Culture Over Coffee
Culture Over Coffee
Shaping Company Culture through Tomorrow's Leaders with Jason Randall
In this episode we’re kicking off our season-long focus on the role that company leaders play in nurturing a solid culture of engagement.
Throughout our fourth season, you’ll hear from leaders in various industries who truly embody the fact that a great company culture starts at the top.
Today, Beth joined by the amazing Jason Randall, CEO at Questco, who is here to help break down how to shape the future of your company culture through developing tomorrow’s leaders.
Jason brings so many amazing points to the table, like:
- Why, no matter how positive of a message your company transmits, if your culture isn’t authentic, you won’t be fooling anyone.
- How everyone has a role to play in nurturing a company’s culture, but it’s up to leaders to continuously shine a light on what that culture should look like.
- And, finally, why new leaders in the company should be trusted and empowered to make their own decisions.
Links:
Grade Your Company Culture
Jason Randall
Beth Sunshine
Up Your Culture
Hello and welcome to Culture Over Coffee, a podcast focused on improving company culture and fostering employee engagement. Every week, we chat with experts and thought leaders about the latest information and proven practices you can use to reduce regrettable turnover, increase productivity on your team and retain key customers. So pour a cup of your favorite brew and join us. I'm your host, beth Sunshine. Svp. It up your culture in the Center for Sales Strategy. In this episode, we're kicking off our season long focus on the role company leaders play in building and nurturing a thriving culture of engagement.
Beth Sunshine:Throughout our fourth season, you'll hear from leaders in various industries who truly embody the fact that a great company culture starts at the top. Today, I'm joined by Jason Randall, ceo at Questco, who is here to help me break down how to successfully shape your company culture by developing and arming tomorrow's leaders. Jason brings so many great points to the table, like why, no matter how positively you talk about your organization, if your culture is not authentic, you won't be fooling anyone. How everyone has a role to play in nurturing a company's culture, but it's up to leaders to continuously shine a light on what that culture should look like. And, finally, why new leaders in the company should be trusted and empowered to make their own decisions. All right well, welcome, jason, and thank you so much for joining me today for Culture Over Coffee. I've been really looking forward to this.
Jason Randall:Well, me too, beth, so glad to be here.
Beth Sunshine:So your company, Questco, has actively focused on hiring and developing top performers for a long time now, so we've had the opportunity to work together in that arena quite a bit. Recently, we had a conversation about the importance of maintaining a strong company culture and highly engaged employees, especially when a company is in growth mode, which, of course, is really why I'm so glad you're here today. I know you have a passion for building exceptional teams. I know you're always thinking about performance improvement, which is why this conversation just had to happen. So thank you again for joining me. Are you ready to get started?
Jason Randall:I sure am.
Beth Sunshine:Okay, good. So I want to start with just a quick range. Old, I want you to envision the very best company culture that you can think of and tell me maybe three, four, five handful of words that you would use to describe that ideal culture.
Jason Randall:So I think, first of all, it's important to establish that there is no one ideal, perfect culture for every human being and also every business opportunity, right. What might work for a school may not work for a creative agency or a military contractor, based on what the organization is looking to accomplish and how the right culture sort of emerges from those business needs. That said, I think there are some commonalities across culture because, at the end of the day, we're all human, right? I think there are certain things that, much more often than not, promote this healthy culture. So what I think of are the words you asked, like three or five right. So like authentic, empowering, empathetic, data driven and decisive, even regardless of the context. If you're embodying those qualities, you probably are on the path to a really good, productive, healthy culture.
Beth Sunshine:I love that, so do that one more time. Authentic. I remember data-driven. Fill in the three Empowering, Empowering.
Jason Randall:Empathetic.
Beth Sunshine:Empathetic.
Jason Randall:And decisive.
