

So that's the S. OK, H is habit work. So habits will serve you or they will slay you. And everybody on the planet knows this because you've either had too much sugar for a long time, or you stay up late when you should go to bed, or whatever your stuff is, right? You know that these slay you; they don't put you in your best, you know, point of performance, right? So habit work for employees is huge and should, again, be something we talk about with them at onboarding, right? Like, so here's some habits that will really make you successful here. Be 5 minutes early. If you start at 8, be here at 7:55, you know, because some people didn't get taught by Mama these things. So I for integrity, N for next right steps, and E for energy.

Energy, love it. And, um, but I want to go back to your— when you were talking to the self-assessment and you were saying the example of the person who's like, it's not my job. All right, this is going this direction. I'm veering off here for a second.

Okay.

So a lot of people would say this whole concept out there of quiet quitting, mm-hmm, and you know, and they are, you know, voicing and advocating, I have a job description, it fits this box, and that's all I'm meant to And what are your thoughts in regards to that whole movement around quiet quitting?

Okay. Yeah. So first thing I would say is that quiet quitting is about relationship. That's the first thing I want to say. Okay. Because we don't quit our jobs, we quit our managers. So That, that one's been rolling around out there for a long time, and I think that is very, very, very true. In fact, one of the things I do inside my company is I do recruiting, uh, boutique recruiting for organizations that need help finding somebody special. Um, so I'm recruiting right now for an internal account manager in a company that makes high-end supplements. Long story short, I was on the phone with this young gal and Um, you know, she is telling— I'm like, tell me all about you. Well, I'm killing these numbers and I'm doing this and I'm doing that, and she's all excited and everything. So I just listen into this. I'm like, hot dang, I got a good one on the phone, you know. I'm all getting all excited. Um, and then she says to me, um, I said, well, why are you leaving? Okay, because we always— there's recruiters, we always ask, right? Why are you leaving? Yeah. And she says, she says, well, things have really changed around here. Since COVID Before COVID I saw my boss all the time, and now we've gone remote. I don't hardly hear from anybody. I feel like I'm on an island. I said, now do you think she's lying to me? I don't think the girl's lying to me. She just told me how awesome she is, and she's still working very hard. She said, I'm still doing everything I'm supposed to be doing. So she's not really quitting, but she's talking to me on the phone. She is quietly quitting, and it's because she does not feel the warmth and the love that a vibrant culture would give her.

Right.

And she said, and things have changed, and it, you know, we should be repairing stuff and we're not. See, it's one of these young bright gals that knows. Yeah, she just knows, you know. Yeah.

So you're thinking that quiet quitting isn't about the fact that they don't want to transcend the ordinary and do anything anything extra. It's more so they just want quality and they want relationship and value and contribution in the role that they have.

Yeah. And, and so, you know, I do— I think this young gal is totally capable of transcending the ordinary. But here— but again, she's, she's at the house, she's on an island, she doesn't— she has no— how do, how do I transcend the ordinary. I don't even know what's going on out here. So, so that's a problem. Now, um, there are people, um, that are, um, have taken advantage of the issues of COVID right? So, um, you know, like, I will hear comments like, well, you know, they took all the government money, and there's all these comments. Okay, I'm not saying there isn't a contingency or a group out there that doesn't want to work anymore because we've made it easy for that to happen or whatever. Okay, but here's what Nicole Rear tries to do. I try to do self-assessment— don't miss that, everybody— and I look in the mirror and I say, I don't really know. I mean, like, I could make an assumption, but we all know what happens when you assume— you make an ass out of you and me. So, right, I, I don't want to assume. Here's what leaders have to realize: don't assume your people are bad. Get in there, get in there and talk to them and figure out what it is. So I want to go down a little bunny trail. You went down a bunny trail. Can I go down a bunny trail?

Sure.

Okay, so, so one of the things, um, and so don't get mad at me, everybody, um, but I, I am not a big fan of all these employee surveys. Okay, so this is a big movement out there. I think, um, that the quiet quitting I question mark, I'm curious, I don't know. Everybody hear me? I don't know if quiet quitting and these employee surveys go together. But there's a ton of surveying going on, where instead, we could actually just go get with our people. Now, I don't know about you, but I've had bosses that I would scrub the floor for them. That's not, you know, wasn't in my job description. I go scrub, they're like, "Will you scrub the floor?" Of course, I'll go scrub it, you know, plus go get the coffee at the Food Lion on my way home. And, you know, hundreds of various sundry other things that weren't in my job description because I loved working for that person. And then I also had people that I had no respect for at all. And I still— I was like the other gal, dare I say this, you know, and I still worked my butt off, but I tried to find a better place to go, right? So I think it's really about that, because once you open up Pandora's box on these surveys, people start asking for things things that you may not be able to give them.

Yeah, so it's surveys around their satisfaction at, at the job. Is that what you're saying the surveys are? Yeah.

Yes, they call them employee satisfaction surveys, employee whatever surveys.

Yeah.

