EntreLeadership - How to Prevent a Toxic Work Culture with Ken Coleman

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

Join us as our host, George Kamel, starts this episode with a new segment. He’s joined by Kacy Maxwell—the executive director of marketing for EntreLeadership. They react to the article 16 Signs of a Toxic Work Culture and How to Fix Them from Built In, an online community for start-ups and tech companies. Should EntreLeaders like you be taking this advice? Tune in to find out! Later in the episode, George talks to Ken Coleman. Ken is a Ramsey Personality, bestselling author and the host of The Ken Coleman Show. He shares how to create core values and how they help you become a leader your team members won’t want to leave. You’ll learn: •      Three signs of a toxic work culture •      The real reason people quit •      How to make decision-making easy •      How to discover your values in six minutes or less Sign up for The EntreLeadership Podcast takeaways—a weekly email where you’ll get three tangible takeaways and a tactical action step related to each episode: https://bit.ly/podcast-takeaways Support our sponsors: •      Hite Digital: https://bit.ly/HiteDigital •      Kyro Digital: https://bit.ly/KyroDigital •      NetSuite: https://bit.ly/NetSuiteEntre •      Trainual: https://bit.ly/TrainualEntre Links mentioned in this episode: •      The EntreLeadership Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheEntreLeadershipPodcast •      Built In’s article, 16 Signs of a Toxic Work Culture and How to Fix Them: https://bit.ly/3R7agnO •      Give us your feedback by leaving a voicemail at 844.944.1070 or emailing [e-mail] •      From Paycheck to Purpose by Ken Coleman: https://bit.ly/3GLZ6QV •      The Ken Coleman Show: https://bit.ly/3C4sQsg •      Sign up for your 30-day free trial of EntreLeadership Elite: https://bit.ly/3QQ0E1l Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: •      EntreLeadership Master Series: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipMasterSeries •      EntreLeadership Summit: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipSummit   Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: •      Elite: https://bit.ly/3tI2fN8 •      Advisory Groups: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipAdvisoryGroups •      Executive Coaching: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipExecutiveCoaching •      Workshops: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipWorkshops Listen to all the Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download the Ramsey Network app: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's episode, we react to built-ins article 16 signs of a toxic work culture and how to fix them. Then how core values can help you become a leader, your team members don't want to leave. Welcome to the Entree Leadership Podcasts from the Ramsey Network where we help you learn the proven principles for winning as a business leader. I'm your host, George Campbell, 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. Today on this episode, we're trying out another react segment. As you all know, there's lots of advice out there on the internet, some good and lots of bad. So today we're reacting to Bilton's article 16 signs of a toxic war culture and how to fix them. Is this the same advice entree leaders like you should be taking?

Well, to figure that out, I'll be joined by Casey Maxwell or executive director of marketing for entree leadership. And for the sake of time, we won't go through all 16. We've selected a few of the signs and fixes, and we're going to react with our hot takes. Let's jump right in. Casey, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks, George. Glad to be here. You got some hot takes for us today?

Oh, a lot of them. I hope so. So we're covering 16 signs of a toxic work culture and how to fix them from built-in. And before we start, let me say we don't have time to go through them all. We're just going to go through a few that I've hand-selected. And the truth is, these are all great signs of a toxic work culture. The problems they nailed. The fixes are where we have some issue.

Yeah. What they say and how they go about fixing these problems are what we call spineless leadership. They're avoiding directly taking on these problems and trying to solve in a matter that is almost sometimes passive aggressive. So let's start with this first one. An absence of core values. We would say, absolutely, you got to have core values. And their problem is that they're driving force of the organization and a lack of these means, you know, your culture is going to progress without any sense of direction. So their fix is draft and publish a list of core values.

Makes sense, right? Sure, sure, yeah. It's a start. It's definitely a start. But if that's all you do, that is not going to fix the problem of not having core values at your organization. So if I take this to my home to my family and I say, I want to draft core values for my family. And I bring the family down, sit them down and say, all right, guys, we have a core value. We tell the truth.

