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Welcome to the Sales Lead Dog podcast hosted by CRM technology and sales process expert Christopher Smith.
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Talking with sales leaders that have separated themselves from the rest of the pack.
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Listen to find out how the best of the best achieved success with their team and CRM technology.
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And remember, unless you were the lead dog, the view never changes.
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Welcome to sales lead dog.
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In today’s episode, I have joining me Carrie Siggins.
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Carrie is CEO of Stone Age.
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She’s an author.
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She is the EY Entrepreneur of the Year keynote speaker.
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Carrie has a whole lot going on.
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Carrie, welcome to sales lead dog.
0:43
Thank you.
0:43
I’m so glad to be here.
0:45
So Carrie, your latest book, the Ownership Mindset, give me the brief synopsis and then we’ll just jump right in.
0:54
Yeah, sure.
0:55
So the ownership my it’s a part memoir, part leadership, part book, part how to build a great company.
1:02
And it’s my story of coming to Stone Age at the age of 28 to take over for the founders and build this amazing employee owned company that we have here that’s based on the ownership mindset or cultures based on this idea of, of owning it and teaching people how to think and act like owners.
1:20
And I wanted to share the journey because it’s such an interesting one and it’s such a great culture to be able to employ.
1:30
And a lot of people think that you have to be employee owned to inspire people to have an ownership mindset.
1:36
And that simply isn’t true.
1:37
And so I wanted to give a, a road map, a blueprint, A handbook, so to speak, on, on how you lead yourself well and how you lead others through this lens of I own everything that happens in my life.
1:49
And, and hopefully inspire people to, to think about how they show up as leaders themselves and how they’re building leaders within their companies.
2:00
So when you came into Stone Age, did you already lead from that perspective of ownership?
2:05
Or is that something that you had to develop, you know, in the line with once you were there?
2:11
So I certainly learned a lot more about the ownership mindset coming to work here.
2:16
And I would say I would have had a up and down relationship with accountability and ownership like I think in everybody does.
2:24
My mom instilled accountability in me in a very young age, made me go solve my own problems, definitely didn’t coddle me, but I certainly fell into a victim mentality in my teens and my 20s where I just blamed, you know, a lot of people for my unhappiness and different issues in my life.
2:43
And I don’t think that that’s necessarily uncommon as we are maturing as, as adults.
2:49
But I, I definitely lived a lot of my life, younger adult life, not necessarily having the ownership mindset, but I got myself into a bit of trouble and, and I had to move back home to, to rebuild my life.
3:03
And that’s when I said, I’ve got it.
3:04
I’ve got to change it.
3:05
I can’t be a victim anymore.
3:07
And I just need to, to really look at all the decisions that I’m making.
3:09
And so I was really primed for it because I was ready for a reset.
3:14
And then I met our founders who who had started this, this really unique employee owned company and they wanted to go do other things with their careers.
3:22
So they had to start really building that trust with me and autonomy with me.
3:26
And so they’re the ones who really helped develop that that mindset within me.
3:32
Yeah.
3:33
You know, it’s listening to you.
3:35
I’m thinking about like, it’s I don’t say it’s easier, but I think it’s you can control it more that ownership mindset when it’s just about yourself.
3:46
It’s a whole nother matter when you’re trying to create a culture around that in your organization that’s a much bigger left.
3:53
Tell me about that.
3:53
What was that like for you?
3:57
You know, that that journey, that transformation of creating this whole culture around ownership.
4:03
Sure.
4:03
So, you know, really started with the way that particularly John Wogemon, who’s the president of the company, started to work with me.
4:12
And because he knew that his success was going to be based on my success and that he was going to have to teach me a lot because I was 28 and I’d never run a company before.
4:20
I think he actually once said it was like giving, you know, a, a 16 year old’s keys to a poor, but he he was like, I got, I got a teacher.
4:29
And so he would say things to me like, what do you think?
4:34
When I would come and ask his opinion for something or I wanted to try something new and he didn’t necessarily agree with it, he’d say, I don’t necessarily agree with that idea.