Beth Sunshine:Decisive. I love it. You really span the spectrum there, from the authentic and caring and nurturing to the data-driven in making decisions. I think that's terrific, all right, good, good way just to launch our conversation. In preparing for our conversation, I read a few of your blogs. I've actually read a number of your blogs even before this, but they're very good, by the way. I especially enjoyed one that pointed to a strong company culture as the best retention strategy that a company can have amid high turnover. Don't know if you remember writing that blog, it doesn't even matter if you do but in that piece you shared some key strategies that business leaders, you said, must commit to in order to successfully create a thriving culture that engages their employees, and that just got me thinking. So let me ask how big of a role do you think business leaders play in establishing the company culture and in driving any culture initiative, and why is that?
Jason Randall:I think it is not only helpful, it's vital, it's essential for leaders of all levels within an organization, and most definitely the senior, most leaders, to really embrace culture is not something to overcome or to tolerate, but instead to actively promote. Said other way, think of the opposite. If our leaders are not behind, the culture that is promulgated is talked about Again back to authenticity. It isn't authentic, it will not feel as though you're not going to fool people and as such, it will not be successful. And then it gets to. Well, why does culture even matter Right, which is a slightly different question than what you asked, but depending on the business, it might matter to a disproportionate extent or just to an average extent, but in every context, every situation, culture which I would use as a shorthand it's a way to scale humanity right and thus scale the impact of the individual. That is a vital, essential link across any company. So the senior leaders and leaders throughout the organization need to live that, embody that and embrace that to be successful.
Beth Sunshine:I like that definition for culture scale humanity. I'll probably steal that at some point.
Jason Randall:Go ahead, small royalties, we'll work out.
Beth Sunshine:I'm going to use that. But also interesting to hear you talk about how, from the very top, there needs to be buy-in, but not even just senior leaders. You then said all leaders. So everyone really needs to be in lock stuff, I think you're saying, in order for a culture to thrive.
Jason Randall:And it might be unrealistic to say literal lockstep. Right, we're individually thinking, we might interpret things and filter them. I would say more aligned than lockstep in that, yes, I think that's absolutely important, and perhaps you've been in an environment in the past where you know from the top comes one message, but what you're living day to day, your boss, might be giving a different message, and how does that feel and how does that make you feel about the organization? In my experience it feels really badly and I tend not to believe it. So then go to the opposite. On the other hand, if the message is consistent, if it's aligned, if we're living our values at all levels, well then you have something really special and that that culture has come to life and it can actually be used to achieve business results as well as just be a healthy, wonderful place to work.
Beth Sunshine:Yeah, you're exactly right and I love that you emphasize the importance of any single manager. That entire company could have a mission, vision, values that everyone feels really committed to, purposeful about. But if you have one manager who isn't in alignment the pocket of people that work with and for that manager, they are going to start feeling, you know, kind of siloed, a little out of touch, not connected with the organization.
Jason Randall:Interesting point yeah, sure, I mean I don't know about managers and leaders, but I would say teammates everyone in the organization. Something I'd like to say is that culture you're not a consumer of our culture. It's not something that happens to you. It's something that you yourself nurture and internalize and promote, and we all have the ability, regardless of our station, to be a part of that. You're either working toward it or you're kind of working against it. So this is something that I should really emphasize that this is not limited to leaders. This is really everyone in an organization has a role to play in promoting the healthy culture, and in a lined way.
Beth Sunshine:Yeah, I'm really glad you said that the leaders really are responsible for sort of shining the light on where we're going, really maybe holding the torch a bit higher. But every person, every higher a company makes, either adds to or can potentially just detract from a culture. Each human being joining that organization, it sends ripples and it influences the outcome. So, yeah, very good. So it sounds like we both agree. It's impossible to have a thriving culture if your leaders at least we are kind of extending sort of everybody but if your leaders aren't highly intentional about it every day. But here's where it gets a little tricky. Creating a thriving culture is not something most people learn in school. The vast majority of leaders have actually never had any formal training to be able to do this work, and yet they are really key to success. So, in your experience, how can a company set its leaders up for success here?