And I've got this sign and I'm putting it on the playroom wall. What's going to happen? My kids are going to never lie again. Magic trick. Of course not. That's ridiculous. Right? That's ridiculous. Core values are actually something that you are and that you make decisions around the organization by. So core values are not something that you just come up with and then roll out. There's something that you talk about all the time. It's what you use as a lens to hire, to fire, how your leaders are leading, how you make decisions. it's the core of the organization. So these aren't just aspirational goals that you want to set

and put on a website. They are actually things that you use to run your business. And a lot of companies, they slap them on the walls. They maybe talk about them once a year. It's part of the employee handbook. But a lot of this has to be modeled by leadership. And so if the team sees leadership doing something that's directly against what they slapped on the walls,

then you lose trust. Then you lose culture. And so this is a big part of the problem with their fit. is they're not really addressing that piece of it, that more is caught than taught, and the team is watching. Exactly. They're seeing how the leaders behave. Exactly.

That's huge. All right, next one. This is an interesting one that I haven't really thought about. There's a culture of unfriendly competition. That is a sign of a toxic work culture. So they say healthy competition is good for business, motivates employees, encourages stellar performance, and that can help you grow the company.

However, having competition as the focal point of your culture will breed animosity between employees. interesting. So they're a fix. If you see that individuals are highly competitive, you may be placing too much value on performance. If you want to avoid sending great employees packing, recognize performance on a broader scale and outside the confines of monetary rewards. It sounds like we're saying, hey, let's give the team a trophy. Yes. This feels like my third grade soccer team. We never want a single game and yet we all got the participation award and made us all feel good. Yeah, if you hire top performers, that's what you want. You want top performers. coming into your organization to help move you forward. But if the only way that you reward them is when the team does something good, those people are going to leave. There's not an issue here with the fact of performance and competition is bad. It's what they're competing against that you need to redirect. And so when we talk about spineless leadership, you could say, oh, hey, we're not

going to reward anybody individually anymore. We're just going to focus on the team. Or you can sit down and have a direct conversation with that employee and let them know, this is actually how you win here. The way that we do that is through KRAs, so key results areas. So you sit down, it has three different things. These are the key things for your role that is going to help you win. And we actually have a line underneath it that says what winning looks like, right, so that they are very clear of what it means to win. And if you see them competing and trying to tear other people down. You don't say, oh, man, I've created an unhealthy culture of competition. I need to reward the team. No, you bring that team member in and you have a conversation with them and

say, that's not the way we do it here. We have a highly collaborative team, and you need to get on board and kill this KRA, right? So that is how you funnel that competition in the right way. You can also do some fun things. The spelling bee, so we do very, very fun, silly things to channel some of that competition. You should go on our Instagram and check out the latest spelling bee video that we have on there. If you're thinking about a spelling bee, you're probably thinking about the way we do a spelling bee wrong. It is crazy. We divide the team up into different colors and sections, and people are cheering.

They have mascots, people. And they're spellers. We have winners and we have losers. We have monetary rewards. And it's so much fun. And everybody is super competitive, but it's so much fun at the same time. And so if you- No one's feelings are hurt at the end of this.

No, no. I mean, I was a little sad we didn't win. I would have loved that dessert truck, right? But we had such a fun time. And the competition actually drove us to be closer, not pulling us apart. Yeah, that's a great point. You can actually build trust through competition

instead of losing it, and now it's creating this animosity between the team. And a lot of that stems from the culture that you set forth through the values, through how you do business every single day. And we've just created a culture where there's friendly competition. So competition in itself is not the enemy here. We're just saying, hey, channel it for good. Let's not stifle someone's drive who's really driven and go, hey, we don't like that because you're hurting this guy's feelings because he's not as driven as you.

His sales numbers aren't as high. So we're going to give an award to the whole team for doing a great job. What's that going to do? That guy's going to go leave to work somewhere else where his drive and the sales competency is actually valued. You better believe it. So that's a great point there. All right. Last on our list for today, candidates are judged for culture fit. So they say the problem, of course, you want every member of your team to feel like they belong in the culture. But hiring for culture fit is an outdated recruitment strategy that will cost you top talent. So their fix is to start to hire for culture ad instead of fit. This approach ensures you bring on candidates who'll connect with your team on a meaningful level.

