Culture Over Coffee
Culture Over Coffee
Unlocking Employee Engagement through Shared Vision with Kristin Cantrell
In this episode, we’re discussing how having and communicating a shared vision can be instrumental to driving engagement throughout your organization.
And the awesome Kristin Cantrell, Owner/Operator at Seven Mountains Media, is here to break down how she fosters a shared vision with her teams.
Kristin has such great insights to offer, like:
- How involving your people in the development of your organization’s vision can better ensure their buy-in
- Why, while communicating your company’s vision is key, demonstrating it is even more crucial
- And, finally, why it always pays for leaders to put their boots on and pitch in, no matter the role.
Links:
Grade Your Company Culture
Kristin Cantrell
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 discussing how having and communicating a shared vision can be instrumental in driving engagement throughout your organization. Lucky for us, Kristin Cantrell, Owner and Operator at Seven Mountains Media, is here to break down how she fosters a shared vision with her team. Kristin has great insights to offer, like how involving your people in the development of your organization's vision can better ensure their level of buy-in, why communicating your company's vision is key, but demonstrating that vision is even more crucial. And, finally, why it always pays for leaders to put their boots on and pitch in to help. So welcome, Kristin. I am thrilled to have you join the podcast today Me too.
Beth Sunshine:Hi Beth, hi. Today we're going to be talking about how leaders drive engagement with a shared vision and, as a well-respected owner-operator, I'm just really excited to get your take on this.
Kristin Cantrell:So again, thank you for joining me, and yeah, we're going to have a good time.
Beth Sunshine:You ready to get started?
Kristin Cantrell:I am.
Beth Sunshine:All right. So before we get into the actual topic that I asked you to talk with me about today, I do always love to start with a quick, brain jolt, hard word to say. So I want you just to envision the very best company culture you can think of and tell me what three to five words would you use to describe that ideal culture.
Kristin Cantrell:Well, two words that go together, okay. Psychologically safe I like people to have psychological safety in their lives, let alone in the workplace, so that's a big one for me. People need to feel heard. They need to feel like they're safe expressing their opinion without recrimination or whatever you know and that they're valued because they are so. Psychological safety. That's two words, and then I need more words, right?
Beth Sunshine:I would say nervous-filled.
Kristin Cantrell:That's another two word or one word. I like people to feel like they're doing the best job they can do, that they're good at their job and that it fulfills a personal mission and purpose for them, not only at work but for them personally. So I guess I would say humanity-focused.
Beth Sunshine:I love that.
Kristin Cantrell:To me it's the perfect work culture and you know, beyond that, if I could get it to the point like if it was Utopia and everything was wonderful, I would have like no rules. In my first management job I didn't have an employee handbook and my parents would call me and they would say well, what's in your company handbook? I'm like I don't have one. When people need to take off, I say take off, you need to go to a doctor's appointment, go to a doctor's appointment. Oh, you've got a rough time with that. Okay, well, will you do this and that? Like just work with human beings. I love it. It's an indigenous world we're in, so we're not in Utopia, but I wish I could be that way still, yeah.
Beth Sunshine:And I understand your thinking. I mean, you're right, it is a litigious world, which is why we can't do that, but everything you said up until then, it makes so much sense. You were talking about psychological safety, where people can speak up and they're heard and there's no secrets. You're aware of the bigger picture and people being purpose-filled and having a mission and feeling part of something. I loved hearing all of that and then ending with your handbook comment. I suppose if you had all of those things in place, if people really had a purpose, they knew why they were there, what they were there to do, they were engaged, sleeves rolled up and they could share and ask questions with no fear, you really wouldn't need that handbook as much would you.
Kristin Cantrell:That's right, you know I mean it's. Multiple books have been written on it, whether it's something like Drive or the Tipping Point or something like that. There are so many instances where we get in the way of our most effective, productive people by putting them in a box, and so I've always been trying to remove the box that they think they're in, because it takes a long time for people to adjust. You know it's an acquired taste, I will grant you that, but you know we like it.
Beth Sunshine:So I think I would like it too very cool.
Beth Sunshine:All right, so digging into our conversation a bit more into the topic of the day, so I'm preparing for our chat. I spent a little time on your LinkedIn I hope you don't think I'm a stalker. I do a lot of research, though. I like to know who I'm talking to and what their expertise is in and I couldn't help but noticing Something that one of your managers wrote about you related to your innate ability to create a shared mission. So I I did write his quote down, and I did. I do have it on a post-it note right here on my screen.
