EntreLeadership - Everything You Need to Know About Quiet Quitting with Kacy Maxwell and Ken Coleman

Starting point is 00:00:05 On today's episode, we look into what's behind quiet quitting and what leaders should be doing to keep their team engaged at work. We've also got a teaching segment on how to keep your team from becoming quiet quiters. And then, we're going to dive into where this quiet quitting phenomenon came from and its impact on your team. Welcome to the Entree Leadership podcast from the Ramsey Network, where we help you learn the proven principles for winning as a business leader. I'm your host, George Camel, and each week here on the podcast, I sit down with some of the best leadership minds out there, to help you grow yourself, your team, and your profits. I want to thank everyone who's been leaving us some feedback on these new segments we've been trying. Please keep those voicemails and emails coming.

Starting point is 00:00:46 It is super helpful. So our first segment is a teaching segment, and I'll be joined by our friend Casey Maxwell, Executive Director of Marketing for Entree Leadership. He's going to share how to maintain accountability with your team so that they don't become quiet quitters. Casey, welcome back. Hey, thanks, George. Good to be here.

Starting point is 00:01:03 Good to have you here again. And we're here to talk about something that is honestly, it's a little bit entertaining on social media. If you've seen the trending videos, Gen Z has coined this term, Quiet Quitting, and it's been around for a long time. It's disengagement. It's people doing the bare minimum.

Starting point is 00:01:18 And there's one video that you found that I think really sums up the problem in an entertaining way. Yeah, it's everywhere. Everybody is talking about quiet quitting. There's all of these quiet things, quiet firing, quiet hiring all over the place. So quiet.

Starting point is 00:01:31 Oh, everything is so quiet now. But we found this video, and I feel like it really sums up this trend and kind of the things that we see that is kind of detrimental about this trend moving forward. So let's take a look. I just got off work and I saw a video of an older gentleman talking about quite quitting. Most of the videos and most of the takes that I've seen are very polarizing. It's one, just the older generation saying that the youth is lazy and whatever and the younger generation saying that like you don't see the hard work that we're putting in.

Starting point is 00:01:57 I think there's validity in both. And I think what older generations are having a really hard time conceptualizing is that we're f***ed. I work a minimum wage tip job. and if I were to ask any of my coworkers that are around my age when they're going to buy their first home, they're going to laugh at me. They're going to laugh because they don't know if they're going to be able to pay rent next month. The reality is many of us that are in my age or a little older or a little younger are working jobs that do not care about us as people. And I'm going to say that again because I think that's a very, very important distinction that a lot of people are forgetting. I am not going to put in a 60-hour work weekend, pull myself up by my bootstraps for a job that does not care about me. me as a person. Oh, you're being sensitive. Oh, you just want your feelings. But no. I'm saying the bare

Starting point is 00:02:42 minimum is that if I'm sick or if I have a family emergency, that that job's not going to be like, oh, it's your responsibility to find someone to replace you. The idea and the notion that we're just able to buy a home in this climate just by putting in some extra hours is outrageous and honestly just so ignorant. 50 years ago, yeah, you could work at McDonald's and put a down payment on a house in your mid-20s. In today's date, that is not possible. Now, let me rephrase that. It is possible. If I work an 80-hour work week, don't go out ever, don't do anything I enjoy, don't take a day off for mental health, for physical health, for whatever. Eat ramen noodles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a couple years, and then maybe I could get

Starting point is 00:03:19 approved for a loan. Pay off this loan on top of the crippling student loans many of us are in. And then after a couple years of literally killing myself, I can own a home. And you can't just say, oh, people are lazy for not wanting to do that. I'm not even taking into consideration. I don't know if we're going to have a sustainable world. in 50 years. I'm asking a genuine... Okay, we can kind of stop there. He starts going into a very fatalistic. He's not sure where