Culture ads are individuals who share core values and are passionate about your mission, but bring a unique background, perspective, or experience to the team. So it seems like there's some assumptions here that we're just hiring clones and we just want everyone that looks like Casey,

breathes like Casey, comes from the same school Casey does. Yes. When I was reading this, I kept thinking about this movie. It's an old movie, so the reference may be outdated, but it says, you keep saying that word. I don't think that means what you think it means, right? From Princess Bride. Culture Fit, and I'm starting to see this trend around this culture fit being a negative thing. But if you read this in the article, they literally say, of course you have to, when you are hiring,

you need to have someone who is passionate about what you're doing and aligns to the core values. That's what culture fit means, right? You want somebody coming in that is passionate. You want somebody that is going to want to do the job. They care about your coming. They want to push your organization forward. And the way that they do it is through these core values. If you are having core values that are actually the way that you make decisions, the way you hire, the way you fire, they have to align to those two things. That's what culture fit is. Culture fit is not hiring clones.

It's not hiring the same people who think, look, talk exactly like you. But the problem when they say culture add is that if you add enough to a culture, that culture is significantly changed. changed. And you are creating a specific type of culture that you want to move forward. Intentionally. Correct. So yes, people are adding their expertise. They're adding their backgrounds. They're adding their different opinions. But if they aren't passionate and they aren't aligned to the core values, they're going to be mad, right? They're going to want to leave. And we do this. It feels exclusionary. And that's why I think there's this, there's this feeling of like, oh, culture fit is bad because you're excluding. Everything now, you've got to be very inclusive

and everyone needs to be welcome. But what we're saying is, we just need you align on the values and be excited about our mission and what we're doing. That's it. Yeah. That's the extent of it.

And a lot of people get frustrated. The employees are frustrated. The employer is frustrated because they don't align with the values. And so now they're going, their arms are crossed and staff meetings going, well, I don't agree with that decision. Yeah.

I mean, think about an employee. If you don't, if you actually make decisions by a core value, and they don't agree with that core value, then they're definitely not. going to agree with the way that you make that decision. And it's going to be one thing after another and saying, oh, I disagree, I disagree, I disagree. Why would you do that? You have to, like, if you are a principal-based company, which we are trying to make every organization out there,

a principal-based company, you're going to make decisions by these core values. And if people don't like them or don't agree with them, they're not going to like working there. And one of the keys, you know, we're talking about signs of a toxic work culture. If you want a toxic work culture, just have people who don't really align with your core values and see what happens over time as they start to gossip and they start to get bitter and resentful. And you're never going to keep those employees. Eventually they leave. And even worse, they stay. Yeah, they stay. That's the worst part. They stay and they just spread this dissension throughout the organization. They get, when they're mad about something, then they pull in a couple other people. Let's talk about, well, I'm mad at this.

And it just, it just spreads throughout the organization. And it's just, it's just, it's just, just terrible. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of more signs in here, and you can go read the full article if you're interested in that. Again, they nailed the problems, but we just have a little different take on the solutions. We want people to take a stance and not be spineless leaders. That's what this all points to. Yeah, don't try and solve a problem by not engaging with the team member. Almost all of these, the leader's responsibility is to sit down and have sometimes a difficult conversation with the employee versus changing the way that you do business versus talking to them. Well, Casey, enjoyed having you on for your hot takes on this React segment. Thanks for being

with us. Thanks, George. I hope you all enjoyed that React segment. And even if you didn't, we want to hear your feedback on these. So call us and leave us a voicemail at 844-944-944-10. 1070. 844-9-44-1070. Looking forward to hear what you guys think. All right, coming up next, how core values can help you become a leader, your team members don't want to leave. It's coming up right after this. All right, welcome back. I'm about to be joined by our guest today, Ken Coleman. He's a Ramsey personality, number one national bestselling author of the book from paycheck to purpose and host of the Ken Coleman show. Now, at Entree Leadership, we teach business leaders the importance of core values and how to create them. So we're excited to have Ken on today, not only to talk about core

values, but how to create them for yourselves. Let's get to it. Here's our conversation. Ken, welcome back to the Entree Leadership Podcast. You're no stranger to it. How you doing? I'm doing great, man. It's always fun to hang out with our Entree audience and hang out with you. Well, you've got your finger on the pulse on what's happening in the job market with leadership. And one of the main issues we're seeing is people that aren't aligning with their values.