4:44
But you know, let’s go ahead and try it and let’s, let’s see what what happens.
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Or like, I trust you to make this decision and I’ve got your back.
4:50
And so it was so empowering and it taught me how to trust myself.
4:55
And so I started out as director of operations and three years later I was named CEO.
5:01
And I realized that during especially those last two years, I hardly ever thought about my paycheck.
5:07
I was so engaged in the work I was doing because I had that trust of, of the founder and I had autonomy and I could use my creativity.
5:17
And so when I became the CEO and I was really reflecting on like how much my life had changed in these last three years, I, I realized it was because I loved what I was doing.
5:26
And I say, no, every single person in this organization deserves to love their job as much as I do.
5:33
And so how do we create that trust, that autonomy, that, that more control over your work and, and the, the environment where people get to try and take some risks and, and not have that fear of failure.
5:45
And so that’s where the Inc started and of, of, OK, how do I create an environment that that allowed me to flourish for everybody in the organization?
5:55
Yeah, I love that it.
5:57
I learned early on in my career I was making a huge mistake in my leadership style that I always thought like, hey, I need to have an answer to every question that an employee comes to me.
6:11
I need to solve every problem, and I it didn’t take long for me to figure out how.
6:17
All I was doing is making myself a center of gravity, a huge bottleneck in the organization.
6:23
And yet you really aren’t leading when you’re doing that.
6:27
No, And you’re doing people a disservice because we don’t have the answers.
6:31
And so one, when we pretend that we do right, we’re creating, we’re not being transparent, we’re not showing vulnerability, which is what we all connect on.
6:41
And you’re not teaching people how to think for themselves.
6:43
And that’s what I’ve really learned as a leader.
6:45
Like I don’t want to do the thinking for my team.
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Now, the best question John ever asked me was, what do you think?
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And so that’s my favorite question to answer or to ask people is, is what do you think?
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Because of course, I have my opinion, opinions and my ideas, but I I want people to really flourish.
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And you can only do that if you say you should trust your decision making.
7:06
You should, you should trust your thought process.
7:08
And and the only way to learn how to trust it is to, to, to go out and try it.
7:13
And if you have a leader who’s answering everything for you, then why would you do that?
7:17
You will just let them do the thinking for you.
7:19
Oh, yeah.
7:19
And then they have to own whatever that outcome is.
7:22
Exactly.
7:23
Exactly.
7:23
Yeah, there is no, you know, I can abdicate it because hey, you’re the one who told me what to do exactly.
7:28
It’s all yours.
7:30
And yeah, you’re not creating that culture of ownership.
7:34
No.
7:35
What was the hardest part of this for you in this journey?
7:42
Not knowing what I didn’t know.
7:44
I didn’t have a traditional route to CEO.
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And so I had, I had gaps in my development and, and I am incredibly grateful for them.
7:56
And because we’d built such a, we were so successful, it was able, I was able to, you know, to still like be OK, even though I made a lot of mistakes and, and, but it did create some imposter syndrome for me.
8:08
And, and so I thought, gosh, you know, could I really, could I ever really be this great CEO?
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You know, maybe I just got lucky or I made this mistake and a seasoned CEO, there’s no way they would have made that mistake because they would have had the experience to know better.
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So it caused me to doubt myself at times and, and, and just really question like, am I, am I, am I doing the right things the right way?
8:35
And in reality, like sometimes my inexperience definitely made me make poor decisions because I just didn’t know any better.
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So I think that was probably the hardest, you know, now I look back on it 18 years later and I’m so incredibly grateful because of everything that I’m learned.
8:49
Like the, the only way to learn how to do hard things is to do hard things.
8:52
And you have to do make mistakes to do that.
8:54
But it caused me a lot of stress and anxiety, certainly in those earlier years.
8:59
Oh, I bet, I bet it’s, it’s hard.
9:03
Like you mentioned, vulnerability.
9:05
It is super hard to get people space to fall in their face It to give it to yourself.
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It’s hard in you.
9:20
Again, we’re not doing we’re not helping them grow.
9:22
We’re not.