Starting point is 00:03:43 the entire world is going to be. His kids can't breathe air because climate change and it gets off the rails very quickly at the end there. Exactly, exactly. And this really highlights a lot of things that we're seeing with this quiet quitting trend. I mean, it kind of goes back to the pandemic. So people came out of the pandemic, right? And they were like, I'm tired of putting up with bad work cultures and bad bosses. So those people that were in those situations, a number of them left, right? They went and found new jobs, and that contributed to the Great Resignation. But there was a group that decided to stay. Now, the reason they decided to stay, maybe they couldn't find a job, maybe they just never even looked, but they decided to stay, and instead of trying to make

Starting point is 00:04:25 things better, they just disengaged. And that is a very, very bad thing for the work economy and the economy overall. I've got kids that are in elementary school, and one of the first things we teach people is growth versus fixed mindset. A growth mindset is, hey, if I don't like the way things are, I'm going to try and make them better. Things can get better. If I keep pushing, if I work hard, things will get better. The fixed mindset is it's always going to be this way. Nothing is going to change, and because of that, I'm just going to do the bare minimum to get by. And that's what's really making me nervous about this trend is that it's creating this mindset out there that why even try well and it points back to the solution doesn't start or end with me it's everyone else's thing they have to fix and then when

Starting point is 00:05:16 they're ready i'll come back because i'm a hard worker and there's a lot of validity to what he's saying to how we got here and that part does anger me that we told our kids to just work hard in school and go to the college of their dreams regardless of the cost and now they're saddled with student loan debt wages haven't increased as fast as home prices, and they feel entitled to, I need to be a homeowner at 22 and have the nice car and have a family and get married because of outside pressures and social pressures and family pressures. And they can't because they're living paycheck to paycheck. But they also, on the other hand, feel stuck in minimum wage jobs, which confuses me because that's not the only ones available. And so they're painting themselves into a corner saying, I don't have options, Casey, this is it. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:05:57 I mean, the phrase, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. I mean, if you think this is the only way that life is going to be, you're never going to look and try and make it better. Like, in some of the stuff, there's a little bit of entitlement that is creeping into this quiet quitting that is very, very bad as well, where he's talking about I'm never going to be able to live in the house that I want to live in. Well, there's something about expectations. Like we have these expectations because of social media. You see these amazing houses and all of the stuff out there that at 22, working a job that pays what a 22-year-old experience should pay, you're not going to be able to live in these million-dollar houses with all these HGTV accoutrements in there, right? You have to set your expectations correctly.

Starting point is 00:06:44 But it's never going to change. It's you need to figure out what that looks like today versus in the future. Well, and that attitude causes you to go, Well, it's never going to happen. So let me just, you know, live La Vita Loka, Yolo. I'm never going to have that house. I'm just going to go out to eat every day and, you know, use whatever I can to kind of mute the anxiety and depression and anger I'm feeling. And I'm going to do that with spending, usually.

Starting point is 00:07:10 And then they stay in the cycle, and they stay in the cycle. And the other side of this is obviously leadership. So the other validity to his point was there is a toxic work culture out there. There's a lot of bad companies, bad leaders, poor management styles that have led to, the frustration of them feeling like, they don't care about me. I'm just a number to them. None of this matters. Yep. And at the end of the day, quiet quitting is absolutely the responsibility of the leader, right? Maybe an employee comes in and they don't have motivation. It is your responsibility to do one of two things. The first thing is to give them that motivation, help them see. And we've got

Starting point is 00:07:45 some things that we can talk about of how to inspire them. But if you can't do that and that doesn't work, you need to fire them, right? They've already quiet quit. Just help them, uh, loud quit. I don't know what the opposite is, but you're going to have to help people walk out the door if they're going to sit in this sort of passive aggressive, never going to change space. And it's not out of a place of, well, I just don't like this person. It's a, this person deserves a better life than to show up to work every day, you know, spreading hate and dissension everywhere they go. They need to go find something they actually enjoy doing that pays them what they think they're worth. Yes. And if those people stay in your organization, it will be a cancer. It will spread because people will see,