They're saying one thing. They're doing another. And so we want to bring you on to talk about the power of core values, how they help you become a great leader, and how they help employees stay. when leaders are in a spot where they are saying what they're doing. So I've heard you say before that people are quitting today because of leaders, not because of companies. Yeah, I think that's right. You know, you have to, we have to personalize the problems that drive people to quit. And so the statement, people leave leaders, not companies, is doing that. It's personalizing it. Now, there's two buckets of blame here, if you will, within that statement. One bucket is a

leader did something harmful, right? Maybe they said something. Maybe they treated someone poorly in a sense of overlooking them, rejecting them, and not handling the right way, didn't communicate clearly and just kind of pushed them out, kind of like the really bad, passive-aggressive breakup, right? These are examples of a leader doing something incorrectly or wrong. Doesn't always mean morally or ethically. The other bucket is what the leader didn't do. So the first one, I think we all immediately go to that when I hear with that statement. Well, people leave leaders. Well, the leader did something wrong. Well, that's part of it. But I think maybe even one of the bigger problems is that second bucket, this idea that people leave a leader because the leader didn't invest

in that person. The leader didn't truly love that person. I think those are your two culprits in that bucket. And I think that that's the bigger problem. But it's not the one that's top of mind. Because I've said this on the show before, on the Ken Coleman show, if you're new to me, and you don't know what I do over on the Ken Coleman Show. I'm coaching people to live their best work life, right? And so I'm dealing with all kinds of people coming in going, I want to quit for this reason, I want to quit for that reason. And I will tell you that many times you hear somebody complain about,

well, this, this, and this. And those are salacious. But I think most of the calls, when someone wants to leave, it's because the leader was unaware. I don't think the leader's a bad person in that. situation. There's some toxicity, but there's a spectrum there. That's right. But there are some leaders who are good people. They're just bad leaders, right? Because they haven't had the way, the right way, modeled for them. They haven't been trained properly. And quite frankly, it may not be very good

and want to do it. And so there's no application there. So that's the idea. And leaders have to know more than ever that people are looking for a better life. And so when they're working for you, they want to know that you see them, that you value them, and that you will invest in them so that they can advance. And if they don't feel that, trust me, they're going to begin to look elsewhere. Well, we know companies have core values, right? They slap them on the walls. Maybe it's in a handbook somewhere. Very few live it out.

But when it comes to leaders individually, what is the power of personal core values? Because that seems to be at the root of this issue. Well, right. You know, you are a person before you're a leader. And so the way you lead within a company or the way you lead at the top of the company, if it's your company or you're in senior leadership, has to come from your personal values. So values are what we believe and what we hold dear. Okay, so what we believe, these will be principled, stands, some moral, some religious, whatever,

and then what we care deeply about. And so values determine our actions. Someone could say, I value this, this, and this. but if their actions don't mirror or they aren't congruent or parallel to or supporting these statements, then we know that, well, this is just an image thing. You're just, you're putting out this branding idea, but that's not what you actually believe or hold dear because your actions say otherwise. And so to get underneath desired action, so as a leader, you say, okay, this is how I want my team to perform, or this is what I want our company to be about. You first must look inward and say,

what do I value? And really be honest with yourself, because again, your actions are already the evidence. So underneath your actions go, ooh, I may value something that I really don't want to value. I need to change that. Or if I go, this really matters to me, but I'm afraid to put a stake in the ground, and I need to start doing that so that my actions are bolder and better. That's why we look inward to what do I believe strongly? And what do I? hold dear to me. And so that's why we look at personal values first for a company, a leader to then go, okay, this is what I want our company values to be. Now, a lot of company core values, you know, we say here at Entree leadership that they're not aspirational. This is who we are from day one.