9:23
You have to let people fall on their face.
9:25
You have to take that risk to say, hey, you know what I like you’re saying, I may not necessarily agree with this, but let’s give it a shot because it’s, you know, it comes right down to it.
9:35
It’s having humility.
9:36
I think as an owner that I don’t really know as much as I think I might know, you know, and and I may not really have all the answers.
9:44
I have opinions of a ton of opinions, but that’s different from really knowing.
9:48
Yep, I totally agree.
9:50
Totally agree.
9:51
Yeah.
9:52
Tell me about the book.
9:54
Why, you know, what was the idea behind the book?
9:56
So again, I just wanted to share the this unique journey that that I’ve been able to take in hopes to inspire people to learn how to lead themselves well.
10:09
I mean, let’s face it, like we’re all leading ourselves every single day.
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We’re all self leaders, whether we’re doing it well or whether we’re doing it poorly.
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It’s a really important aspect of maturing and growing as a human being.
10:21
And that’s what we’re here to do, right?
10:22
We’re here to learn and grow.
10:23
And so self leadership was a huge part of my journey because I didn’t lead myself well for, for a good portion of my life.
10:30
And when I learned how to lead myself while it was so transformational.
10:35
And then how do you employ that into people leadership and, and make that, that, that leap so that you don’t just show up for yourself well every day, but you’re showing up for your team well, every day and inspiring them to be their very, very best.
10:48
And so I think that that I had this unique story and I have a unique ability to tell a story.
10:54
And so, and I always knew I had a book in me.
10:57
And so I was like, OK, I want to share.
10:58
I want to share the story of resiliency and figuring out how to do hard things and hopefully inspire people to go after their dreams even if they find themselves in a really tough spot that seems unsurmountable.
11:11
How long did it take you to write the book?
11:13
It took me about two, 2 1/2 years, like the whole thing.
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I decided to write it during COVID because I’m not traveling as much, so I might as well do something productive with my time.
11:25
So I got most of it done in like end of 2020, early 2021.
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And then the editing process and getting it through, you know, through over the, the, the prints and the publishing and all of that.
11:36
So it was about 2 1/2 years in total.
11:38
That’s quite a bit.
11:39
Yeah.
11:39
It’s it’s, you know, I’d be like, but you know, if you want to do something significant, you got to put in the work, the effort.
11:45
It’s never easy, right?
11:47
No, it’s never easy.
11:48
And I’m working on my second book now and I don’t have a COVID break.
11:52
So it’s much more difficult to get it done.
11:55
And so I just have to, you know, every couple of weekends I’m like, OK, I’m going to, I’m going to sit down.
11:59
I’m going to write for six or seven hours and, and just get it done.
12:02
Now, of course, because I’ve written a book, I’ve learned so much about like how my writing works.
12:07
I mean, a lot of people say, OK, I can write 500 words a day.
12:09
I can’t do that.
12:10
I need to sit down and write for a couple, couple of hours because I need to get into the flow.
12:15
But now I know that about myself.
12:17
And so it’s a lot.
12:19
It’s been a lot easier to get this book done.
12:21
Like I have a a rough first draft done that I did in a weekend and then that just speeds up the process because of what I had learned.
12:30
But now I just need another weekend to sit down and go.
12:32
OK, Like I got to go.
12:33
Like I was, as I was sharing with you in the pre show, I was at just interviewing a person for the book.
12:39
And so I have all these stories that I need, that I’ve collected now that I need to go integrate into the chapters.
12:44
So that’s kind of that’s going to be this next big push that I’m going to do in October.
12:49
Yeah.
12:50
It’s a big lift, yes.
12:54
What do you want people to take away from this book?
12:57
What you know, what are you hoping that they get out of it?
13:01
Yeah.
13:01
So the ownership mindset, I believe is the most powerful mindset that you can have.
13:05
And it’s it’s the as very basic, it’s the idea that I am responsible for everything that happens in my life.
13:13
Things don’t happen to me.
13:14
They happen because of me.
