The Science of Success Podcast

View Original

How To Build a Remarkable Company Culture with Dee Ann Turner

Lace Gilger
See this content in the original post

In this business-focused episode of the Science of Success we share how to recruit extraordinary talent and build a remarkable culture for your business with our guest Dee Ann Turner.

Dee Ann Turner is a Communicator, Consultant, and Coach. She was Chick-fil-A’s first female officer and was instrumental in building and growing their well-known culture and talent systems for 33 years. She is also the author of the best-selling It’s My Pleasure: The Impact of Extraordinary Talent and a Compelling Culture and most recently Bet on Talent: How to Create a Remarkable Culture That Wins the Hearts of Customers.

    • What are the building blocks of a remarkable company culture?

    • The most important element of a remarkable culture is a MEANINGFUL purpose

      • Why does your organization exist?

      • It’s not just about a business. It could be a sports team, an educational institution, a non profit, or even a family

    •  “I’m not in the chicken business, I’m in the people business."

    • A purpose isn’t very meaningful if it doesn’t have any actionable results.

    • The second most important part of a company culture is a challenging mission.

    • The third most important thing to a powerful culture are “demonstrated core values” - the behaviors that exhibit the corporate purpose.

    •  Why do so many companies fail to live and demonstrate their core values? If your core values aren’t demonstrated, they don’t mean very much.

    •  How do you discover your organization’s purpose?

      • Ask why. Dig in. Figure out WHY you’re doing what you’re doing.

      • Figure out what sticks.

      • Sometimes it takes years or even decades of trial and error.

    • Purpose first, then core values, then mission.

    • Why do so many companies and organizations struggle to actually live and implement their core values?

    • You have to nurture your culture every day. You have to be principle driven above all else. Truly great organizations are willing, no matter what the price, to stick with their principles.

    • When building your culture - should you focus on rules or principles? What’s the difference and why does it matter?

    • When you have a great experience at a business - was that organization “rules-based” or “principles-based?"

    • Focusing on rules creates a toxic culture. Focusing on principles creates a strong culture.

    • Select talent that can thrive under a set of principles. Select people with good judgment who know how to apply a principle. Selecting people who can only follow rules won’t thrive in that kind of environment.

    • What’s more important, culture or talent?

      • If you don’t have a real foundation of principles and core values, then you won’t recruit there right kind of talent.

      • You won’t attract and keep extraordinary talent without a strong culture.

      • It takes extraordinary talent to execute a strong culture.

    • “We select talent, we don’t hire people."

    • Remarkable Culture + Extraordinary Talent + Amazing Customer Experiences

    • How do you actually LIVE and DEMONSTRATE your CORE VALUES?

    • Leaders have to live out the values or NO ONE else will.

    • Criterion for selecting talent

      • Character first

      • Then competency and ability to execute

      • Then chemistry that matches the team

    • Your culture is made up of the conglomeration of the character of everyone in the organization.

    • How do you select and recruit the most talented people for the job? How do you compete in a full-employment economy?

    • The organizations that win over the talent in the toughest economies are the organizations that nurture and grow their culture and make themselves a place where people want to work.

    • Take a more long term view of attracting talent. Stay the course, invest in your people, and make your culture and company a place that people want to stay.

    • Know your people individually and tailor what you do

    • The concept of “truth-telling” and why its important when you’re stewarding talent

    • The difference between being nice and being kind. Care more about the person you’re helping than about what they think about you.

    • When you tell your employees the truth, they can self manage and it makes the leader’s job much easier. The employee respects the leader more for telling the truth.

    • The difference between having an abundance mentality and a scarcity mentality - and how to use that distinction to become a better manager and leader.

    • Try to accomplish things one small bite at a time.

    • Homework: Start with your WHY. That informs everything else that you do. What will your business do? What will it be about?

    • What should you do in a toxic culture? Start with yourself. Start with where you have influence.

Thank you so much for listening!

Please SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE US A REVIEW on iTunes! (Click here for instructions on how to do that).

Starting your own business is an incredible feat. 
It's a labor of love which makes getting through the late nights, early mornings, and occasional all-nighter so worth it. It's no secret that business owners are incredibly busy!

So why not make things easier?

FreshBooks invoicing and accounting software is simple, intuitive, and keeps you incredibly organized. Create and send professional invoices in thirty seconds. FreshBooks helps you get paid two times faster with automated online payments.

Go to FreshBooks.com/science today and enter THE SCIENCE OF SUCCESS in the how did you find us section and get started today!!

Want To Dig In More?! - Here’s The Show Notes, Links, & Research

General

Media

Videos

Books

See this content in the original post

Episode Transcript

[00:00:04.4] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Science of Success. Introducing your host, Matt Bodnar.

[00:00:11] MB: Welcome to the Science of Success, the number one evidence-based growth podcast on the internet with more than 5 million downloads and listeners in over a hundred countries.

In this business-focused episode of the Science of Success, we share how to recruit extraordinary talent and build a remarkable culture for your business with our guest Dee Ann Turner. 

Are you a fan of the show and have you been enjoying the content that we’ve put together for you? If you have, I would love it if you signed up for our email list. We have some amazing content on their along with a really great free course that we put a ton of time into called How to Create Time for What Matters Most in Your Life. If that sounds exciting and interesting and you want a bunch of other free goodies and giveaways along with that, just go to successpodcast.com. You can sign up right on the homepage. That successpodcast.com, or if you're on your phone right now, all you have to do is text the word “smarter”. That's S-M-A-R-T-E-R to the number 44222. 

