EntreLeadership - How to Become a Great Place to Work

Starting point is 00:00:03 Hey guys, Daniel Tarty here. I am so excited to announce that recently here at Ramsey Solutions, our organization was voted Inc. Magazine's Best Place to Work in America for a company our size. What an honor. A lot of people have been asking us, what does it take to become a great company? I mean, that type of an accolade is something that every business strives for. How do you become a great place to work? Well, I can tell you, it didn't happen by accident and it didn't happen over. overnight. But there are three key things that we've done here at Ramsey Solutions that any business can do to become a great place to work. The first thing that we do at Ramsey's solution is we really do have core values and we stick to them. If you have core values and you actually make decisions based on these values, you hire to these values, you fire to these values. They're not things you just put on the wall, but they're things that you actually teach your team on this is how. we're going to make decisions. These core values for us really are filters. They're principles that are, well, they're guardrails, that when the car bumps into the guardrail, you know, we stop and we get out and we

Starting point is 00:01:14 talk about it. We don't just fly past these things. These are things that we hold sacred. So if you have core values and you use them as filters for how you make decisions, that's really going to set you up to have a fantastic culture. So have core values, stick to them. The second thing is, guys, you've got to hire for the long game. I remember my first three to five hires really were not good hires because I was desperate. I had a seat that needed to be filled. I had an opportunity for a, you know, a salesperson to come in and I needed somebody now. And I felt like every day that went by, I was losing the opportunity. You know, I needed, we needed cash flow in this little department. Entree leadership was just getting started and we didn't have any revenue coming in. And if I didn't

Starting point is 00:02:00 have people in these seats. It just, it felt like every day was costing me so much. And looking back, in hindsight, I realized I made some decisions in the hiring process where, you know, I didn't really hire bad people, but they weren't people that were going to be rock stars. They weren't people that were going to have the whole package. And I ended up managing the inadequacies of these hires that I made over a period of a year to two years. And it really cost us. And so if we can slow down enough in the hiring process and really wait and be patient and hire people that are going to be amazing. You want to hire people that are self-driven. You want to hire people that are action-oriented. You want people that are actually going to take up the average of the current team to a whole new

Starting point is 00:02:44 level. And here's the other key. You want to hire future leaders. When you say, Daniel, this isn't a leadership role. I don't need a leader. I just need somebody that can move the boxes. I just need somebody that can do the grunt work, listen to me. As your organization grows, you're going to be looking for in your bench depth, in the existing team, who are the future leaders of this organization? So if you can hire somebody that has a propensity towards action and getting stuff done, but they also have that edge of, I can see somebody maybe is going to be a leader here someday when I'm hiring this person. I'm always looking for who's going to be able to do the job today and then also in five years from now. And that means they have a propensity towards

Starting point is 00:03:25 personal growth and development. So again, you got to hire for the long game. You can't hire for what you need this month. You need to be thinking about over the next three to five years, how is every hire I make going to shape our culture? So we talked about having core values and sticking to them. We talked about hiring for the long game. The third key to building a great place to work company is once you've got this team together and you've been hiring and building around these core values, you've got to create an ownership mindset for every team member. Now, you guys already know this, but it's just this idea of everybody has to have a stake in the outcome to really care about the outcome. You got to hire people that are passionate for your mission and not just a paycheck.

Starting point is 00:04:12 And so if you don't get transparent and teach everybody on your team, here's what's really going on. Here's how the profits are created. Here's the ins and outs of how the business works, not just your job description, but here's how the whole machine comes together. You have to teach them to think and act like an owner. And that means they have to care deeply, but then that means you have to slow down and teach the team. This is how the machine works. This is what great customer service looks like. This is who we're going to be in the marketplace. And you know what? You can't just talk to them. You've got to talk with them. You've got to ask them, what kind of company do we want to be? Who do we feel like we should be as an organization?

Starting point is 00:04:53 You're inviting the team to get into the boat with you and you're saying, this is our boat. I might be the captain, but this is not my boat. You've got to watch your pronouns on this stuff. This is our boat. Where is this boat headed? And do we feel excited about what's going to be true when we get to the other side? And what obstacles are we going to face and how are we going to solve these things? And you look around the room and you recruit the mindset.

Starting point is 00:05:18 and you recruit the hearts of your team to get into the boat with you and you say, this is our thing, this is our mission. And so you've got to create this ownership mindset with everybody on the team. Because if you don't, you're going to get halfway effort on a lot of stuff, not really because they don't care, but because they don't have the full visibility to the vision of, this is the whole thing working together. And here's my role in that thing.

Starting point is 00:05:42 Here's how I'm going to be a part of being a team player to pull this thing off. So you got to realize that personal responsibility grows out of transparency. The more you teach the team, the more transparent you are, the more personal responsibility is going to show up. And you're not going to have to do as much. You're going to be able to delegate more. You're going to be able to hand things off to the team. And they're going to create that winning mindset throughout the entire organization. So if you'll do this stuff, if you have core values and you stick with them, if you hire for the long game, if you create an ownership mindset, that's the key.

Starting point is 00:06:15 to building a great place to work. So, you know, I'm always thinking about how do we build a great business. That's very normal as an entrepreneur to think. How do we build a great business? But here's the secret. Don't focus on building the business. Focus on building a championship team and the byproduct will be that that team will help you win the Super Bowl. The byproduct is you will become the best place to work in your city, in your state, maybe even the country. All right, guys, that's it. If you're a leader, if you want to build a team, this is your job description. You have what it takes to do this.

Starting point is 00:06:52 It's not complicated, but it's hard. It's hard because it takes discipline to do it consistently and do it over time. But if you'll do that, it will be the difference between having a good team and a great team. So put this stuff into practice, and you're going to get remarkable results as a result of doing it. And until next time, keep learning. and keep leading.

EntreLeadership - How to Become a Great Place to Work

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.