Change Your Brain Every Day - The Workplace: Why Having Fun isn’t a Luxury with Winn Claybaugh

Episode Date: July 10, 2019

There’s a stigma attached to word “quitter,” but when someone quits a job, it’s often just to get out of a bad work environment and move on to something better. In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Amen, Tana and author Winn Claybaugh describe just how important a healthy culture is to a business, and how meetings (or lack of) and language can completely transform an office’s productivity.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back. We are here with our friend, the Dean of the Paul Mitchell School, Zwin Claybaugh, who has 16,000 students and lots of businesses. And you're really teaching young therapists how to make people look beautiful.

Absolutely. I like young therapists. That's great. Absolutely. And, you know, people who go into the beauty industry, sometimes they're struggling. It's the same as most arts. You know, people who were attracted to the arts, drama or whatever, oftentimes they didn't fit into regular traditional educational environments, high school or college.

And so sometimes because of that, they can be outcasts. And when they come to us, you better believe they're a bit broken. I'm always amazed that by the age of 20 years old, they've dealt with homelessness, addictions, suicide attempts, rape, self-harm, all kinds of things. And so, and I take that very, very seriously. Like I remember the first time that that came up, you know, hey, when coming to the office, this student is cutting themselves. I'm like, what are you talking about? Like cutting hair, they cut their finger by accident. Like,

what are you talking about? Like, I had no idea. I did not know that that existed. And how can I take their tuition dollars but not have education and awareness on what their life struggles are? And so you better believe we have to address that. That has to be part of the component, which is why I'm a fan of you. Because how can I take a paycheck and yet not take full responsibility of the culture that I have set up. Because like you said in an earlier podcast, they spend more time with me. They're spending more time in the work environment than sometimes they're spending with their own family, their own loved ones. And so that better be a healthy work environment. And we provide for them resources that are going to help them have a better brain, help them overcome addictions and fix their relationship with mom and dad etc wow

so we actually donated our course brain thrive by 25 to all of your students uh just for that reason we when people think and care about their brains they act better they're better students and um i have a new book coming out in september called change your brain change your grades and it's about what is the most important organ of learning it's your brain and if it's not right or the teacher's brain isn't right there's gonna be trouble so that's why the teachers at the paul m Paul Mitchell School have to be right because it will translate to the students. So let's talk about how to use your brain to build a better business and a better life.

When you hear that, what are some of the things you think about? First of all, statistically they say that 50% of people who quit their jobs did so to get away from their boss, to get away from a toxic culture, work culture. And by the way, those who quit are not the worst employees. They are the best employees. They quit because they know they deserve better. And so people are looking for a healthy culture. It's not just about the title or the paycheck. In fact, when they interview or when they survey people, the amount of income is about number seven on the list. How much money you pay me in order of importance of why I'm going to stay loyal and work here really is not the number one thing.

And what are more important than the paycheck, not that the paycheck isn't important because it is important. What is more important is that healthy culture. And so businesses have systems for payroll. They have systems for how they handle a complaining customer. They have a system for how they do all kinds of things. But when it comes to something like, well, how do you have fun around here? And they look at me like I have three heads. Like, why do we have to do that? You know, why is that my job to make sure that my people, the people that I work with every day are having fun? And so we have systems for those things.

We have systems for being in a good mood. We have systems for how we start the day to create the energy. You know, every Friday we have what we call Dance Club Fridays. How fun. And so, yeah, everybody from customers to students, you know, they stop what they're doing. They hit the floor and they crank the music. Oh, my gosh, how fun. Just all of a sudden in that three minutes, what I can create in three minutes can undo some of the back gossip that's

been going on for eight hours in the back room. So there's just all kinds of things, systems that companies and organizations can do to make sure that this stuff is thriving. Do you have someone assigned to like actually implement this stuff? Oh, absolutely. And every single one of my schools, we have what we call our Be Nice or Else teams. Awesome. Culture, you ask anybody who works with my organization, what are you most proud of? Is it your cutting system?

No. Are we proud of it? Absolutely. Is it your product line? Is it your beautiful facility? Is it your marble floors? No. What are they going to tell you?