Starting point is 00:08:26 hey, this guy is making the same as me and he's not doing, he's doing half as much, he doesn't even show up on time. Like, that is a negative toxic effect on your overall culture. So you need to help get them into a good place or get them into another place. So this all comes down to the leader maintaining accountability, staying connected and engaged with their team. And Gallup's 2020 Employment Engagement Survey found that 68% of employees are disingenual. engaged, which is the majority. And that's a real sad fact. And so this does come down to accountability. How can leaders step into that? Yeah. Well, the first thing is, first, you need to be a leader that people don't want to leave, right? If you listen to some of these things, talking about quiet quitting,

Starting point is 00:09:09 expecting people to work on weekends, working 80 plus hours a week, not caring about their personal lives, do you have a responsibility as a leader to actually care about the person that you are leading? right? And there are ways that you can help them understand what winning looks like. So one of the first things that we do always is role clarity. And we talk about it a lot on this podcast. You've heard these three letters a lot, KRA, key results areas. You need to be clear. It is a document that you sit down and create with your team member to say to win at work, these are the expectations so that they have a very clear understanding of what they need to do. Right. That doesn't mean that sometimes the things, don't come that sit on top of that KRA for a season. But most of the time, that's what their job should be. And you should be seeing them do that with excellence. They have to hold themselves to a standard. You have to set the standard, but it's up to them to hold themselves to that standard. And by doing things to check in on a regular basis, you at least have that document to say, this is the expectation, this is how you win here. Yeah. And a lot of that, you know, should happen

Starting point is 00:10:19 in that 40 hours. And so in the video that we watched, he's going, well, I shouldn't have to put in 60 hours a week and pull myself about, yeah, there is a toxicity there. If you're consistently working 60 to 80 hours a week, and you agreed on 40. Right. And so that you need to be working with the leader. The leader needs to be checking in going, hey, there's been too much on his plate for too long. We might need to delegate this or make another hire. And so again, it points back to the leader on some level, but it also, the team member has a responsibility to also stay engaged and check in with their leader and be honest with them. Exactly. I mean, there's going to be seasons where you're going to have to work more, right? There's projects or deadlines or launches. I mean, we have that here

Starting point is 00:10:59 in Entree leadership where we just had a big event. And so we had to work some more hours to get that off the ground and get that out. But when you do that, one, that shouldn't be the norm, right? But two, when it happens, acknowledge that that happened. You as the leader should be letting the team member know, hey, I really appreciate that you went over and above. And there's a lot of ways to do that. One way you could throw a party, like, hey, let's celebrate during work hours, right? So they get the chance to celebrate. They're not going to have to spend extra time after work. You can do that as well, but like celebrate during work hours. You can give, you know, we call them $100 handshakes. They're just kind of, hey, you're doing a great job. Here's an extra $100, $200, $200. Thank you for all

Starting point is 00:11:41 your hard work that you put in on X, Y, Z. The simplest thing, just write a handwritten note. That sounds very ridiculous, like, oh, that's going to make up for working all these extra hours. But those mean a lot because it helps the team member feel seen and that this is over and above, not the expectation every week. Well, and our culture is just starved for words of affirmation. They just don't get it. They probably don't get it at home. They're definitely not getting it at work. And so, yes, you can do the $100 handshake.

Starting point is 00:12:09 And maybe it comes with the handwritten note, letting them know how much you value them. because a lot of the anger is coming from the fact that they don't care about us as people. Right. And, you know, we work at a place where the opposite is true, that there is deep care for everyone here. And we have a lot of lenience for, hey, there's a family emergency, or they're sick. We're not going to force people to come to work and make them find someone else to do it. And so if you work in a place like that, it's time to leave. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:12:34 But I know our entree leaders listening out there. There are some amazing companies and amazing leaders out there. So don't act like there's zero companies that will care about me. There's zero great leaders out there because I meet these people at our events. I talk to them on social media. There are some incredible entree leaders who are really trying to get this right. Yes, and that's the type of mindset that you have to have. If you are experiencing this toxic environment, there's somewhere else that is better.

Starting point is 00:12:57 Just leave. Don't dial it in and just disengage. Don't do the minimum. That's going to affect you negatively down the road as well as our overall economy. At the end of the day, it's the leader's responsibility to keep a pulse on their team. And we talked about that as well. should be having regular check-ins with your team, regular one-on-ones. And it's not just saying, hey, how's that project going? It's checking in and figuring out what's going on in their business.