In our previous episode we looked at what happens when you peer into the dark underbelly of the human psyche? How should you react when we uncovered the raw truth of human nature, emotion, sexuality and racism? We explored all of this and much more in a fascinating interview with our previous guest, Dr. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. 

Now, for our interview with Dee Ann.

[00:01:40] MB: Today, we have another exciting guest on the show, Dee Ann Turner. Dee Ann is a communicator consultant and coach. She was Chick-fil-A's first female officer and was instrumental in building and growing their well-known culture and talent systems for more than 33 years. She's also the author of the best-selling It's My Pleasure: The Impact of Extraordinary Talent and a Compelling Culture, and most recently her book Bet on Talent: How to Create a Remarkable Culture That Wins the Hearts of Customers. 

Dee Ann, welcome to the Science of Success.

[00:02:11] DAT: Thank so much, Matt. It’s my pleasure to be here. 

[00:02:14] MB: Well, I'm really excited to have you on the show today, the success story of Chick-fil-A and especially the talent and human capital-focused components of the Chick-fil-A business model are in the restaurant industry especially clearly a standout leader. It's such a remarkable organization. I’d love to start with the overall question or idea of culture and both how you think about what really helps build a remarkable company culture and what’s some of those building blocks were at Chick-fil-A.

[00:02:50] DAT: Sure will. The most important elements of remarkable culture to me are three things. The first one is a meaningful purpose. It’s why an organization exists at all. It’s not just about a business. It can be about a sports team, or a club, or even a family. It’s like why are we here at all? What is our very purpose for being?

I learned this really from Truett Cathy, the founder of Chik-fil-A when he started his business in 1946. He didn’t have a written purpose, but there was no doubt that his focus was on impacting the lives of others just by his actions, and you can go back and look at the history of the things that he did for other people using his small, little tiny business in Hapevilla, Georgia as a platform, an opportunity to do those things for people. He said, “Hey, I'm not in the restaurant business. I'm in the people business.” 

He carried that forward through the history of the organization to starting Chick-fil-A in 1967 with its first restaurant. Then he got to 1982, and for those people who are around in 1982, there is a major recession at that time. For the first time ever going from ‘46 to ’82, she had never experienced a slump in sales, but he had one that year. Chick-fil-A had a slump in sales, and on top of that he had built a brand-new corporate headquarters south of Atlanta. 

Here's a man whose business is declining and he’s deeply in debt, and we know what businesses do when that happens, right? They tend to cut their budgets and might lay people off. But in my head, they’re forward-thinking enough they might have a contest, “How can we get people to sell more?” But he was faced with those challenges. He took his executive committee on to a three-day retreat. The first half day, they talked about budget cutting and all of what that would mean and what they needed to do. But right in the middle of that first day, one of those executives asked a very poignant question. He said, “Why are we here at all?” For the next two and a half days, Chick-fil-A spent that time talking about the answer to that question. 

Well, after the retreat, they came back and they presented the answer to the staff as their corporate purpose, which is this; to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that's entrusted to us with a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chik-fil-A. 

Without purposely minding the staff, by the way, they loved it. They carved it in bronze. Stuck it on a slab of granite and put it at the front door, because they wanted everybody who came to work each day to understand that they truly weren’t in the chicken business or the restaurant business. They were in the people business, and this was the purpose and the reason for being of why they do their work. 

Purpose isn’t very meaningful if it doesn't have actionable results, this was pretty incredible. Once Chick-fil-A decided their purpose, that was in 1982. Well, it's 2019 and Chick-fil-A’s never had another slump in sales since then. On top of that, they became debt-free in 2012. The thing that I loved and enjoyed about being a leader in the HR talent space at Chick-fil-A was that over the last 30 years or so, Chick-fil-A enjoyed a 95% retention rate of their stuff and 95% retention rate of franchisees, and those franchisees have won the absolute lowest turnover rates in the industry. 

It really makes a difference not only to know your purpose and to write it down, but when you continue to live it out and in every decision you make it becomes a filter, then when that happens, it really helps to solidify that culture. 

The second element of remarkable culture to me is a challenging mission, something that the entire team just rallies around to accomplish. I’ve lots of stories in different organizations with challenging missions, but when I think of a challenging mission, I think of a group of people that are all rowing in the same direction, if you can imagine, to achieve a really big goal. 

Then thirdly, what's important for a remarkable culture is demonstrated core volumes. These are the beliefs that an organization and their leadership hold most dear and decide that they’re going to be the behaviors that really exhibit the corporate purpose, and they adapt those. Most importantly – This is really important, because a lot of organizations go to so much trouble to establish a list of core values, and they brand them, and they post them on walls, and they stencil them into the walls and they put them all over the place and on the website, but they don't demonstrate them. Unless core values are demonstrated beginning at the very top and throughout the organization, then they don't really mean a whole lot. 

For me what I had found is not only in my experience with Chick-fil-A. I certainly learned a lot of that [inaudible 00:07:43] in my experience there, but also working with other organizations. Again, sports teams, and churches, and nonprofits, and all kinds of organizations. Then they take these three elements in they really integrate it into their organization, that's what helps them create a remarkable culture. 