Does the same apply to personal core values? Yeah, of course. I mean, you know, you go, okay, this is who I want to be. So, for instance, I have three kids. You're newly married, you know, hopefully we have a lot of little camels running around. I just always like saying that. And you and Whitney at some point, well, you know, as parents, you'll go, okay, this is how we want to parent. Not just the kiddos, but like how you want to be as a dad, you know, and you'll draw from experiences and then also, you know, kind of that desired future as you look out and you,

okay, this is what I want my kids to say about me and think about me and all this kind of stuff. So the same thing in the personal life. We have to go, who do I want to be? And then make some decisions and go, okay, I value this now because I want to value it later. So therefore, as my good friend and mentor, John Maxwell said, you make the big decisions early in life. And then you spend the rest of your life managing those decisions. So the decision's been made. I'm going to be faithful to my wife.

I'm going to be consistent for my kids. whatever the big decision is. And then now we just spend the rest of our days going, the big boulders have been declared. Now I've got to act in accordance to that. So for your own personal core values, was there a moment where you said, I got to put a stake in the ground and write something on paper?

Yeah, sure. I mean, I think, you know, my faith, grew up in a church home, my mom and dad in ministry. And, you know, just like any kid with faith, you got to choose. Is this something you accept and believe? Or are you not so sure about it?

Whether you grow up at a pastor's home or not. So for me, I made a decision very early on in my life, that my faith was very, very important to me. My relationship with God was very, very important. So that was the first biggie, right? And so then here you go, you advance into life. And I was confronted with some opportunities to do some things that were against my faith and my morals and my religious beliefs.

And thankfully, walk through those, you know, by saying, okay, this is not right. And I said that I don't think that this is right. and I said I wouldn't do this, so now I'm not going to do it. So that's early on. And then, you know, then as I became a married man, it was like, hey, my wife, my relationship to Stacey, we committed on the altar that we're going to stay together. And I can tell you that, you know, marriage is hard, but we're approaching 25 years married.

It's amazing. And so, you know, we decided faith. I decided faith, my family, meaning I'm going to be around my kids. I'm not going to be the distant dad who's there, but not there. I'm going to choose to not travel during the early years, choose to not play golf, and you know this, you've known me for over a decade. And you know, I just picked up golf a year ago. And, you know, I'm 48. So I'm not trying to pat myself on the back, but that's a value decision that's lived out because to take golf seriously, you've got to put the hours in.

And when you've got three kiddos, you know, and there's a time, and now they're teenagers. So A, schedules are crazy. Mama don't need me around on the weekends. And B, they don't want me around the kids. They got their own life. have more personal time to be able to do that. So those are a couple examples of big decisions, faith and family. And then I also value my uniqueness. And I value the contribution that God has afforded me just by giving me today. I mean, I just put out an Instagram post minutes before I walked in

here, this moment today, this moment now, it's a gift. It's a gift for me to give away. And so I want to my values in those areas, faith, family, and work drive every decision I make. And again, you know me. You know what my personal life is like. You know, you know, you know, I live pretty much within those three things. And I, and it's an easy, simple life. And it's a very fulfilling life. So this is a decision-making filter once you have these values. And it makes those decisions easier because you have this anchor point. That's exactly right. And so once we make the decisions and we begin to manage against the big decision like John Maxwell said, guess what happens? Really good habit. And then after those habits get established, now they become guiding principles. But underneath all that is the value, what I care deeply about. In your EMS talk, Entree Leadership Master's series, fun exercise. Would you humor me and let me be a part of it?

Yeah, I love doing this. And I don't think we've done this together, have we? No. Okay. We want to do it fresh. I want to surprise you. It's going to be fresh. So here's the exercise.

Follow along with me at home, all right? Okay. I'm nervous. Should I be nervous? No, it's really fun. And don't overthink this. All right? Here's the exercise. I want you to think right now of your favorite story. You're going to have two or three pop in your mind, pick one.

So one of your favorite stories could be a novel, could be a television series or show, could be a movie, could be a Broadway play, whatever. You think of one of your favorite stories. You got it? You're locking in on it. You got it. You got it. I want you to think about the character in that story that you would want to play. In other words, the character that you would want to play. In other words, the character that you admire and joy have the deepest connection with. You got it? Got it. And then you're going to tell me why. All right.

So here we go. I want to walk you through it. I gave you a little bit of time. What's your favorite story? Okay. Now, before I tell you... Oh, you're very neurotic. You've got lots of follow-up questions.