13:16
And now this is not to victim blame because there are certainly things that happen to people that were completely out of their control, that they are truly victims.
13:24
But you never have to be a victim of circumstance.
13:27
You absolutely can decide how you’re going to show up in those in those times of, of, of adversary or, or trauma.
13:38
And it’s so empowering.
13:39
And so you don’t have to wait for somebody when you have the ownership matter site.
13:43
You don’t have to wait for somebody to empower you.
13:45
You get to empower yourself because you say, you know what?
13:48
I can do something about this because I own it.
13:51
Whether that’s in a piece of feedback that you give for somebody, whether that’s in a mistake that you made or how you’re going after your career, how you’re setting goals for yourself, how you show up in your relationships.
14:04
I mean it, it really infiltrates every aspect of your life.
14:07
And so when you start with the ownership mindset as a self leader, then it’s so much easier to role model it and then bring that into your leadership style so that you can inspire other people to also say, you know what, I’m going to own it.
14:21
And it all starts with role modelling like you, it’s people are going, the leader sets the tone.
14:26
People are going to follow what you do as a leader.
14:29
And so if you exhibit the ownership mindset, I’ve absolutely learned that more and more of your team will be willing to embody it as well because they see like, oh, hey, it’s safe to it’s safe to show up And and as myself, it’s safe to admit a mistake.
14:45
So that’s really what I hope people get away from take from the book is that that owning it is the best way to live your life.
14:53
Yeah, 100% it.
14:55
It’s it’s funny that, you know, I guess because I’m older, you know, it’s, I’ve fallen on my face many, many times.
15:05
You know, you have to learn the hard way.
15:08
It’s just actually, I find it a lot easier when you own it.
15:12
Just own it right from the outset.
15:14
It’s easier.
15:16
You don’t have to struggle.
15:17
You don’t have as much conflict.
15:20
Just own it.
15:20
Let’s talk about it, let’s move on.
15:22
What makes you more relatable?
15:23
So I’ll just give you just a small minor example.
15:26
So I’m leading a meeting yesterday for I’m on our Colorado Governor Polis’s Commission for employee ownership.
15:34
And I’m the chair.
15:35
And I was rushing around.
15:37
So I didn’t pull up the right agenda for the meeting.
15:39
I pulled up the agenda from October 2023 instead of October 2024.
15:44
And so I jump into it and I’m like, that’s weird.
15:48
I didn’t set, I didn’t set the agenda.
15:49
The, the the program manager did.
15:51
And I was like, this seems really weird that we’re talking about this, but I just plow ahead and everybody’s really gracious and we talk about what we need to talk about.
15:58
And then we have a guest speaker.
16:00
And then I realize I’m like, Oh my God, I just, I just ran the agenda from the last 15 minutes from last year’s agenda.
16:08
So our guest speaker gets finished up and then he he leaves and I say, you know what?
16:13
I I’m so sorry that the first part of this meeting was confusing.
16:18
I have the wrong agenda.
16:20
I pulled up last year’s because I was rushing and I want to apologize for wasting everybody’s time.
16:27
I’m so sorry.
16:28
And it was, you know, we all got to laugh and and, and, you know, one of our fellow commissioners teased me a little bit and it just like set the stage.
16:37
But probably no one would have ever said anything or ever even known.
16:41
They would have just been like, oh, well, she must have wanted to talk about this stuff that wasn’t on the agenda.
16:44
That’s fine.
16:46
But instead I was like, I’m going to role model, like screwing up.
16:49
I’m going to own that I was not prepared, which I pulled up the wrong agenda.
16:52
And I’m going to show that humility to be able to say like, Hey, I screwed up and I’m sorry I wasted everybody’s time.
16:58
And and so that’s just a minor example, but how you do anything is how you do everything.
17:04
And so because because I so believe in owning it, it just makes it very easy in those instances.
17:11
And you know what, it gave me credibility and it built relationships.
17:14
I could laugh at myself.
17:16
And so it is so incredibly powerful.
17:18
And a lot of people, either one would have beat themselves up or two would have just been like, well, hopefully no one noticed and and just ran with the rest of the meeting.