Jason Randall:Sure. Well, I guess one small point to make is that you're absolutely correct and that most have not had the benefit of formal training and culture or might even really know where to go to look for that. It is available and it's out there, and certainly some graduate leadership programs cover this and social psychology classes cover this. But again to your point, most of us haven't had that. I just want to make the point to the audience that there is rich material out there from an academic sense, a practical sense, to really bring some of these concepts to life and do that in a setting that might be more safe. But in addition to that, the fundamental point you're making is, of course, completely valid, that most of us are, to the extent we've even had leadership training, we probably haven't had cultural awareness or why is this important in the organization, you alone, how to do it. So then, what do you do? That's the question. It all starts with you probably hear me say this several times in our brief conversations defining what that culture is and, as importantly, why it matters.
Jason Randall:Just a little context. This is certainly a commercial for my organization, but we handle outsourced HR for small and medium-sized businesses, so they come to us. They basically want a lot of HR issues handled, whether that's administrative tasks or more responsive HR tasks. And so the culture that's right for us is a culture of a caregiving organization. Right, because these business owners really want these things handled. They expect us to handle them on their behalf, be partners by them, and we can't hope to be the caregivers externally unless we are that ourselves internally. And so culture comes from that fundamental belief and insight, and I would hold that beliefs drive behavior, and that's one of the reasons why culture is so important, right? So it has to be said by this as often as possible, by as many as possible hey, this is what we stand for, what we're all about, and here's why. Here's why it's important, because we can actually tie it. It's great to have a culture for its own. Call it intrinsic human benefit, just a more pleasant place to be.
Jason Randall:Culture is actually more than that. There's a business purpose to that. So if it's more of a command environment, there may be less flexibility. If it's a more human-centered, flexible environment, well then that's reflected in the culture. But defining why is essential for people. So then how do you grow? You start with that fundamental understanding and then you give opportunities to demonstrate these values. Right? You continue to emphasize that. You're right, beth. I might not have learned it in school, but I can see it practiced every day. I can see it reinforced, rewarded, incented and recognized. And there is no grand gesture that makes a culture happen. It's everyday behaviors, consistently over time, in an aligned fashion, that will make a culture come to life and that's how you can pass it on and get leaders into that aligned set of beliefs. I guess. One other point, because it's such a rangy topic, right?
Beth Sunshine:I love it.
Jason Randall:You need to recruit and retain and promote those leaders that are aligned with that cultural vision or you will, without fail, be working against your own culture. And we've all had that sore thumb moment with the manager and organization. But you know what? That person doesn't really seem to be living our values and there's this cognitive dissonance that happens, really important to recognize. So all of this is hey, let's recruit the right mindset that buys into this fundamentally, let's give them opportunities to demonstrate that and let's celebrate it when they do.
Beth Sunshine:So we both know that not everyone is cut out for management. Even some of the most talented people in the marketplace are better aligned with other roles not coaching people, developing other people. So sort of dovetailing on what you were just saying. First, how do you identify potential future leaders in for your, within your organization, so specifically those who will be able to grow their direct reports but also enhance that culture, ensure that it thrives, grow the company overall? So I'll stop there and ask you that person that question. First, how do you spot those people?
Jason Randall:Yeah, this is probably the answer. This is probably a dissertation that I'm not qualified to write. It's such an important question, right? How? How do you make that happen? You know, in our context, we've we've nearly tripled in size in a short number of years. Part of that is through acquisitions or the blending of cultures, right? So, oh my gosh, what a, what a Herculean challenge, and something that we wrestle with every day is we.
Jason Randall:We face a lot of situations where people have been, you know, the management opportunity has been created by the growth, and so, okay, this, this is what we have, and that's one situation. Others have come from the outside, bringing in their own sensibilities about this. So it's this big melting pot to blend in to a culture. So, again, it does start with firmly standing for something and repeating that so frequently that everyone knows it. The a line employee three states over should have a similar thing to say about who we are and what we stand for than someone at headquarters. Right? If you're accomplishing that, you're doing this right. And so, when it comes to leadership, what do you do you give? I think the question was about culture, but it's also how do you advance leaders, right Is?