[00:08:02] MB: There's a number of things that I want to explore more deeply. Let’s start back with purpose. How does a company or any organization go about finding their purpose?

[00:08:15] DAT: I think that you have to ask a lot of wild questions. Now, it just so happen the example I gave you with Chick-fil-A, they went off to a retreat and they figured out their purpose in 3 days. In a lot of organizations, they want so quickly to check the box. Let’s bring in the consultant, have them facilitate the meeting. When we leave here, let’s know our purpose, our mission and our core values.

 

Well, most really great organizations, it doesn’t happen that way. You start by asking those "why" questions. Why are we here? Why do we exist? What do we want to be known for? What's bigger than ourselves? I mean, I could not work for an organization for 33 years if it was all about just some chicken. It’s a wonderful profit, but not enough to motivate me. For me, it was about that purpose. It was understanding that the money that this organization made that I help them make went to building schools all over the world, drilling wells for clean drinking water in remote parts the world, feeding the hungry right here in this country, and I could go on and on and on, but that’s what motivated me in my purpose. 

First of all, you have to be very thoughtful about it. Secondly, you have to see if it sticks. Are we really able to live this out and to revisit it again and again and again? Some of the stories I would tell you at Chick-fil-A’s example, lots of other organizations living there purpose out. It was decades of trial and error and being sure we’re on track and going back to that purpose every time you have a significant decision to make or if you had a crisis or whatever it is to go back and go, “Okay. This is the reason we exist.” I think, too often, people think it's about the words. It's not about the words. It’s about the actions that demonstrate the words and the purpose.

[00:10:00] MB: That's a really powerful point. It's all about the actions. Once we’ve discovered our purpose, how do we start to actually put that into action? 

[00:10:09] DAT: I really think that’s where the core values come into play, because core values really demonstrate that behaviors that back that up. UST used Chick-fil-A as example, and actually all of those that I described in their remarkable culture, it developed over years and years. The purpose came first. The core values came next, and then the mission for this organization and their culture. 

The core values were words that really was what Truitt demonstrated in the business, which was excellence, excellence in product and service and experiences. Loyalty, loyalty to customers, loyalty to the employees, loyalty to the brand. Integrity, always doing what you say you'll do when you say you'll do it. How you say you’ll do it. Then lastly, generosity. Truitt set the example of being generous with not just his treasure, but also with this time and talent as well. 

The values really reflected who he was as a person and begin to integrate into the organization. Well, after Truitt's passing in 2014, we looked at those values again and said, “Okay. Where were you as an organization?” The populace doesn't change. Rarely would a purpose every change for an organization is its lifetime. That didn't change, but it was like in this day, with this employees, with this leadership team, with these board of directors, with this CEO in present, who we both knew at the time that Truitt died, where are we now with our values? 

If I describe them, they’re basically the same thing, but they’re described a little differently and they hit the nail on the head, which is we’re here to serve. We’re better together. We’re purpose-driven, and we pursue what's next. It was a nod to thee, and all those things were things that Truitt was as well, but it is a nod to service, and the teamwork, and to our purpose, and to pursuing innovation. It fit where the organization was at that time. 

Developing core values for the season that an organization in is really, really important. Again, it gives a guidebook, if you will, to how you're going to make decisions and then also to what's expected of the people in the organization to demonstrate. It becomes part of your talent systems. If you want to be an organization for people who are here to serve better together purpose-driven and pursue what's next, then you have to look at who you recruit, how you select them, how you promote them, how you grow and develop them, all of those things so that the core values [inaudible 00:12:38].

[00:12:40] MB: Why do you think so many people and organizations create these core values and platitudes in plaster them on the wall and yet it doesn't actually seep into their culture. It doesn't actually create anything, and they end up being another generic bland company.

[00:13:02] DAT: Well, I think it's because we start out with good ideas of what we’d love to be, but when things get stressful, when the market gets tight, when sales drop, when customers go away, when it's hard to find talent or we have too much. Whatever all those stresses are, it's easy first just to fall back in survival mode. Survival mode is how can we squeeze out the next dollar, or how can we get a warm body into a role that we need to fill quickly rather than the thoughtfulness and care that needs to go into if you’re really serious about your culture. You have to nurture it every day. You have to be principle-driven above all else. 

If you're not, then it is just so much easier under stress to drop back into survival mode. I think that's the difference between those generic brands and truly great organizations with remarkable cultures is they’re willing no matter what the price to stick with their principles and their culture and nourish it rather than just slip back into rules and an environment where you’re just trying to survive. 

[00:14:15] MB: That's really interesting insight and touches on another concept that I thought was really interesting, which is this notion of the difference between a rule and a principal. Tell me more about that. 

[00:14:27] DAT: Yeah. That was a big insight that I had between it’s [inaudible 00:14:31] talent was just really noticing that. I came to notice it from a customer perspective. I would go places and I would have these amazing experiences. I think about Publix Super Markets. That would be one of the brands where just great customer service experience. Then I would go other places and it would be horrible, and it became a thing with my husband and I. We’d walk into a place, we’d have experience. It’s like, “Was that a principles-driven organization or a rules-based?” based on the experience that we had. 