17:26
But that is the power of it.
17:28
It just, it’s like a relationship builder makes you relatable and credible because people are like, Oh yeah, I can.
17:33
I’ve made that mistake before, too.
17:35
Yeah.
17:36
Yeah.
17:36
It it’s a vulnerability is such a huge part of being a good leader.
17:44
And that means you have to be willing to show the kinks in your armor.
17:49
You know, the mistakes you made, leverage those.
17:51
I talk about that a lot on with previous leaders on the podcast.
17:54
How do you leverage your own failures as examples as a leader for your team?
18:01
People love to talk about that, but you know, they’re like, oh, I’ve got a good one.
18:05
Exactly, exactly.
18:07
And it makes it safe for people to share.
18:09
If you as a leader are going to be like, I screwed up, somebody else is going to, hey, you know what?
18:12
I can relate because we do.
18:14
Like that’s what what good storytellers invoke as they allow people to see themselves in their stories.
18:20
And we leaders are constantly telling stories.
18:23
And it’s not about keynote speaking or writing a book.
18:27
It’s about how you inspire people.
18:29
And so sharing the mistakes that you made, the lessons learned, you know, ideas that you have in the thought process that you went to, to coming up with that idea, right?
18:39
Those are stories that are relatable to people.
18:43
And so, and then it inspires them to say, oh, well, hey, you know, I did this, I learned this lesson.
18:49
And that’s what human connection is all about.
18:51
It’s it’s, it’s quite literally based on, on stories.
18:54
And so I think if you look at your role as a leader, as a storyteller and you hone those skills, you are going to build trust, you’re going to build stronger relationships, you’re going to be more relatable, credible, all those things that we really want as a leader.
19:09
If I’m a leader and I’m, I’m working through this process and our organization, I imagine there’s always going to be some people that just cannot align with this philosophy.
19:19
What’s your advice or recommendations to them in terms of how they handle that?
19:24
So I’m a big believer of, of working closely and trying to understand.
19:28
I mean, a lot of people are resistant because of fear and they might not be willing to say that.
19:35
So trying to spend some time to get to the, the root of that fear and, and understand where they’re coming from.
19:41
Like no one wants to be sold.
19:43
And so, and I’ve learned that the hard way because I’m a seller.
19:47
I’m like, I would, I love to sell stuff, but that is certainly not with relatable to anybody who is digging in their heels.
19:54
And so I start with curiosity and asking questions and trying to understand where it’s coming from.
19:59
But ultimately.
20:00
Some people don’t want to get on board.
20:01
It’s just not the right alignment.
20:04
And that doesn’t mean that that one person is right and one person is wrong.
20:08
It’s just that it’s just not, there’s not alignment.
20:11
And so those people then will typically need to leave the organization.
20:15
And and that’s for everybody’s benefit, for their benefit, because they’re not going to thrive and be happy in a place where they’re like, I don’t buy into this, into this.
20:23
And then that certainly isn’t going to help the organization grow.
20:26
And you as a leader don’t need somebody who is working against you and what you’re trying to achieve.
20:32
So it’s just better for everybody if if that person exits the company.
20:36
But I think that it’s always worth trying.
20:39
Yeah.
20:40
Could you share a story from your history, you know, with, with Stone Age, maybe that where this core belief really benefited you, you know, in terms of your relationships with your customers?
20:54
Oh yeah.
20:55
So one, it’s because of the entire, our ethos of our, of our entire company.
21:02
So you mean you can see the sign behind me, it says own it.
21:04
And if you can see in the glare, and I have them all over the rest of my walls here in my office, there’s not a day that that goes by that people don’t talk about the own it mindset.
21:12
And there’s three aspects to it.
21:13
So practice self leadership, be a great teammate and deliver on the Stone Age assurance promise, which is our promise to our customers.
21:20
So self team and and broader impact rate our customers and in our industry.
21:25
So there’s something for everyone in there and, and it is everywhere.
21:30
We do own it training.
21:31
We have own it performance chats.
21:33
We have our employee experience council is, is the owner committee.