Beth Sunshine:that and, essentially, how do you spot them? How do you task the right people with this responsibility?
Jason Randall:So I think this comes first of all, giving an environment of safety. Let's take incremental chances on a human being to do, say, accomplish, and so on. So maybe it starts with a with anything from a t-shirt design to planning an event, to owning an initiative with rather minor stakes. Give them an opportunity to show what that is. If that tends to expand over time, you give feedback, you reinforce, whether it's about culture or a more tangential culture, performance related, accomplishment or not.
Jason Randall:Give feedback, allow a stumble, allow many stumbles, because that is how we learn and in fact, I think a healthy culture I don't know if it's one of my words, but would really embrace the failure you know, contain it, but give that an opportunity to create future growth. I think there is no such thing as free tuition, and a lot of the times that the lessons we learn are paid for by the pain of those mistakes, the consequences of those mistakes. Let's minimize the damage that can be caused and then give people free reign to do that. If you're doing that, you will enable that emerging leader to build a confidence in herself and himself and continue to move forward. And then, of course, as I mentioned, this is probably a dissertation level topic, but just a few thoughts that come to mind.
Beth Sunshine:You had mentioned a little bit ago how important it is that you feel like caregivers, that you behave as caregivers, that that's one of the ways that your company identifies itself. Your people must identify themselves. So I assume that's something you specifically look for when you're hiring people, certainly leaders. Are there other specific traits or qualities that you look for in leaders in general?
Jason Randall:So there has to be a technical competence in the subject matter, because so many of our areas whether it's benefits or payroll or HR advice you wouldn't want a leader of HR advice that doesn't know anything about HR best practices. So there has to be a technical domain that's solid, but from there, a lot of it just depends on that. There's a personal fit aspect to these things that's so crucial, and it tends to be a little minimized or reduced to colloquialisms. But what this fundamentally means is is this a person that's able, within the dictates of our unique culture, able to thrive? In other words, like in our case, we don't want people that would call people out in a negative or embarrassing way in public. Right, that should be handled in a different way. But there are other organizations, other cultures where that is appropriate.
Jason Randall:Well, if you mix those things, you're going to have some bad results, even though the individuals involved they're not necessarily wrong or bad, they're just incompatible. So we would look for people that have a similar sensibility. That's demonstrated, and I would actually say that's one of the things that that, while job interviews have many challenges, this is something that can emerge pretty apparently in a lot of well-constructed interviews is hey, are you culturally appropriate? And that is not to say that everybody must think the same. In fact, quite the opposite. I believe that diversity in every context, including diversity of perspective, is so critically important, and we do strive for that as well. But it's how you disagree and how you raise differences and succeed together. And so, yes, that that is something that's very important to us is to recruit on those factors and then to reinforce them and correct it when we're out of line with the culture as well, because this is not a one-time thing where we're interacting.
Beth Sunshine:We used to talk a lot about culture fit, hiring people who are culture fit, but then that was often misconstrued into we need to hire more people who are like us, who think like us or look like us or act exactly like us, when in reality, I think most of the time we're talking about hiring someone who's more of a culture ad.
Beth Sunshine:That, whatever it is they bring, fits very nicely with the mission of our organization, with our core values and how we treat each other. That's really what I'm hearing you say. I love the fact that a moment ago, on a previous question, you had talked about the concept of psychological safety and how that leads to innovation and improvement. Now you're talking about diversity of thought and having all of those different people in the think tank making things happen. I think I'm really understanding what you're saying. You need people to come with all their own unique talents and personalities and insight, but they also need to be the kind of person who would enjoy your mission and live by your values and really align with what you're doing. Did I get that right?