Starting point is 00:13:22 We do a thing. It's in Entree Leadership Elite. It's weekly reports where every week our team members are submitting to us what their stress is, what their workload is, and what their morale is. Those three things lead to job satisfaction. And if you see those going in the wrong direction, you need to talk about that, have some conversations. You need to be. You need to be. You need to to care about these people as a person, not just a cog in a machine to pump out more widgets, right? So there's a different expectation for a leader. And quiet quitting, if that's happening on your watch, it's your fault. And you are the one who needs to fix it. Hard words to hear, but important ones. Leaders have to lean into this. We can't be passive aggressive like the quiet

Starting point is 00:14:04 quitters are being. We have to lean in, engage, and get to the root of it. And again, like you said, if the person is just toxic and this isn't the right place for them, we have to help them leave. And if it's something that is on us, we can fix that, have an honest conversation, own it, and say, hey, that's on me. I'm sorry. I need to do a better job of checking in with you and show you that you are valued because you are. And I think that could change an entire landscape of work culture today if we can lean into this stuff. So it's a great conversation and we started with the entertaining video, but it really is helpful for so many leaders out there to lean into this. I agree. Okay, see, as usual, It was awesome having you on the show.

Starting point is 00:14:40 Appreciate you coming on and giving our leaders some wisdom today. My pleasure. All right, what did you guys think of that segment? Did you like it or not? We'd love your feedback. You can call and leave us a voicemail at 844-944-1070. If you'd rather email us, we've got a link to that email address in the show notes. We always say around here, business is easy until people get involved,

Starting point is 00:15:01 which is why you need to stay connected with your team consistently. That's a theme in today's episode. And our team created a tool to help you do just that. It's called Entree Leadership Elite Weekly Reports. This is our system to help you keep your finger on the pulse of your team's morale, workload, and stress level every week at a glance. And right now, you can try it for free for 30 days. Start your free trial today at Entreeleadership.com slash elite or click the link in the show notes to learn more. Coming up next, why all this talk about quiet quitting and the impact it has on your team.

Starting point is 00:15:38 All right, our next guest is Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, and number one national bestselling author of the book. book from paycheck to purpose and host of the Ken Coleman show. Now, at Entry Leadership, we want you to have team members that have role clarity and are on mission so they don't just do the bare minimum in their role, which brings us to today's segment, Ken, all about quiet quitting. You've been talking a lot about this on your show. What's the heart behind all of this? Well, you know, it's nothing new, George. It's just average, do the bare minimum so that I can get by and keep collecting a paycheck. But it is a new phenomenon in that the phrase, quiet quitting, kind of blew up on TikTok, and now it's made it into mainstream media,

Starting point is 00:16:18 and now really has become a social term that everybody understands. And really was the younger generation kind of saying, hey, I'm tired of this or I'm tired of that. Could have been a whole host of things. And largely leaders are responsible for this. Is there some snowflakeery going on? Yes. But it's also not a new phenomenon, and I'll give you the data on this, for at least the last decade and probably longer, Gallup comes out with a survey every year, the state of work. And again, year after year after year, the numbers come back that 68% of American workers are disengaged. Now, Gallup's very clear to point out that disengaged doesn't mean they hate their job. It just means they're disengaged. They are literally on cruise control.

Starting point is 00:17:03 Punching the clock, doing the bare minimum so they don't get fired. Thus, quiet quitting is not a new phenomenon. It is a new term, and it is maybe a new idea to younger workers, but not a new situation. And so as a leader, the reason we talk about this here in Entry leadership is you need to be aware that now what has happened is this phrase has now made this average coasting honorable. And that's the troubling thing. Is it not a new phenomenon, but now it's a badge of honor to Yeah, it's like, well, they don't treat me well, and I'm not going to get burnout, and I'm not going to overwork myself. Again, all good themes, good things to say. But the response to, I'm not going to do that, is not to just sluff off and accept a life of average. Because if you're saying that I'm going

Starting point is 00:17:53 to be a quiet quitter, you are essentially saying, I'm going to embrace average. Well, a lot of this is kind of, they're trying to stick it to the man. They're upset about wages. They're upset about some toxic leadership and cultures and, you know, being overworked and undervalued. And some of these motives are good motives, but what you're saying is the tactics they're using to combat this is not going to get anyone anywhere. No, it's not. But the issue, again, is on leaders. And it's not on leaders to go, oh, these snowflakes, these millennials, these gen Zers, which is what the typical response is from a weak leader, a disengaged leader. An engaged leader is going to go, okay, this is the reality. They lean into it. They lean into it. We go, okay, now what happens?