21:37
So we’ve really created this whole culture around it.
21:40
And because it is, it is what we do, it’s who we are, it’s what we be, it’s, it’s palpable.
21:48
So when our customers come to visit us, I’m not kidding you, almost every single time they’re like, I can’t believe how much you guys like each other.
21:57
Like the people are so proud of the work they do.
21:59
Can I get a job here?
22:01
And so when your customers are saying that they would want to work here, that tells you something that creates loyalty, that creates trust.
22:10
They know that they can rely on us because we’re here for more than just a paycheck.
22:14
We are here because we truly care about this company that we own it.
22:18
Now we all are owners, of course, which certainly adds another, I call it icing on the cake.
22:24
But you can have an employee owned company where people don’t think and act like owners because they haven’t cultivated that culture of ownership thinking.
22:32
So that’s the biggest compliment that anybody could pay us is having a customer come here and say, can I work for you?
22:38
Oh, yeah, that’s huge.
22:42
In terms of, you know, is this, again, it’s a core belief.
22:47
How do you incorporate or leverage this during the hiring process to really make sure people are aligned with this philosophy?
22:55
Is that easy or hard?
22:56
And how do you do it?
22:57
Yeah, I mean, So what first and foremost, like hiring is always a crapshoot.
23:02
You know, it’s like if you have a 300 batting average in baseball or softball, like you’re doing great.
23:07
I think of this the same thing in hiring, because let’s face it, like you, only you only get a few hours with a candidate and they’re always going to be putting their best foot forward, just like you as an organization are trying to put your best foot forward.
23:20
And so there’s always going to be things that are missed.
23:23
So we try to have a, a hiring process that catches that as as much as possible.
23:29
So we do, we follow The Who hiring method, that method.
23:36
I did talk about it all the time.
23:37
It’s so good.
23:38
And so it really allows us to get into the, into the details of the candidate with lots of different types of interviews.
23:47
We use a bigger panel than like what they recommend in who, but that’s also because of our employee ownership model.
23:53
And, and, and we, and we have people who really want to be part of that hiring process.
23:58
And so I think that that helps us, that helps us identify people who don’t have the owner mindset.
24:08
And then, but we ask really pointed questions in the culture interview, a part of, of, of that, of that process.
24:14
And you know, we make them give us examples.
24:17
And if like it’s so in the feedback example, if people don’t have like a really meaningful, like I got this kind of feedback, they’re, they’re probably not going to be a good fit because we have a culture of feedback here.
24:30
And I just do not believe that most people haven’t been given feedback.
24:34
And it doesn’t have to be in a job.
24:35
It could be as a, you know, as a, as a student, an athlete, and you got feedback from your, your football coach or, you know, we’ve all gotten feedback.
24:43
But if people can’t come up with that and, and have a meaningful story of something that they could do better and how they took that feedback, then we’re probably not going to hire them because that’s, you know, if you can’t handle feedback, it’s going to be really tough to make it here at this organization.
24:57
So there’s a couple things that we really dig into to with these behavioral type questions to help us understand if if they’re going to be successful in our culture.
25:06
Tell me about some things you really recommend them do to once you get this launched, how do you keep it going?
25:13
You have to work on it every day.
25:15
I mean, culture is not a one and done thing.
25:18
It is constant.
25:19
And I’ve been running Stone Age for 18 years now and it has ebbed and flowed every couple years.
25:25
Like things are really great.
25:26
And then all of a sudden you just let your focus on it slip a little bit because you’re going to go put it over here and the next thing you know, you know, you have low morale.
25:34
And so and those things used to really, I used to take it really personally because I always want this to be a great place to work.
25:41
But what I’ve learned is, is that’s just part of the cycle, but you just you always have to be vigilant with it.
25:48
And so if you find yourself in one of those dips, then okay, like just start going asking A1 survey question.
25:54
You know, what’s one thing that we can do to to create, create a better culture to fix this particular issue and then pick one thread, one thing that you can do and go work on it.