What makes us number one? Our culture. And every person will tell you that. Wow. So what are some tips that you can give our listeners who either work in a business or own a business on how to transform their cultures? Okay. First of all, I said it earlier that make it real simple. Three basic human needs.

People need to feel safe. People need to feel that they belong. Did you know that 60% of people say, no one has my back? And by the way, half of them are married. So what a great opportunity we have. I'm so glad I don't feel that way. Can you imagine?

But have you ever felt that way though? Yes, many times. And how many people feel that way at work? Nobody here has my back. If people live in fear every single day at work they could be the most talented person in the organization but every single day they live in fear why because their boss makes them feel that way they're doing their job they're on time to work but the boss lives by this old school culture of leadership which is about fear it's about intimid intimidation. It's about policing people.

And a lot of leaders think that their job is to police their people. I'm just waiting for you to screw up. Rather than inspire. And then I know your name. You're late today. You've been on time every day for the last three years, but today you're late and now I'm going to focus on you.

So people live in fear. What I live in fear, we don't perform at our best when we're coming from those places. And so just realize that it's our job to bring out the best in people. And then the third basic human need is that, as we've talked about, is that people need to have a purpose. They need to have that why.

So that's the philanthropy side. I love that. Thank you for having my back. Always. But that's a good point. My life is better because of you. It's a really good point yeah well that you asked for a tip um communication uh if you're gonna err in your company in your organization i would rather that you err on the side of having too much communication than not enough because how

successful would your marriage be if the two of you got together just once a month to talk? Right. You know, some people say, ooh, that sounds good, but marriage is, but not yours. We've built, we've built in rituals. So I guess you call that your system. But why shouldn't that be just as important in the work environment? Sure. You know, just a successful marriage requires communication. Well, guess what? A successful marriage, so to speak, in the work environment requires communication. Because when there's too little communication, people will make stuff up. Know what I mean? That's what the brain does. Exactly. And they don't know what's really going on. Yeah, my paycheck's late today. That must mean that the company's in trouble. I better

go look for another job. Yeah. When really it was just the accountant was out sick. There was an accident on the first day. Exactly. So people will make stuff up. And so we like to say that we're a house of communication, which does not mean that we're just having random meetings because that can be a waste of time too. You have an hour long meeting and there's 10 people there.

That's not one hour of wasted time. That's 10 hours of wasted time because you had 10 people there. So if we're going to bring people together, let's be very, very clear on why we're bringing people together. Yeah. So we have our morning ritual of a meeting. It lasts for 20 minutes. I can tell you exactly who's there, who's not there. I can tell you what they discuss, what they're not supposed to discuss. We actually script the words that they can use, the words that they cannot use. Give us an example. If in a staff meeting we say, okay, who here has a problem? Anybody have any problems here?

I have a problem. Now, all of a sudden, you gave power probably to the wrong person. And now, you know, the problem is the bathroom's always dirty. And you're thinking, you know what, that bugs me as well. Now I'm pissed off too're pissed off we're all pissed off and it's his fault right all of a sudden you let the the energy go in the wrong direction you let you can't say you can't use the word problem you can you can say i have a uh oh what's the word we use i should probably know this right um i have a suggestion but every suggestion has no i'm sorry i have um two solutions every suggestion has to have two solutions i like it because my mom said if it's to be it's up to me little kids we're running around if it's to be it's up to me my mom would

say i'm not the complaint department around here child come back with two solutions and then we can talk but there are grown adults that still think it's their job to just dump on somebody else I have a problem I'm gonna dump it on you no good man what's your suggestion to solutions there you go I love that I love to solution I love that then they don't get wed to just their one solution on so we have and it's been transformative because it increases the communication among the teams just to know what's going on and you can't go on and on they last like 15 minutes the huddle right but it's communication i got to share with you our gathering guidelines there's 10 of them

and we're very specific so we're all gathering together whether it's an hour long meeting or it's that 15 minute huddle 10 guidelines on how to have a successful huddle of what that looks like great so in the next podcast we will do that

gathering solutions for your brain. Stay with us. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast.

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