Starting point is 00:18:35 And so the leadership response is to ask yourself, am I with the team that I lead, or am I as the leader of the company doing a good job of meeting the human needs of my team? I talked about this at my summit talk this past May. If you have access to it, go back and watch it. If you've never seen it, you have access to it, watch it. But we talked about the rules of engagement, but really the six rules of engagement that I spoke on were all towards meeting. the three human needs that Gallup discovered in the largest study on employee engagement ever done. And they were three very simple needs. Number one, every person that works, we can't forget they're human and thus they want to see meaning and purpose in their work. In other words,

Starting point is 00:19:20 they want to see how their work matters to you as leaders and to the customer. And then they want to go, oh, I'm also doing work that I actually care deeply about. That's a values connection. Two, they want to be recognized for their unique contribution. Good job, George. I've got to tell you something. You've really been crushing it on those interviews, and I know the audience doesn't know this, but I know how much prep you're doing, and that is phenomenal. That's a private conversation that may be praising you in front of the entire team.

Starting point is 00:19:48 That's the idea of the unique recognition, recognition of the unique contribution. And then the third thing is people want to make sure that they have a relationship with their leader. Beyond the boss. So there's the initial relationship. relationship is, I have to do what you say or I'm gone. All right? That's not a relationship. That's an obligation. They want a relationship with their leader. This was a fascinating finding for me. They want that mentor-type relationship, a coach relationship. And really, it makes a lot of sense when you look at the first two needs, meaning and purpose, and in recognition for my unique contribution.

Starting point is 00:20:24 Well, that speaks to my leader is aware of who I am and where I should be on the bus. And my leader sees me, knows me, cares for me. And so we have to understand those three human needs. If you understand that people need those needs met and then you look to meet them specifically, then I think you're going to find a lot more people who are not quite quitting that work for you. Because the quiet quitting is, I just don't see why I should give above and beyond. Yeah. Well, I can tell you why. They're not engaged. The reason they're not engaged, those needs, those three needs are not being met. Well, and at the root here, leaders have to understand that the workplace culture has changed. My parents' generation, they weren't out there looking for all of this meaning and purpose and recognition and relationship. It was, can you get a job? Can you make ends meet, survive? Well, now we're shifting to this kind of culture that wants to thrive instead of just survive. That's correct. And that's where all this is coming from. And the older generations, they seem to be.

Starting point is 00:21:24 seems like they have a harder time grasping this. They're going, I don't understand. I gave you a paycheck for doing a job to show up and do the job and don't ask for anything more. But what you're saying is, leaders need to go above and beyond and lean in, create these relationships, show them how their work has meaning, and really value them on a recognition level, on a personal level. Yeah, because here's what's going to happen. Engagement from the individual's going to go up. And then as engagement goes up, productivity goes up. As productivity goes up. As productivity goes up. So, I mean, this isn't just some sort of kumbaya suggestion for me. This creates business results. Yeah, this is about profits.

Starting point is 00:21:58 People create profits, not strategies. You can have all the great strategies in the world. Peter Drucker said, culture eats strategy for breakfast, and he was right. That's good. So another term that is ancillary to this whole quiet quitting is act your wage. Yeah. And so we're seeing these in the viral videos. People are saying, well, I'm just acting my wage, Ken.

Starting point is 00:22:19 Yeah. I'm only getting paid to do this, so I'm only going to do this. Yeah, you know, it's pouting. It's immaturity. It's my father-in-law's got a great term for this. You know, it's sticking your rump in the air, you know, just showing everybody and sticking your tail in the air and walking out. And it's an attitude to go, well, you don't pay me what I think I'm worth. So I'm going to act this way.