Jason Randall:I think so. I'd even take it further that hey, to the extent that everybody looks, sounds the same, agrees with each other, you're probably losing a lot of value because there's a homogeneity of perspective there that is inherently limiting. I love that at Quesco we have a variety of racial backgrounds and geographic backgrounds and professional backgrounds mixing, that we can have contrasting viewpoints and get something better accomplished because we bring those to the table. That is a very different concept than saying misaligned culture. I would say when you have the approach that, yes, we want divergent perspectives to come together with a shared sensibility, that's when really magical things happen in an organization.
Beth Sunshine:Love the way you just capped that off beautifully said All right. What are some of the strategies you would recommend that company executives use to develop their future managers, to set them up for success and help them become great culture leaders?
Jason Randall:Yeah, this is hard, honestly. We struggle with it. We continue to struggle with this because it's inherent in a growth environment. A lot of times you have people that, on one dimension or another, are underskilled In terms of some of the technical aspects of leadership. It is a big jump to go from managing a smaller area to suddenly your success is achieved through others.
Jason Randall:Obviously, the culture we're talking about, this notion of being decisive, being empathetic, that's central to a leadership discussion. Of course as well. It is hard to get people into that different mindset because in the short term it's always easier to do it myself than to trust someone that's less experienced than me to handle it. But that's the only way you can grow is through that delegation. First of all, make sure that's a clear expectation is hey, I expect you to the person supervising that leader, managing that manager, I expect you to not do but to teach, to coach, to train. Let's make sure that's an explicit expectation.
Jason Randall:How do you inculcate the culture in a leader? Again, this is repetition and consistency of behavior. Then there's some skill set upgrading. That has to happen. This is tough. This is a tough right fit thing, because I don't know that any organization exactly. It's hard. You might be too small to have the right internal training mechanism.
Jason Randall:These are hard things to solve so I can't give a generic answer other than be devoted to finding that answer and improving over time, because you probably won't get it right away. It's an iterative process to get there, but I guess it comes down to devoted management attention To this issue of manage, of leader development and maybe it take maybe the hair on fire issue and a particular organization might be the technical training of how literally to manage people. For others it might be well, you know what. We kind of have that, but we need to emphasize how we broadcast cultural harmony throughout an organization and how do we manage through disagreement some things we sort of touched on little glimpses of here. So it's being intentional, it's being consistent and it's being methodical inside of that and that's where good things happen.
Beth Sunshine:I love that and as you continue to grow, as you continue to hire or acquire, all of that good work has to keep happening. Like you said, it's not a one and done, it's really. I think we started out the podcast by saying something to the effect of it's the little things that happen every day, all the time.
Jason Randall:Sure, I guess. One more point I'd make hey, don't be afraid to ask for help. We again, you made the point a lot of us don't study this in school. Well, you know what there are resources out there, there, there are, there are, there are consultancies that can help. Of course is, I believe you're aware about the help, help through, you know, cultural development and advanced growth. Don't be afraid to have the humility to say, hey, you know what. We can use some outside help to lead us through, whether it's a time period or an organizational upskilling, that help can be available.
Beth Sunshine:I just need to look at yeah, you're right, and even if people know what they want and they know what they need to do, sometimes it's hard to stop down and the pace of business and actually do it. So that is where that comes in handy. Thank you for mentioning that. All right, are there any common challenges or roadblocks that you've accounted in leadership development, specifically developing others, and, if so, how have you overcome them?
Jason Randall:It is different things at different times, right, but I would say something I've seen a lot of is it can be very challenging for people that are assuming a leadership position for the first time to feel comfortable owning the decision and doing the thinking they're used to, perhaps Teeing up a case for someone else to decide, or their, or even less than that. They'll bring inputs and just say what do you think that it not even a recommendation, and I would say that is really challenging to say. You know what? That that is not. That may have been sufficient in your previous role. It is not sufficient in this one. In fact, we need you to own this and you might be wrong and you guys suffer the consequences. So how do you overcome that? Again, very specifically Spelling out, like I just did in this short exchange here's what is expected of you, and I think, honestly, there are other leaders in my, in my own organization they're probably better at this than me of saying here here is sort of the pathway to success in your new leadership position, and let's put this on paper, let's review it Electronic paper probably more often than not now and let's make sure that we are being very specific about what good looks like, and let's follow through on that consistently.