What a rules-based culture creates is a toxic culture. When people are just given a set of rules that they must comply to and/or else be fired and keep your head down, stay out of trouble and just follow these rules, it creates a toxic culture. When people are given principles to abide by and the freedom to apply those principles, then they are much more likely to provide excellent customer service, create a remarkable culture for both the employees and the customer. 

Let me give you an example. I went to work right out of college for a brief time for an organization that’s now defunct, which is because they have toxic culture, which is probably why they’re not in business, but there a rule for everything. If I was 30 seconds late for my 30-minute lunch break, I was not paid for those 30 seconds. The rules range from all kinds of things, but possibly the most absurd was that every day after lunch the boss, the owner of the company, took a nap. I’m not talking about a power nap, 10 minutes like we talked about. I’m talking about full-fledged on snoring two-hour nap. He left really strict instructions that he wasn't to be disturbed under any circumstances, whatsoever. 

Here I am, a young 20, 21-year-old, I filled in at the receptionist’s desk during lunch. The suited men with earpieces in their ears walk into the office, and they come to the receptionist’s desk and they asked to see my boss. My response is, “I’m sorry. He’s unavailable.” Well, they pull out their badges and they said, “Let's make them available.” Here I am, this 20-year-old that’s so full of this rules-focused toxic culture that I am more concerned about waking up my snoring boss than I am obstructing federal armed agents at that time, and it’s because of this rules-based culture that was just ground into me. 

Then of course I went to work for another family-owned business that was just the opposite. It was all about principles, and here’s one of the ways they made that successful. They selected talent that could thrive with a set of principles. I remember early on in my career and the president of the company constantly reminding me that we select people with good judgment. We have to select people that has the judgment to know how to apply a principal, otherwise if you select people that are just used to performing in their stack of rules, then they can’t thrive in an environment like that. If you don't select people that are excited about or a working environment with principles, then they'll quickly become frustrated with that. That's a very important differentiation. 

Now, you have to have some rules. I mean, I was involved in restaurant business. You better believe strong food safety rules exist there, and you have to have a very strong line of some of those things if you’re an accountant. You’re likely practicing generally accepted accounting practices. There are all kinds of rules that you have to have around security and safety and strong business practices. But when the rules overshadow the principles and people can’t collaborate, all they do is follow the rules. They forget while they’re there at all, which is to serve the customer. 

I think one of the great things that Chick-fil-A did was free up Chick-fil-A team members to go above and beyond customer expectations, and they did this through an initiative a number of years ago what was happening much like today, but back then there were other brands that were copying the Chick-fil-A signature product, the Chick-fil-A sandwich. 

You might not know this, Matt, but actually Truitt Kathy, invented the chicken sandwich. It was the first. Other people were trying to copy that product. Early on, there were just burgers and Chick-fil-A. There was a lot of competition. The question became, “Well, how will Chick-fil-A differentiate themselves?” What they decided to do was to focus on the customer service experience in addition on the excellent products. The principal that came about was make second mile service second nature.

What that meant was go beyond the 1st mile of just getting the order right and being friendly and serving it in a timely manner and exceed the customer's expectations. Well, I won’t go into all the details in the short-term we had, and I actually write about a lot of it had been on talent. But the team members started being freed up. 

The franchisees freed them up to apply this principle, and they started doing some pretty amazing things for customers like changing tires and jumping up dead batteries in the parking lot to all kinds of ways to serve the customer. They had figured out how to go above and beyond. Quickly, that's really where Chick-fil-A became known for. Not just a great chicken sandwich, but for this customer service that people could expect when they come there and just to feel so appreciated and honored that they chose to spend their money there. 

[00:20:00] MB: You made a really interesting point a minute ago around hiring the right talent that can thrive with principles instead of rules. How much of the success of Chick-fil-A, and more broadly when you look at remarkable cultures, how much of that success is a result of the principles and the core values and so forth and how much a result is of finding the right people?

[00:20:26] DAT: Well, actually, I think if you’re going to win the hearts of customers, they’re both equally as important. If you don't have a foundation of a remarkable culture with these kind of values and purpose and mission, then you’re probably not able to attract the kind of talent that can execute that culture. 

Now, one thing you said is hire, and I'm really careful in my belief is that we select talent. We don't hire people. When we hire people, we’re just thinking about quantity. Do I have enough people to get in there filling shift? Do I have enough people to work in the dining room? Do I have enough people prepared in the back? Do I you have enough people out on the sales floor? 

But when we’re thinking about selecting talent, we’re thinking about, “Do I have people with the capabilities and the skills to do exactly what needs to be done?” That's just a little nuance that I think about the difference, but those things are equally as important. You’re probably not going to attract extraordinary talent and keep them if you don't have a strong culture. 

On the other hand, it takes that extraordinary talent to execute that culture. They really go hand-in-hand, and if an organization – I’ve seen this time and time again, they can put both of those things in place. Then on top that, teach these kind of principles that we talk about, whether it’s in Chick-fil-A’s case, it was make second mile second nature or treat everyone with honor, dignity and respect, or even the language of when a guest says thank you, we say my pleasure. 

All of those types of principles when applied is what wins the hearts of customers. That’s really my formula through the whole thing, it’s a remarkable cultural, plus extraordinary talent, plus amazing customer experiences. We put all that together and you consistently perform it again and again and again, that’s how you become legendary in winning the hearts of customers.