Starting point is 00:22:38 And I'm just going to outpout you. And I'm going to show you. And it's passive aggressive immaturity. There's two responses when you don't feel you're being paid what you should be paid. Number one, it's I'm going to communicate with my leader and tell them that I've done the research. and I think my wage. With data instead of just feelings. With data, not opinion.

Starting point is 00:22:57 And I think I should be in this thing. But reality is I want to communicate and work with you to create a growth plan and KRAs so that we can be very clear on what I'm responsible to do. And then we can measure it. And then I want to be rewarded, right, with more responsibility and more pay. That's a healthy conversation. So that's the first response. And then if they don't do anything with that and they kick the can down the road,

Starting point is 00:23:22 you know, this is an unhealthy. leader. This is a bad boss. And so I don't need to be here. And so then instead of pouting, we go, all right, this is life. There are sucky people in this world. And there are sucky leaders and sucky situations, but I don't have to stay in it. You're allowed to leave. Yeah. And so we don't need to pout. We just need to go, okay, all right, I learned something here. Yeah. And then move on. And Dave Ramsey has said for decades that your raise is effective when you are. And when we say effective, it means you are succeeding in that KRA. Yeah. He's right. He's right. He's right. to a degree. But while Dave is right, I also want to point out that you can be very effective,

Starting point is 00:23:58 but have a horrible boss and bad leadership, and they don't want to reward you. And that's where the frustration comes to. So Dave is right. But what we should say, and again, I'm not trying to This is for a healthy leader. Yeah. So when you were in a healthy culture, your raise is effective when you are. That's absolutely right. When you were in an unhealthy culture, you could be very effective and never see the race. Yeah. So what impact does this have on the team? Because this doesn't just affect that employee, that team member, and maybe they're a leader, this goes beyond that. This starts to affect other pieces, the culture, other team members. Yeah, well, I mean, what happens is when you have one complainer and you have some quitting and you have all this kind of

Starting point is 00:24:37 going on, then what happens is it's kind of the birds of a feather flocked together kind of thing. And so one person may not be disengaged, but they hang around with someone who is disengaged. And then they start going, oh, well, I kind of see their opinion. And then you've got the relationship factor. and humans are affected by other humans. And when you let this cancer of quiet quitting and passive aggressive snowflakeery exist and you don't address it one or two ways, either re-engage and turn their attitudes or get rid of them, it's going to affect you in multiple ways. It will pull people that probably wouldn't have left you. It'll pull them away. Let's say I'm a team member who is quiet quitting. I'm acting my wage. I've got this kind of attitude, and you're the leader. How do you as the leader address this in the right way?

Starting point is 00:25:36 Well, I want to find out why are you quiet quitting? So what's the source of your disengagement? We're going to look at the three human needs that I laid out earlier. And so I'd go sit down with them and you can write it out and you can just go through it and go, hey, do you feel a sense of purpose and meaning? How meaningful is your current job to you? And you're not going to be in trouble. I just really want to know because I may not have done a good job of getting you on the right seat of the bus. Is that a big part of it? The reason I ask this question is this would be on me. If you don't feel a sense of meaning and this work, the first thing I've got to do is look at me and go, oh, okay, then what would the right scene on the bus look like for you? Here, do I have it? If I don't have it, can I create it? If I can't create it, you know what? I'm going to give you a really good severance package and

Starting point is 00:26:18 help you find something. Wow. That's a healthy leader right there. Very healthy. But some bad bossery would be, I'm going to put you on the defense immediately and call you out on this. What's wrong? Why aren't you working hard? All I see is this, this and this. Why is that going on? You know, I did some great counseling with a guy who was just working on me in my personal life. It was so fantastic. And so one of the things he was coaching me on in my parenting is he said to me, he says, stop asking your kids why questions. Because when you say why to one of your kids, why did you do this? Or why are you doing this? Or why are you acting this way? It immediately puts them on the defensive. And so instead of a healthy conversation to get to the source of it, all they do is they begin to defend it with stuff that's up here. It's all surface. And he says, you want to be asking what questions?