26:06
You know, people are going to see that if you are consistently working on it and, and making improvements like they’re going to, they’re going to, OK, we’re working on this.
26:15
The worst thing you can do is go ask a question and take a survey and then not take any action.
26:20
And people are going to say, think that, that it’s all BS.
26:23
And so, so I’ve learned that it’s always a living, breathing thing.
26:27
There’s always going to be ebbs and flows and that you just always have to work on it.
26:32
Like for us, we have 3 pillars of our strategy and culture is always one of them.
26:37
And, and so then that way we’re always having these initiatives to align.
26:43
Like if we don’t have a great culture, we can’t do these other things that we want to do to go execute our, our, our strategy and achieve our vision.
26:48
So you work on it constantly, but if it, if it ebbs, like don’t beat yourself up.
26:54
Like that happens.
26:55
It happens in every organization.
26:58
And so then you just say, OK, we’re going to go address it.
27:00
We’re going to go work on this one thing and we’re going to fix that first and then we’re going to go do the next one.
27:09
Hold on, I, I lost your audio for a second.
27:11
There you go.
27:14
Signs that we should be looking for to notice that our culture maybe is ebbing a bit.
27:23
So the higher are you up in an organization, the harder it is because we typically are further away from our employees.
27:29
So I, I implore every executive needs to be walking around their organization and seeing what’s really going on.
27:36
So I’ll just give you an example.
27:38
We had a monster of a month in September, almost a record month, should have been a record month, but we had to push a couple things out for other reasons until October.
27:47
So I went over to our warehouse to thank everybody in order fulfilment and assembly.
27:52
And I could just like tell things were a little bit off.
27:56
And so I just walked up to one of our employees and I said, hey, it seems a little bit, it just seems a little bit off in here today, like what’s going on?
28:03
And I could tell you didn’t really want to tell me.
28:04
I was like, no, just just let me know like I want to help.
28:06
And so he shared with me like how chaotic, except the last day of the month was and and I was like, oh man, I really appreciate you telling me this.
28:15
Thank you so much.
28:16
How can I help?
28:17
And so he said, well, maybe if we did an after action review, I, I think some people would really like to be heard here.
28:23
And, and so then I went back to his manager and to my direct, my VP of OPS and was like, Hey, you know, this is what I heard.
28:31
And so you, if you walk around and you ask questions, sometimes you’ll find people who will tell you.
28:37
And so you got to pay attention to those those things.
28:40
You got to know what’s going on.
28:43
So, you know, by walking around, I could just tell that something was off.
28:46
And I asked that question.
28:48
But you can start to see it if people aren’t engaged in meetings, if they have their screens off on their, you know, Teams or Zoom interview or Zoom calls.
28:58
But if people aren’t speaking up in meetings, like those are all your clues that something is going on.
29:05
And a lot of leaders like to put their head in the sand and say, like, oh, I would hear about it.
29:09
And there’s a good chance you’re not.
29:11
So you’ve got to just start paying attention to those signs when people are are engaging less, when they’re they’re showing up differently, when you can read that that body language isn’t isn’t quite, you know, is off, then you can start asking those questions.
29:27
Does it ever happen where, you know, not to be negative, but when you try to create this culture, I would imagine there’s some people that are like, hey, I’m going to take advantage of this where because everybody owns it, maybe I don’t really have to own anything, but I can pretend to be owning things.
29:45
Does that happen?
29:46
Oh yeah, of course there’s always people who are going to try to cut corners and not everybody’s going to buy into what we’re trying to do.
29:54
But I would say that those people are rooted out pretty quickly either self selecting out because it’s hard in a high performance culture like ours where we do more with less.
30:04
It becomes pretty obvious when people are pretending and our employee owners, like they, they will call it out because you know, we all say like we want people to be millionaires here, right?
30:13
Our goal is to create 1000 millionaires through employee ownership.
30:16
And we all say like, we want this person to walk away with $1,000,000 as an owner of this company.
30:21
And if the answer is no, then we as owners have the responsibility to speak up and say something.
30:26
And it’s not to call the person out in a negative way, but it’s to say, hey, like what’s going on is that something happened.