It sounds simple, but don't forget, it took me about 50,000 words and 50 years to make that happen in Chick-fil-A’s case to become the best in customer service in America. It's not simple. It takes diligence, and anybody who's looking for the quick fix is probably not going to find or be able to accomplish that. 

[00:22:47] MB: Yeah. It’s certainly not easy to implement that. The principles make a lot of sense. I want to dig into recruiting talent, but before we do, one last question I may have asked a form of this already, but I really want to dig into it. How do you, from a leadership standpoint at the top levels of a company, how do you think about actually demonstrating the core values and embedding them into your actions as opposed to just having them be these nebulous things on the wall?

[00:23:22] DAT: Yeah. I’ll take that question and to speak from my own personal experience. I failed as often as anybody. People aren’t perfect of being able to demonstrate this every single time. But if I take the core value of I'm here to serve, I love this part about working at Chick-fil-A, is really in terms of job title, the higher up your job title was, and I'm even struggling to use those words in that way, the more you were expected to serve. 

Sometimes it's the flip of that in other organizations. One of the wonderful things about Chick-fil-A is that everybody was there to serve somebody. Obviously, if you were a team member, you were serving customers. If you are Chick-fil-A franchisee, you were serving your team members who serve the customer and serving the customers. If you’re a Chick-fil-A staff member, your role is to serve the people who were serving the customers. 

Very ingrained, and so it’s little things that that even plays out to be walking in a Chick-fil-A parking lot and see trash that a customer had discarded on the ground and to pick that up for the operator. I might be going in just to visit the operator, and today as a customer. I’m not employed by Chick-fil-A anymore, but even as a customer, because I'm so proud of that brand. If I see trash in the parking lot, that's helping, that's serving that operator in his or her team members for me to go by and pick up that trash.

It's always the filter. When I lead a team of people, how am I going to serve them? I’ll go way back early in my career when I didn't do this well and tell you a story. Years and years ago, I mean, when I was really first setting out in leadership. I was not leaving the function at that time, but I was a leader in the department. Another leader in the department and I were responsible for a development day for our department. That development day happened. It involved us going to a ropes course. The physical activity before lunch that day was very, very high. 

After doing all that, you're really hungry. Well, we had not ordered enough food for the whole team. We were short by two lunches. Guess he didn't get to eat lunch? Because we were the leaders. The way I didn’t handle it, yeah, I didn't eat lunch, but I wasn't very nice about it. I look back and I pouted about it. I remember it. I was young. I was in my 20s. But I remember being so – And probably because I was hungry is the real reason, but I just remembered that I didn't handle that very well and hopefully over the years I did a much better job of putting my team first after that learning experience that I had. But leaders have to live them out or nobody else will. 

In my own leadership, recognize that whether it was serving other people, whether it was demonstrating teamwork, my leaders weren’t going to work together as a team if I wasn't working well with my peers, the other officers in the organization. My team wasn’t going to be purpose-driven if I didn't constantly live that out myself. If they could look at me and say, “Well, she’s not living out the purpose, or she's not focused on our purpose as a function and she's not supporting that,” then they’re not going to live that out either. I can’t expect them to be innovative and pursue what's next if they don't see me constantly reading and learning about trends and expressing to them what I am learning about the direction we might go in the future. Then they are not going to follow that either. 

It is extraordinarily important. If you want to integrate values into your organization, then leaders, they have to embrace those and they have to very intentionally, but authentically, demonstrate that on a daily basis. 

[00:27:12] MB: Do you remember when you started your small business? It was no small feat. It took a lot of late nights, early mornings and the occasional all-nighter. The bottom line is that you've been insanely busy ever since. Why not make things a little easier? Well, our friends at FreshBooks have the solution. 

FreshBooks invoicing and accounting software is designed specifically for small business owners. It's simple, intuitive and keeps you way more organized than a dusty shoebox filled with crumpled receipts. Create and send professional looking invoices in 30 seconds and get them paid twice as fast with automated online payments. File expenses even quicker and keep them perfectly organized for tax time. The best part, FreshBooks grows alongside your business so you'll always have the tools you need when you need them without ever having to learn the ins and outs of accounting. 

Join the more than 24 million people who’ve used FreshBooks. Try it for free for 30 days no catch and no credit card required. All you have to do is go to freshbooks.com/science and enter the Science of Success and how did you hear about us. That's all you have to do to get started for 30 days free, no credit card required. That's freshbooks.com/science. Go there and check it out.

[00:28:40] MB: I want to pivot into talent. We’ve talked a lot about culture. Tell me about Chick-fil-A’s talent strategy and the biggest lessons that you pulled from that. You brought up something earlier that was a really interesting stat and people who aren't familiar with the restaurant industry may not even understand the importance of this, but you said earlier that you have a 95% retention rate at Chick-fil-A, and in the industry, that is one of the most high turnover industries that exists. I don't know off the top of my head. 

You may know what the turnover rate in the restaurant industry is, but it's staggering to have that kind of employee retention, Chick-fil-A is known in the restaurant space as being one of the most legendary experts for building talented people and having an incredibly talented organization. I want to hear about the talent strategy and the talent lessons that you pulled from building that at Chick-fil-A for so many years.