Beth Sunshine:So here's what he said. He said like a telephoto lens, she sees things in the far distance, brings them into clarity and then shares her vision with others. And I just got goosebumps reading that. It's a. It's a huge document right there on your LinkedIn. You can look at it when you need to feel good, along with a lot of other positive comments, but I thought what great way to describe exactly what we're talking about today. So, with that understanding that you have that ability, why do you think it's so important to set a clear vision and to share that vision with other people?
Kristin Cantrell:Well, I'm sure it's true in any industry, but certainly in ours. It's a hard job. I don't care if they're on air or if they're in sales, just the pace of which the technology is changing and how we're Pushing them to be like great traditional radio broadcasters, but on every platform they can be on and Everywhere that makes sense in creating content on a more regular, on an everyday basis. You know, not just phoning it in. It takes a while for people to get used to that. Yeah, yeah, it certainly does. So when we go into a market, when we acquire a market, we go in and we have One-on-one meetings with every full-timer on staff and every part timer that wants one if they want one, and we call it the dream talk.
Kristin Cantrell:You know, like, where is your what? What do you dream of doing? What fulfills you? What gives you energy? You know what. Where did you start? You know. What do you want to do next? You know and they Really have no idea how to Answer that question a lot I don't care if they're 25 or they're 55 or they're 75 and we have employees in all those ranges. They'll say to me no one's ever asked me that question before. Like, I work for you, I'll do whatever you want me to do. That's not what I asked, you know. So that's the first step in defining the vision of the company and their place in it. So we consider that to be a critical step. So they understand you're part of the process here.
Kristin Cantrell:This isn't like top-down, like if you're waiting for that you're not gonna fit in well here. Like we're looking for people to say, hey, here's a problem, haters, five different ways. Maybe we could fix it. What do you think you know? So in putting that vision across, we can't just do it without one meeting. Like I just got back from One of our markets in New York from last week. I spent the whole week I rode with every salesperson, I sat with every program director, you know, and just I had what I call mindset meetings. Where's your head at? I'll tell you where I think your head is at, that's the telephoto lens, I guess. And then if there's a gap between those two, let's figure out how we can make that better. Like, if I think you're satisfied and you're not, that's a problem. You know, if you think you're satisfied and I don't think you are, that's a problem. Right, it goes both ways. And then just doing that in market, in person, in constant coaching, inspection, training, feedback, like we don't just set it and forget it. Yeah, we don't do it with people, we don't do it with radio stations, we don't do it with company initiatives. You know, um, but we're moving so fast.
Kristin Cantrell:The hardest part is trying to be everywhere at once and obviously that's not possible and video only goes so far. It's just not the same. You can't read the room the same, you can't read the body language the same. Yeah, I hope I love you, you're going to be on the camera, who knows? But I really and I say this to them when I'm in market and I say it all the time we want to model the behavior we expect. So if I expect you to lead a certain way and you need to talk to your people a certain way, I'm going to treat you with that same level of respect and I expect that in return. If I think the sales process should be XYZ, then I'm going to show you why. I'm going to go out and do it with you, and if it's a new product, I'm going to do it first before I ask someone else to do it, so they can't say you have no idea what it's like out there. Yes, I do. Yes, I do, as long as it was called a sport.
Kristin Cantrell:I really believe in working the front line in every aspect of what we do and trying to get better at it every day. It keeps changing every day, so it's a constantly changing target.
Beth Sunshine:It's constantly inherent to the industry that you are involved in. I mean, I don't think it's ever been stagnant. Even when it was less rapid change, it was always changing. I love the way you've really zeroed in on the importance of the individual, the importance of spending time coaching people, demonstrating, teaching, also listening, hearing about their wants, what they envision for their career, what's next, and also making sure you're on the same page as far as do you see their mindset being how they see their mindset.
Beth Sunshine:I love how you took that very granular every single person counts Question for you. So sometimes, as a leader, you have an organization and you have a vision and you know where you're going, whether it's more acquisitions, whether it's changing areas of focus but you know, sort of, where you're steering the ship and not every passenger or crew member knows that same information until, obviously, you communicate it. So how do you recommend that leaders effectively communicate those really big things like change happening, where I see us in the next three years, where I see us in the next five years? How do leaders communicate those things with employees in a way so that everyone feels informed and feels engaged, feels even passionate, that's?