Starting point is 00:27:04 You know, so what were you feeling when that happened? What happened to you? And now you see the person's not on the defensive, because when you just say why, you have to, well, here's why. I need a reason. Versus what. And then they began to describe what they were feeling, what was happening in the moment.

Starting point is 00:27:21 It gets to the root of the actual problem. You start to get to the root. What questions take a person off the defensive? So that's how I would approach that. And then again, you just really quickly to review the three human needs. So we've asked the meaning and purpose question. Then we're going to go, hey, do you feel like you're being recognized? Do you feel valued here?

Starting point is 00:27:39 Oh, you got to be okay with the answers, but you've got to ask it. And then you've got to go, how would you describe your relationship with me or your boss? You got to do that because, again, that's going to unpack. what's at the source of the disengagement? Then you can decide if you can address it and then how to address it. So that's on a micro level. On a macro level, as we kind of zoom out, what is the overall solution to this culture that's going, hey, I'm going to go jump to the next place who's going to pay me a buck more.

Starting point is 00:28:09 Is there a solution that leaders listening can go, okay, this is what I can do with my team. This can solve a lot of small business owners problems out there. Yeah, but I want to point out that there's no way you're going to keep everybody. I mean, some people are just going to be the tumbleweeds of life, you know, like in the Western movie, it's float on by, and he's floating through the street. You know, you're not going to be able to tumbleweed proof. But what you're going to see is your higher attention is what we're talking about, employee retention. So here's the solve culturally. Leaders have to have those three human needs in mind.

Starting point is 00:28:39 You're advertising for a marketing position. You need to write the job description in a way that someone who really wants to do marketing will feel. like, wait a second, this is the right seat for me, right? And so you've got a values-based job description and the way you talk about the company and the way that you say, we value people. So you first start taking care of the people you have. They're going to help you go get the people you need. I said that at an event, I guess, two years ago now. My gosh. No, it was in this last May. It was like, if you take care of the people you have, you won't have to worry about getting the people you need. And so everything I just described, we start internally.

Starting point is 00:29:16 then externally we start talking in interview process we start asking questions well this role and the results of this role will that mean something to you that's that meaning purpose question you know how do you like to be recognized ask them the question in the interview great question and then go what is the right relationship you've ever had a good relationship with your leader and if you were going to describe a healthy relationship with someone who's going to lead you every day what would that look like ask those questions and so we're beginning to build a profile on everybody we interview and everybody we lead, and I think that's going to help with this engagement conversation, because here's what happens. Now all of a sudden, we have a mindful culture, because from you,

Starting point is 00:29:53 from the leader, from the top, and all your other leaders, we're not looking at people as assets anymore. We're looking at people as human beings who want to thrive in their life, and they spend more time at work than any other area of their life. So if you want to keep people, if you want to get the best out of people, look inward to those three needs. Are you meeting them? And if you bar, they're going to start telling other people, you've never worked in a place like this before. It really is that simple. Now, simplicity as I lay it out and simplicity in what we have to do as a leadership team, but I would say it's going to be difficult because you're going to have to be very intentional to do this. But my gosh, it ought to be on every whiteboard in every leader's

Starting point is 00:30:37 office, so they look at it every day. I would challenge leaders to write the question, am I meeting my team's needs? Purpose and meaning? Recognizing their unique contribution. Having a real relationship with them. Easier said than done, but it's so, so worth it. I mean, it's not that hard. It's going to take time and effort, but the simplicity of it, it's right there in front of you.

Starting point is 00:31:01 And I got to tell you, the companies that figure this out are going to crush the competition. They're not going to have a problem keeping people, and they're not going to have a problem recruiting people. Well, Ken, I love how you're rallying against this toxic work culture every day on your show, through your books, helping leaders grow, and always love your insights on the show. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. All right, if you enjoyed today's episode of the show, make sure to follow or subscribe and leave us a review wherever you're listening. And share this episode with your team, with your friends, or on social media. And as always, you can follow us on social at Entree Leadership. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading.

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