[00:29:38] DAT: Sure. Well, and I will talk about my viewpoint about this, because of course I’ve been gone from Chick-fil-A for about 18 months, and then my last assignment at Chick-fil-A was leading sustainability. It's been a number of years since I've actually – At least five years since I've touched the talent strategy at Chick-fil-A. But I'll tell you what I did for three decades there and what my focus was. 

First of all, my criteria for selecting talent is the same now as it was then, which is to focus on three Cs; Character first, then competency and chemistry. So let me explain. I was looking for candidates whose character match that of the organization. How do I do that? Well, we go back to – Not to beat a dead horse, but back to the culture, that your culture is made up of a conglomeration of the character of all the individuals in the organization. 

I'm looking for people. Their individual purpose and values and mission don't necessarily directly align to the company, but they’re within that sphere of they buy into, “Okay. I want to be – In this case, I want to be a positive influence on others. I can be a good steward of time, talent and treasure that’s allocated to me. Yeah, I believe in these core values. I can support this mission, this goal you all are trying to achieve.” That’s how you’re aligned on character. Very important. Character that matches the organization. 

Secondly, competency. That's a no-brainer. But very specific about competency, is competency that matches the role. Then for me, if I’m leaning in an organization that you're trying to retain talent for the long-term and grow from within, then I’m also looking for people who have the potential for jobs in the future some of which haven’t even been created yet. I'm looking for more than just competency of the current role, but I'm looking long term if I have competing candidates, which I must always did. I'm going to go with that candidate that not only it fits the current role, but I can see what their potential is for the future. 

Then, lastly, chemistry that matches the team. What I'm looking for there is not that everybody thinks alike, but yet people can bring their differences and know how to influence others on the team to think differently. That’s that whole idea of teamwork. In my case, it might be the team on which they're going to work. It might be if it’s franchisee, the market in which they're going to lead a restaurant, or it might be a consultant that's going to work with a group of operators. How does their chemistry match and can they complement that whole team by what they bring to the table? Those were always the three criteria that I was looking for in candidates as I went about selection there and still what I advise my clients now. 

[00:32:33] MB: How do you think about how finding of pool of potential candidates with an organization like Chick-fil-A? You have such a tremendous base of potential people to select from. It's easier to figure out the character and the competency and so forth that you're looking for. For someone who maybe doesn't have such a massive pool of candidates, what advice or strategies or recommendations would you have for them?

[00:32:58] DAT: I think it’s still the same concept for people. I actually go back to what I tell people. Let’s just talk about this current situation we’re in and have been for several years now. We’re in a full-employment economy. Great news for our economy, but really tough on employers. I know your listeners are primarily younger listeners, so I'll share this with you. 

Over the course of my career I've seen this cycle happened three times that we had this full employment economy. It was hard to get anybody at any level, but especially hourly employees that are working in retail and restaurants and just starting out. I will say it's been the worst that I've seen it and there’s three cycles. 

Now, unfortunately, eventually what will happen is the economy will change and the situation will change. Sometimes we’re in the midst of it, all we can do is survive. We just have to do the best we can, employ the principles that we can and do the best we can. But we need to be building for the future, because if I saw it three times in just a little over three decades, it's going to happen again. When it happens, the organizations are going to win over the talent and get the best candidates are the ones that used that season to grow, nurture and strengthen their culture and their leadership to be a place where people want to come and work. 

I've noticed this even in this time and place, I was working with a client this year and the work that they do is provide food service for primarily elementary schools. It that may be K through 12. I'm thinking it was just elementary schools. Basically, the school cafeteria workers, and that seems like that would be really hard in an economy like this to track great talent. But one of the leaders in this organization that had a district, she still had people – Other people couldn't find people. She had people waiting in line to work for her, and it was because of her reputation for the culture of what a great place it was to work and what a great person that she was to work for. 

That's where I encourage people to do in these times of difficulty now, and I’ve observed this too for years and years and years in Chick-fil-A operators. By the way, I use the word operator and franchisee interchangeably. But most franchisees that are able to ride out a season like this where it’s hard to find people, the ones who have invested in the culture of their business and continually invest in growing the talent and have created the reputation for doing so. Even in a time like this, they still can find great talent because they have a long-term view of talent attraction. It doesn’t change depending on the business cycles or the employment cycles. They’re staying the course throughout every season of their business. 

[00:35:54] MB: That's a great piece of advice to invest in your people and invest in your culture and make that a core component of attracting talent to your business. How do you sustain or steward the talent that you’ve recruited and help them mature and grow and thrive within the organization?

[00:36:18] DAT: Well, there are so many ways to do that. Some of the leaders that I’ve seen that do this best is – I mean, I think you need some of those generic systems. You need development. Everybody has a development plan. Some of those generic systems are great, but the people that I’ve seen do this and even the smaller retailers and the one shop businesses, is that they understand what the dreams are of their employees and they tailor it to what that person is trying to achieve. 

One of my favorite books is The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly. I hope I have that right. The Dream Maker or The Dream Manager. He talks about individually knowing your people and tailoring the development you do towards those people and helping them achieve their dreams. Then on talent, I tell a bunch of stories about, I guess primarily in the book, it’s about Chick-fil-A franchisees that do this, where they identify what it is that their employee wants to do, whether it's – Obviously, a lot of them are working there to pay for college or to buy a car. Some of them are grandparents that are working to pay for their grandchildren's college education. But some of it is some really unique desires that people have. 