Jason Randall:Let's review it all the time and make sure you're tracking, and these are things I don't think come as a huge revelation out there. This is not a magical new idea, but I would say this is something where the execution is much more important than the brilliant strategy. Making sure that people know what is expected of them. We all want to do good jobs right. So helping helping to find that, giving that clarity, and then, over time, encouraging them to create that clarity themselves that is a discipline and a skill that can be taught and therefore learned.
Beth Sunshine:I agree, and I think a big part of that is communication. A lot of times people believe they are being more clear than they are being or Showing more decisiveness than they are demonstrating. So I agree, and a lot of times and I've worked with organizations what we really center on there it's communication. So interesting, ok. I have one last question. If you could recommend only one thing and that's the hard part, I think only one thing for all company leaders to start doing right away people who are listening her walking away, thinking Boy Jason had a lot of really great things to share and, man, my head is swimming with all of the things I want to do if you could leave them with one thing that you'd recommend they start doing to improve their company culture today, what, what would that be?
Jason Randall:I don't know how you can improve it before you defined what improvement looks like. So again, I'm sure there's a big temptation to give a multi part answer here and dodge the essence of the question. I would say you have to start by defining what a good culture looks like, for you know that the world is full of best places to work awards. We have a whole bunch of them in a, in a trophy case ourselves. But really for your organization, the best, the best place to work for your people is different than the best place to work for mine. Right, define what that looks like at a very detailed level and then a very succinct level so that can go out. So you are defining the target, because without that you will have very little chance of achieving it.
Beth Sunshine:I love it. And you're not just talking about what is the culture you want for tomorrow. You're actually talking about define who you are today.
Jason Randall:Yes, yeah, I would say you look that that's, that's in the eye of the holder right, whether you're going aspirational with it or it's like you know what I'm talking about. You're going aspirational with it or it's like you know what. I want to capture what's here, because we think it's working pretty well, regardless. What does that mean? Because best place to work for for Beth might be very different than the best place to work for Jason. I don't think it is, but it could be, and let's make sure that we're defining some that's again aligned not only with the human values but with our company goals. I think that's a missing link a lot of the time. Is that you know what, by itself, culture is not its own reward. It needs to translate to a larger business goal and make sure you have the culture that works for you, and that starts with the definition.
Beth Sunshine:We're going to end it right there. That was excellent. I love this. Thank you, jason, so much for the time you spent talking about culture over coffee with me today and, as we decided in the beginning, neither of us are drinking coffee, so culture over non coffee together today was really terrific. I think you shared, boy, a lot of great information and ideas related to shaping culture by developing tomorrow's future leaders and, you know, in a variety of other ways. I think our listeners have probably found a lot of value here.
Beth Sunshine:So, for those listening, I'm going to drop Jason's LinkedIn information in the show notes so you can connect with him. I'd highly recommend it. I'm also going to add a link that you can use to grade your own company culture. There's an interactive quiz that I think you'll enjoy. It only takes a few minutes, but it gives a really good sense of the current health of your culture While you're in the process of identifying who you are, what your culture is, defining it. This can really help you so, and it provides recommendations that will help as well. So thank you, jason so much, and thank you everyone for listening.
Jason Randall:Thanks for that.
Beth Sunshine:Thanks so much for spending time with us on culture over coffee. If you've enjoyed the conversation, be sure to subscribe and join us for every episode. For more helpful information on the topics of company culture and employee engagement, visit us at up your culture dot com. Enjoy the journey as you increase engagement and up your culture.