Kristin Cantrell:a tall order. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's a tall order. I can't tell you that I've been very good at it because the change has been happening so quickly. I mean, nine years ago, we had six radio stations in our four in Kentucky and now we have over 150 signals in three states in a very short period of time. So, and some during a pandemic, which that was the hardest part, I mean. I actually, you know, it got to July of 2020 and we had just acquired two markets right before the pandemic, so they hadn't had any cultural onboarding or whatever you want to call it.
Beth Sunshine:They hadn't had any vitamin K.
Kristin Cantrell:That's what I got. We hadn't had the chance to do that yet, so they didn't know I'm this, you know, and they're seeing me on the video. They're like, yeah right, you don't like that every day. Like, well, yeah, this is how I am every day. But it came about July and I was like I got to get back up there. I got to get back up there, but I, you know, my husband told me he said until this thing's over, like you're not leaving the living room, like if you go down, we all go down. So I'm up in here. This is my.
Kristin Cantrell:I was in this little place for all the pandemic. But in July I was like, okay, so I need to get like they are. They're suffering. I mean it was hard and most of our other markets that were part of our culture. We had already cried and laughed together, we had worked through things. We had a ton of issues to deal with, obviously, but they were more comfortable talking to us at that point and really opening up on a hard time dealing with this, you know, with my kids in school at home and I'm trying to work, for example, right, and it's like, okay, well, I'm a mom, I get it Like that would be impossible. I can't even, you know, I mean, my son was up there, came home from Spring Break at College and never left. So I said, okay, so I can't go into a hotel and I can't go into a restaurant and I can't go into the radio stations, but I could go to a park, right. And he said yeah, and I said, okay, let's rent an RV.
Beth Sunshine:Did you do this?
Kristin Cantrell:Oh yeah, we went and at the same time, I was doing the traffic for our locations here in Kentucky, because our traffic director went on maternity leave on March 12, 2020. So then I did traffic for the next year and a half. So I'm doing traffic in the back of the RV and my husband's driving it and we drive into town and I'd get out and do a meeting at the park and thank you, and I'll be back and thank you for working hard, and here's how to handle this objection and this objection and this objection. Here's an initiative we've created for local businesses to help them and blah blah, blah blah. So you know getting it.
Kristin Cantrell:I mean I don't know how else to communicate it. I know I should do a newsletter, like, and I should do a monthly video message and I should put that on LinkedIn, and there's all those things I should do, you know, as a leader of a communications company. But I'll get around to it, I will do it.
Beth Sunshine:I'm doing this with you. I'm doing this with you. I love it.
Kristin Cantrell:I could just show up and you'll make it look good, so I'm not worried about that.
Beth Sunshine:I love your philosophy. Just get in it. I mean, that's what I'm really taking away from that. Like, how do you share a vision? How do you communicate it? You're gonna just have to figure it out. You just have to get. Show them, don't tell them. Oh, I love that, oh, I love that story. I can just envision you in the RV doing traffic, jumping out at the park doing the rally here's, here's the company you now work with. Welcome, here's who I am. Okay, bye, I love it. That's great. That's somebody who really cares about people in her organization. Yeah, very, very neat, all right. So, moving on to you, my next question how do you create a sense of ownership, a sense of personal connection to whatever the shared vision is among employees, so that everyone feels just like you described that perfect culture in the beginning? Everyone feels purposeful and they, they know why they're there. How do you create that sense of ownership in that? And then, what benefits have you observed as a result?
Kristin Cantrell:Well, the big thing is Helping them find their voice, you know, because I mean, there's a different thing about voicing your comments and your concerns and everybody to who, nobody that can help you, which is normally what happens. Right, they get in them, they go oh, kristen, that sounds great. Oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then they'll leave the meeting and got that's never gonna work because, right, yeah, so I've gotten really good at calling them out before I'm like, okay, I know you don't agree with everything. I'm saying, like, come on, and if I know them personally enough, I can say I bet you're thinking this is not the right time because we don't have the cash flow right now to do this particular project. For example, like we're doing a um, we're doing a leadership summit for all of our managers and middle managers, program directors, sales managers, traffic directors all that in September. And it's expensive, right, bring some, bringing in a trainer and doing all this stuff. But it's all about company culture. Like, so they understand how to lead. It's not how to radio, it's not how to program music, it's how to lead your people to their best selves. So that's what I want you to do, and One of the members of the team said, well, you know that's all good and dandy, but you know they're just gonna leave.