30:31
Like I don’t, I, you know, you’re not showing up like you used to or to talk to your manager about it.
30:36
So I would say that those people don’t last very long in our organization because of, of this culture that we’ve set up.
30:42
But in any, any culture, it does not matter.
30:46
There’s always people who can find a way to hide, at least for a little bit.
30:51
So if I’m listening to the podcast, you’re inspiring me.
30:53
I get the book.
30:54
I read the book, and I’m like, hey, I want to get started doing this in my organization.
30:59
What’s your recommendation?
31:00
Maybe the first three things I should be doing to get started?
31:03
Yeah.
31:04
So the first three things, whether you’re ACEO or just leader of a team, is, is to sit down with your direct reports and start rebuilding, building that trust.
31:13
Like I think back to what John and Jerry did to me and it was OK, I want to get to know you so that I can trust you to start to make these decisions.
31:23
So building that relationship is the only way to build trust.
31:26
So start there.
31:28
The second thing is, is, is how do you start to give away decision making authority?
31:33
And you can start small because not everybody’s comfortable just going like, OK, here’s the keys to the Porsche to the 16 year old, right?
31:39
So where are there low risk places that you can say, I trust you to make that decision?
31:46
I don’t necessarily agree with it, but I think you should try it.
31:49
That’s a really important way for you to get people to to begin trusting their decision making and thought process as well.
32:00
And then always, always, always ask, what do you think?
32:05
What do you think?
32:06
What do you think?
32:07
Do not answer people when they come to you.
32:10
Yes, as leaders, we think that we want to be helpful in that we’re solving those problems.
32:15
I know that seems super simple, but here’s The thing is, it is this is how we inspire ownership thinking within our teams.
32:23
Now, if you want to start this at an organization level like your CEO, then you have to start training your managers how to be able to do this.
32:30
And that’s where I come in and I do keynotes.
32:32
I can do a workshop.
32:34
I’m so passionate about this ownership mindset and how it is going to transform organizations.
32:40
I’ve watched it for people who’ve employed it, you know, I can certainly help you come up with an overall plan to do that.
32:48
But the the, the biggest thing is it has to start with trust, autonomy, decision making, authority and teaching people how to trust themselves and then building a reward system that a compensation system that rewards success that in that shared success.
33:05
But it’s really not that hard.
33:08
I mean, I look at like what John Jerry did with me.
33:10
It wasn’t that hard.
33:11
It was a year of going like, what are you you think, yeah, go make that decision.
33:15
I’m I have your back.
33:16
And the next thing you knew, I was not literally not thinking about my paycheck.
33:21
I was just engaged fully, fully on board with where we are going as a company.
33:27
That’s awesome.
33:28
Gary, thank you for coming on sales Lead dog.
33:31
The book is called the ownership mindset.
33:34
If people want to reach out, connect with you, maybe want you to come help them establish this within the organization.
33:39
What’s the best way for them to do that?
33:41
Sure.
33:41
So you need to find everything on my website, carriesiggins.com.
33:44
And I know that will be in the show notes.
33:46
So I won’t spell it for you and be painful that way.
33:49
And, and then connect with me on LinkedIn.
33:52
I am I, I post all my podcasts.
33:54
My podcast is called Reflect Forward.
33:56
So I post all kinds of great snippets with actionable takeaways because I’m very big on actionable advice that you can immediately put into action.
34:06
So that’s a great way to be able to connect with me and learn a little bit more as well.
34:11
But everything thing is on my website, my podcast, my book, anything speaking, and just all about Stone Age and what we’ve created here with this ownership culture.
34:21
It’s an amazing story.
34:22
I really appreciate you coming on today.
34:24
And I want to welcome you to the sales Lead Dog Pack.
34:28
Thank you.
34:28
I’m so glad to be part of the pack as we end this discussion on Sales Lead Dog.
34:35
Be sure to subscribe to catch all our episodes on social media, follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, watch the videos on YouTube, and you can also find our episodes on our website at impellercrm.com/sales Lead Dog.
34:53
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