I remember telling the story of one Chick-fil-A franchisee out in Utah, and her team member that she had invested so much in and she really believe that she's going to be a future leader not only in this franchisee’s business, and she has two location. She has a big leadership team, but not only was – She taught her being a leader there, but maybe even possibly a franchisee herself. 

She brings her to the home office in Atlanta now called The Support Center and she takes her through training, and on the way home, if I remember I’m telling the story correctly, the young woman really talks to her about a totally different dream that she has that has nothing to do with believing in her restaurant or any other restaurant. A totally different career path. That operator is so invested in helping people make their dreams come true that she find somebody that she can be an apprentice to. Now the young woman is very successful at doing what she always dreamed of doing. 

Now this particular operator didn't necessarily benefit from that, but the example she said in her community and within the restaurant and people who know that she's the kind of person that helps her employees do that, she attracts more talent that way. What seems like a huge investment walking out the door can actually multiply itself in what comes in the door.

[00:38:56] MB: Tell me about the concept of truth telling and why that's so important to stewarding talent.

[00:39:04] DAT: Sure. Well, I don't think that people can make the decisions they need to make about their careers unless we tell them the truth, and it's the hardest thing to do. Leaders struggle with – I think that's why there are so many books written about these critical conversations of giving feedback, and sometimes it's a paternalistic approach when we don't. We just try to take care of people or we don't really want have to have that tough conversation. 

But this is where I learned is the difference in being kind and being nice. When I'm nice, I’m caring a lot more about what you think of me. Nice would be, “Oh! I won't tell you everything you need to know. I won’t explain to you why you didn't get that promotion or you didn’t get that raise or not being considered for that other role, because I want you to keep liking me.” But if I’m kind, I tell you the truth, because kindness is I care more about you than I do what we think about me. I tell you the truth. 

I had a boss at Chick-fil-A, Jimmy Collins, and the favorite quote is he always said, “It’s kindness to refuse immediately what you eventually intend to deny.” You might not like me as much, but I'm being kind to you if I say, “Here's the reason. You’re not going to get this promotion and here's the reason why. I’m so sorry, but you’re not getting the raise you anticipated, and here's the reason why.” 

When I do that, when I directly let them know that there's lots of things they can do. They can manage their own performance and their own career. They can decide, “Well, I received this feedback. I think I can do these things. I think I can improve. I think I can work towards that race or that promotion or whatever. So I'm going to invest and do that.” 

They may decide and say, “You know what? This has been really good feedback. This is not the right role for me. I need to move on.” That helps the leader, because you don't have to be in that situation to make that call at some point for that person. If you've been nice to them all along, it might come as a surprise. That wouldn’t be kind at all. 

I think truth telling is critical to a great relationship with our employees, and when we tell them the truth, then a lot of times they can self-manage and it actually makes the leader's job much easier and I don’t think there's any doubt that eventually even when it's painful at the moment, the employee respects the leader more for telling the truth than just dragging them leading them along.

[00:41:30] MB: That's a really powerful piece of advice, and the notion of being kind instead of being nice is so critical. So many managers fall into the trap of wanting someone to like them as supposed to wanting to do what's best for the employee and for the organization. How did you personally and what advice do you have for others around overcoming that fear or that desire to be nice instead of kind? 

[00:42:03] DAT: What I coach with people is really – I really went back to the book of crucial conversations and understanding that if we’re going to coach people to their optimal performance, if we’re going to be a good steward of all that’s entrusted to us, that includes the talent that’s entrusted to us. Part of living out our purpose would actually be to – We've got to help manage their career. We’ve got to help give them the tools to be successful, and when things aren’t going well, we have to be willing to let them know that, because that’s part of living out corporate purpose. 

If we’re living out the corporate purpose, that also means we’re leaving out that value of being purpose-driven. As I encourage the other leaders to do that, again, it's the painful thing at the moment, but long term I think it's going to help the organization be more successful and the individuals within it more successful.

[00:42:56] MB: Tell me about the concept of an abundance mentality and why that's so important to nurturing talent. 

[00:43:02] DAT: Sure. Well, this was another lesson that I learned from a Chick-fil-A leader and I saw this early in my career. He started teaching this. But when we have a scarcity mentality, that there's not enough for everybody, then we start competing with each other instead of realizing that we each have our own individual calling within an organization and that there really isn’t an opportunity. I tell the story, to give the example of understanding the difference from abundance mentality and scarcity mentality. 

Over the years, I’ve done travels to – Mission trips in Africa and have a special little group of friends there in Kenya. When I would take things to them no matter what it was – Hershey bars are perfect, because they're already stored to share in those little pieces. If I took a candy bar and gave it to one child, he would look at all the different people around him and he would break that into pieces and share all of that, because he didn't have this need to – I mean, he believed there would be more at some point and he didn't have to hard it all to himself. 

Here are people that don’t really have anything believe there’ll be more. The people who are sitting in the greatest country in the world with so many resources, sometimes we have to hoard things away. Hoard our responsibility or hoard the opportunities, because there won't be enough for us if we don’t.

Actually, it's when we have abundance mentality that we believe there's enough for everybody. We can collaborate, and so they’re holding things close to the vest that an organization will really realize its true potential when leaders have decided too, “I have my place. I have my lane. There's going to be more. There's plenty of opportunity to contribute here. So I'm in a collaborate with my peers. I’m going to collaborate with senior leadership. I’m going to collaborate with other people in the organization so that together we can accomplish more.” I see that over and over again. 