Kristin Cantrell:I've seen this before at XYZ company and XYZ company. And then they just go back and do it the way they've always done it. And I was like, well, did the CEO of XYZ and ABC companies go back in and check on them in their market and talk to him? How's it going? So we were gonna do this. Well, no, I was like, well, that's the difference.
Kristin Cantrell:So, yeah, I do believe that I'm going to set the expectations and they're going to follow them to the best of their ability. And they're not perfect. They'll fall down and they'll get back up and they'll learn, you know. But, um, we can't afford to put that on the back burner. We've got to put that on on the front burner. So, like, just, even within our leadership team, that's something that it's like how am I gonna bring them into the vision of what I want to do? And then, on every market visit after that, I said you see, if we'd already had this class, we wouldn't have had to deal with this problem right here, this stupid little problem that they just did on ignorance or their lack of experience or you know Whatever their biases there, whatever they have, yeah.
Beth Sunshine:I love your focus on the human part of a job, the people leadership. Not radio, not programming, not, I mean, those are all skills people need to develop in their jobs, but just the actual People leadership part of it. I love that and and the mention of holding them accountable Asking how it's going. Definitely does that ensure that sticks a little bit better, but it shows that you care and I think that's a just sort of a pervasive message across everything you've shared so far Is a big part of creating a shared mission is actually caring and demonstrating that yeah and when we roll out something new, like when we first started selling digital, for example.
Kristin Cantrell:I sat through all the training with them From one end to the other, and it's mind-numbing and I would love to go. You know what. I don't need to deal with that. I don't need to deal with that. But I do need to deal with that because if I'm going to help them solve problems, I need to understand everything that they're working with or not, as the case may be, um and and when people come around to it, they start to really like it.
Kristin Cantrell:Some, some Adapt to the culture very quickly and some are more of a wait and see. You know, like, let's see if she really Believes this and if I can really talk to her and say things and she's not going to just fire me, you know, because I don't agree with her, or you know she's gonna have someone else coming in fire me because I don't agree with her. You know, you turn the car just recently where we were like, okay, we had just bought two properties and we had said, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna put this on this signal and this on this signal, and we hired a manager and got a manager in there and the staff. He was tiring staff and we were about to launch both of the stations and they called and they said we, we have a proposal for you. We really, we really want to go. We think it should go classic country instead of country, and here's why. And they laid it out and I was like I completely see what they're saying and I agree, I agree there.
Kristin Cantrell:They made the right call. So we have to pause and and rebuild what we're gonna do so we can launch it correctly. But they knew they were heard and they had impact because they did influence our decision of what we were gonna do moving forward, and that's very I mean, that communicates the vision faster than anything else. Are those getting it moments? Yeah, and they know they're hurt and we don't just go. Oh, okay, yeah, that was never mind.
Beth Sunshine:Like yeah, no valid.
Kristin Cantrell:They got a valid point.
Beth Sunshine:Well, and that's really psychological safety, what you know we were talking about before and it's best where they. You know it takes real trust and even courage to push back in that way, and not only did you value what they had to say and did you let them know they were heard, but you truly opened your mind and they went in a different direction. When psychological safety like that exists, the company stronger I mean yes, revenue increases, they're more profitable because everyone's bringing their best thinking to it and there's no fear of Humiliation or, you know, punishment for that right Well in order for our company to be successful.
Kristin Cantrell:Because you asked me, like how does that affect productivity? In order for our company to be successful, we have to take risks, right? That's the world we're in, and and so how can we do that if all of our employees are risk averse, right?
Beth Sunshine:Nearly impossible.
Kristin Cantrell:It's impossible. Yeah, it's impossible. If you're asking them to take the hill, you know gotta be on the horse and charge of the thing and go, and we're taking the hill, you know, and we don't win every time, but we win more often than not, so we're very fortunate.
Beth Sunshine:Good, good. So we both are on the exact same page as far as how important it is for employees to have a clear understanding of the vision, to have the platform to be able to share their thinking. We've talked a lot about change, rapid change in the industry. More rapid change, probably within your own company than most. Beyond the things we've talked about, are there any other strategies that you believe are especially important in maintaining strong employment engagements?
Kristin Cantrell:One of the things that I think has helped on from the hiring side, which, of course, is the most critical first step, right. I Used to get you know. I'd be like, okay, this is this awesome job, let's write this awesome job description for this awesome job, and Then we will find someone that fits all those awesome elements and they'll be awesome at that awesome job. Right, but how often do you actually get a direct? And we work in small to medium markets, so it's not like they're gonna go, I'm moving up to New York City. It's like no, you're coming to work in, or only in, new York or Altona, pennsylvania or whatever it is, and we love these markets, we love our market oh yeah.