In fact, I have, I have a gentleman that I work with. He is a doll. He cares so much. He is a sweetheart, uh, and he just recently had a whole survey thing come back on his leadership style. Now, he spent a whole year working with me trying to be a better leader. Now, if this guy's not trying, I don't know what. But his, his team rated him very low. Now, when they got the survey results back, instead of them all getting in a room and having what Kim Scott would call in her book radical candor, or, you know, helping the guy out, they pulled in an HR person to be the middleman. How is this gonna work? Now there's all this animosity and ickiness. It's terrible.

That is— well, that's a good segue to, um, my— a question that I have about— okay, so what would you say is the best thing a leader can do with an associate one-on-one?

Oh well, have a one-on-one every 2 weeks. And in this— oh yeah, yeah, people tell me they don't have time for that. That's all you got time for, I promise, is talking and loving on your people. That's what you got to have time for. It doesn't have to be an hour every time, but it needs to be at least 20 minutes, right? But you get in there and you have a one-on-one with them. It's like, well, what do I do in my one-on-one? You, you train Okay, here's— we're back to we train, we coach, we counsel. Okay, not micromanaging. Training, coaching, counseling, developing, I think is what you said. Yeah. And we get in there and we say, how was your last 2 weeks? You know, and then I do this thing that I, I have stolen away, um, from, uh, kind of a faith-based area, uh, the thing I call an examen. Okay, and you spell it funny, E-X-A-M-I-N-E, examen. And so You pull people apart and you're basically looking at the last 2 weeks, not to get in trouble, but to say, "What's working? What, what made you so stinking happy these last 2 weeks or this last week?" And they say, "Oh my God, it was so awesome. I was working with this client, blah, blah, blah, and I felt like a rock star." Oh, why do you think you felt like a rock star? What exactly did you do? People want to tell their stories of success with their leader so that the leader knows those. They're doing a heck of a job. Now the flip side is, is, okay, where are you running into trouble so I can help you? Okay, so I want to get you resourced. Okay, so how might I resource you? Well, we don't have any money in the budget, but I got an idea. I got a strategy. I got a system. I got some smarts. We can make a phone call, you know, but don't let me let you continue to struggle, right? Or figure out, you know, get over the obstacle. So that's what a one-on-one is for, is to help people know that, like, again, like my young gal who I was interviewing today, somebody cares. Because sometimes you say, that's, that's just the budget, that's what we have to do. Um, but I— let's put our heads together. What could we figure out? We're two smart business gals. We can make it work.

Yeah. And, you know, leaders are people people, right? You know, I mean, they're, they need to be Right there. I mean, that's their core role is people.

100%.

Yeah. Yeah. So this has been awesome. I mean, my God, you just kind of like loaded. We got everything from Nicole. But however, we're not done yet.

However.

Okay. One last tip or piece of advice would you give to a leader if they are, you know, thirsty for building a vibrant culture, even if it is one human at a time.

Yeah, yeah. So, um, I, I would say my, my final tip would be, uh, you know, is that, you know, the, the concept of emotional intelligence has been out there for a while now. Um, I'm not sure people really get it, um, or they completely understand it, but really what it is is it's using emotions to further business. And I think that concept is kind of lost on folks. So, you know, I have a free emotional intelligence assessment that I would be glad to give to folks if they want to go to the website. They can get that, download it and take it. But, you know, the final tip would be is that, you know, leaders need to set the emotional tone, right? So they need to have enthusiasm, which is an emotion. They have to have passion, which is an emotion. They have, you know, if things are going to hell in a handbasket, they need to get out there and say, things are going to hell in a handbasket, help me, help me, help me, you know. But in a way that people go, of course we'll help you, because along the way you've been honest with us, you've practiced integrity, you've led with clarity, you've told us what's going on. Let me start over, led with clarity, you have been in integrity, and, and we've watched you try to transform the ordinary. So of course we're in Right. And so, you know, it's using them intentionally, not letting them get the best of the situation, you know. So again, if I went back to that employee survey thing that I was talking about, I mean, talk about emotional intelligence. Everybody thinks things stink and it's awful and it's terrible and everybody's against each other now, right? Yeah, right. So yeah, so we have to have, uh, self-awareness, self-management, uh Relationship Management and Social Awareness. So using our emotions for good and using our emotions for good.

That's right. That's awesome. Awesome. Oh my gosh, Nicole, thank you so much. This has been absolutely fantastic. And yes, go get that assessment from her. Go to vibrantcoaching.com and be sure to also just look around, see what she does and what she has to offer and how she can help you and your team.. And granted, we'd love it from the CEO down, but if not, then, you know, let her come in right in, you know, somewhere in the middle and help you build a vibrant culture one human at a time. Thank you so much. I so appreciate it.

Yeah, it's been my direct pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Oh, you're so welcome. You're so welcome. Now that was a powerhouse conversation with Nicole, wouldn't you say? Hey, what did you take away from how you can build a vibrant culture and create leaders who know how to get lit so that everyone in your organization shines? What questions do you have about what it takes to create powerhouse leaders in your organization? Book a call with me at coachmebernadette.com/discoverycall and let's transform you into a powerhouse leader. And visit sheddingthecorporatebitch.com and leave your comments, or leave us a review on Apple Podcast or YouTube so other powerhouse women just like you can find the show. Thanks for joining me this week. Be sure to check out all of the shows at sheddingthecorporatebitch.com. See you next time.