But when people start feeling there's a scarcity mentality, holding stuff close to the vest, not believing that there's plenty of opportunity. Then trust erodes. The culture erodes and success will eventually erode in the organization.

[00:45:13] MB: For listeners who have been listening to our conversation and want to concretely implement something that we've talked about today, what would be one action step that you would give them to start implementing these ideas into their lives?

[00:45:27] DAT: Sure, and I love the fact that you said just one thing, because that's always how I tried to accomplish things, is really one small bite at a time. I think that it's overwhelming when you think about, “So, I want to win the hearts of my customers and I’ve got to create a remarkable culture and select extraordinary talent.” 

Again, I said earlier, I observed that taking 50 years and meet 50,000 words to tell the story, and it's really simple if you just do take one bite of the elephant at a time. If I had none of these things – I have my own business now. Let me start there. The very first thing I did was determine my why, because it informed everything else. It informed all the other pieces and elements of my culture. It informed what my business would be about. It informed the kinds of people that I would bring into the business was my why. 

If I'm talking to somebody that has nothing that we’ve talked about, start right there. Start with why. Of course, Simon Sinek wrote the book Start with Why. It is the right place to start. Figure out your why and then take the necessary steps, If I were starting a business as I do it, what I started with was the culture consist first before I ever started aligning myself with any other talent. I started with the culture. 

Some people were sitting in the midst of an organization that’s been around 100 years or five years, but they’re already established and that culture is kind of in places. The whole approach you would take as a leader is very different, because the culture already exists. 

Let's just say you're in a toxic culture. What do you do? Well, you start with you. What influence do you have right where you are? If you don't have any influence at all, you can influence change, and I think you have a tough decision to make because toxic cultures are not healthy for anybody. But if you're in an organization like you believe in and it needs some help and you have some influence, then what I suggest is you start with a team that you lead at that moment, and I’ve seen this happen in many organizations. Leaders that have a mindset for remarkable culture and want to surround themselves with extraordinary talents, and they do it on their team. 

When they accomplish that, they go to the next best buddy in the organization and say, “This is what my team is. This is how we did this.” I suggest you try it in your team. You actually start a grassroots movement of changing the organization, and that can help and that can happen. But if I’m starting out on my own today, I'm always going to start with why. Determine what those elements are that I want to do. Make every decision about how I grow my business based on that culture. Then as I add talent, I’m bringing them into that culture and then putting those two things together. Have much more satisfied customers. 

[00:48:10] MB: For listeners who want to find you and your work online, what is best place for them to do that?

[00:48:17] DAT: I love to hang out on LinkedIn and I'm sure your young professionals do too. Great content. There's a connect with me on LinkedIn. I have a Facebook author page that I also put a lot of content there, and I'm on Instagram, and in all those places I'm @DeeAnnTurner, and my website is deeannturner.com. We can engage there. 

Then my new book that's coming out in the spring of 2021 is called How to Get a Job, Keep a Job, and Grow a Career. The title is not that, but that’s the thing about it. I would love to interact with your listeners, because they’re in the group of people that this is the audience for this book, and so I’d love for them to interact with me as I write that book and look for some engagement and some opinions about those subjects.

[00:49:03] MB: Well, Dee Ann, thank you so much for coming on the show for sharing all this knowledge, some really great strategies for building a remarkable culture. 

[00:49:11] DAT: Well, it is completely my pleasure, Matt. I’ve enjoyed our conversation so much, and thank you for having me.

[00:49:18] MB: Thank you so much for listening to the Science of Success. We created this show to help you, our listeners, master evidence-based growth. I love hearing from listeners. If you want to reach out, share your story, or just say hi, shoot me an e-mail. My e-mail is matt@successpodcast.com. That’s M-A-T-T@successpodcast.com. I’d love to hear from you and I read and respond to every single listener e-mail.

I'm going to give you three reasons why you should sign up for our e-mail list today by going to successpodcast.com, signing up right on the homepage. There’s some incredible stuff that’s only available to those on the e-mail list, so be sure to sign up, including an exclusive curated weekly e-mail from us called Mindset Monday, which is short, simple, filled with articles, stories, things that we found interesting and fascinating in the world of evidence-based growth in the last week. 

Next, you're going to get an exclusive chance to shape the show, including voting on guests, submitting your own personal questions that we’ll ask guests on air and much more. Lastly, you’re going to get a free guide we created based on listener demand, our most popular guide, which is called How to Organize and Remember Everything. You can get it completely for free along with another surprise bonus guide by signing up and joining the e-mail list today. Again, you can do that at successpodcast.com, sign up right at the homepage, or if you're on the go, just text the word “smarter”, S-M-A-R-T-E-R to the number 44222. 

Remember, the greatest compliment you can give us is a referral to a friend either live or online. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us an awesome review and subscribe on iTunes because that helps boost the algorithm, that helps us move up the iTunes rankings and helps more people discover the Science of Success. 

Don't forget, if you want to get all the incredible information we talked about in the show, links transcripts, everything we discussed and much more, be sure to check out our show notes. You can get those at successpodcast.com, just hit the show notes button right at the top. 

Thanks again, and we'll see you on the next episode of the Science of Success.