Kristin Cantrell:I could have gone to a big market a long, long time ago. I have no desire to do that. I want to make impact where I am and so, anyway, I, over the years, I've started. Yeah, I'm interviewing for a certain job, but I'm trying to interview them for what are their strengths and their skill sets, and then building a job around that.
Beth Sunshine:Ah, very interesting. So you have a job open, you identify what you need in that role, but you find somebody who maybe has talents or skills that break the barriers of that role. You're willing to change the role to fit the talent.
Kristin Cantrell:Is that so? For example, we just interviewed, we just did a bunch of round of interviews with some students from several Pennsylvania universities and many that were involved in the Radio Talent Institute that we have in Bloomsburg, and so we were just doing follow-up interviews with them. And so they're fresh out of school, or a year out of school, right, and we need their personalities all over the place. It is so hard to find their personalities, unbelievable and that will move to our towns Like it's like they're either born and bred there, you know, or they come for the mission, they come for the culture of what we're doing. So when we build these jobs around an air personality opening, for example, like when we're interviewing them, we find out ooh, this one also had a minor in videography. Well, we have a creative services unit, so maybe you could you know we could involve you and pay you talent to do, to be second shooter on a video shoot or something like that.
Kristin Cantrell:We just hired one we needed an air personality in Altoona, pennsylvania, and she's now going to handle all of our social media management for all of our stations in that market, because most of our program directors are not of the generation that, like it, just falls right out of them. It's a much harder thing, and so we're like OK, so how can we supplement their skill set, which they have Bukus of, in radio broadcasting and she helps them and they're helping her learn their side of the industry. That's also a great way to bring the multi generations together. Instead of them being you know. So we had to say things like you shouldn't be on your phone during a meeting because the older people think you're blowing us off. That's why they look at me that way. I'm actually researching, I'm just looking at them. So just being able to say that to them, where they'll take it and not cry, you know, I sort of have a thing for that.
Beth Sunshine:So yeah, I love it and I just what a great way to think that engagement getting in employee engagement right really starts by hiring the right people, understanding their strengths and then giving them the opportunity to use their strengths so that they can shine. Whenever we're in a role where we're shining, where we're doing the things that make us feel strong, every day we're engaged. So, yeah, yeah, smart connection you made and thank you for sharing that.
Kristin Cantrell:Well, and some people, like we joke, like there are certain employees in our company that have been with us maybe from the very beginning, but they're on job 8.0 or 9.0. Yeah, because we keep tweaking and fine tuning, very often because they self identify ooh, I see, we need to do that. I really like to do this. What could I drop and what could we move on to somebody else and I could do? I could do that, and what would that look like?
Beth Sunshine:You know that never ends. No, and that's what human resources really is all about is is identifying what resources your humans bring and aligning them to what you need, and that can be shifting all the time. Great yeah, All right. Last question If you would recommend one piece of advice for other company leaders who are listening today to ensure that their organizations shared vision really resonates with their people, what would that piece of advice be?
Kristin Cantrell:Get your ego in check and get out in front.
Beth Sunshine:Kind of get in it right. That would be the theme for the whole thing Get in it.
Kristin Cantrell:Get in it, get all the goods.
Beth Sunshine:Get in there, get your ego in check. I like it. Great advice. Thank you, kristen, for the advice, the insight. You bring a lot of experience and know how to this, and I really appreciate you spending time with me today. I'm talking a little culture over coffee Now. You've shared a lot of really good information and ideas relating to driving engagement, certainly with a strong vision, but also you've talked a lot about just individualized management and listening to your people. I think our listeners will probably find something really valuable in every piece of it. So, for those listening, I'd love to add your LinkedIn information to the show notes. Is that okay? Of course, Okay good.
Beth Sunshine:I think people want to connect with you, so I want to give them that opportunity, and then I'm also going to add a link that our listeners can use to grade their company culture. So we have an interactive quiz. It takes just a few minutes but it gives a really good sense of the current health of the culture as well as recommendations that can help, and a lot of the things that quiz measures are things you brought up today, so I think that would be a really nice.
Kristin Cantrell:Next step for people yeah.
Beth Sunshine:Yeah, so thank you, Kristen, for joining me and thank you everyone for listening. 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 upyourculturecom. Enjoy the journey as you increase engagements and up your culture.