But is the point of this to help me define my own core values? I'll explain it in a second. See, you're getting ahead. I'm going to guide you, Young Grasshopper. All right. I feel good about this. What is your favorite story? Aladdin. Aladdin.

And the character that you most identify with, the character you would want to play in the classic story of Aladdin. I'm going with the namesake, Aladdin. Aladdin, okay? And now tell me why. And get detailed here. Ooh, okay, I think, you know, his backstory, he's a street rat in the movie. So he's coming out of kind of poverty. He's went through a lot of stuff.

And here he is, he falls in love with a girl. And he's deciding my core values in the movie. can I truly be myself? Can she know the true me? Will she still love me? Can we still have this relationship? And it's a beautiful tale, and Jasmine's got her own stuff going on with, you know, royalty and her dad. But I just think it's a beautiful story of overcoming and the power of love. Okay. All right, very good. So that right there tells me a lot about you. Because what you identify with with Aladdin. So let's go through some of the themes you just mentioned. Number one, the street rat, I'm going to call that the underdog.

doesn't come from any special background. That's very true to your story, true or false. True. Yeah. So you come from, tell people the story. Where do I come from? Where do I hail from? No, your story, your background.

You have an immigrant family. Immigrant family, Middle Eastern, so relating to Aladdin at a deep way there. And your parents' first generation coming over here to America. All right, so you grow up in the northeast in Boston suburbs. Agreed. And I always felt like, you know, I didn't quite fit in with the normal, crowds. Why? I was kind of a creative type. Didn't feel like there was an exact major and, you know, path for me. And so I kind of stumbled through a lot of creative things and started

here as an intern nine years ago. Right. And really rose up through the ranks. But even further back, even further back, you know, in high school, and you're trying to figure out where do I belong? I always feel like a little bit of the, of a outlier. Okay. And so now folks, we're staying with us here. That's why you connect to Aladdin. Here he is a street urchin, right? He doesn't actually belong anywhere to anybody. And you connect to that, right? And then you watch his rise. He gets put into a moment of, oh, he doesn't even belong where he belongs, right? He lies to her. We know how the story goes. And he finds himself in a place where he knows he doesn't belong, and yet he's doing it. And I think that really inspires you. And I think you really connect to that. Yeah, there's some

imposter syndrome in there as well. That's it 100%. And yet the kid believes he's kind of got this like, I actually now have faked it long enough to where I actually do believe I can belong. And then he comes clean and I am who I am and he's the hero of the story. And so I think that's the exercise to begin to unpack for you. Like what do I value? So there are some things that you value. You value authenticity. You value love.

You value you being authentic. You value other people being authentic with you and you want to be in a place where you can just be George Camel and people. love you the way you are so that you can make your unique contribution. That's beautifully said. So it's not a, you know, silver bullet to list out a thing of values, but again, as we teach core values, it's looking inward. That's what we teach here at Entree leadership. And so that little exercise right there will begin to tell you a lot about yourself. Now, for sake of time, I'm not going to unpack all the ways that that comes out in your work life. Sure. But as you begin to see that, you go, wait a second. So as a leader, if I value this in my life, how does that, we take George's

example and how does that play out? and how George interacts. And I guarantee you, if Tyler were sitting right here, your brand leader, he would hear your answers and begin to go, oh, I see that here, I see that there. And so that's the idea. It's a self-awareness exercise, that little thing we just did, and it begins to help you see you the way you should see yourself.

And when it comes to that self-awareness, for a lot of leaders, it can be hard to look inward clearly and really look in that mirror. Does it help to have other people involved in the process that you do? that you trust. Yeah. So ideally, you know, Whitney's sitting here, your wife, your brand leader, Tyler, and you're doing this exercise. It feels like an intervention. No, it's not at all. You know what it is? It again, what we just got to was actually the foundational stuff that drives you. Am I right? Yeah. I mean, is your experience that did it work for you? Absolutely. I've never thought about it that deeply. Right, but that's the point. We're going to the roots of who George is. And so yes,

it becomes really, really beautiful. I think it's a wellspring, like of, okay, this is at the core. of who I am and what really drives me. So what decisions do I need to now make based on what I know I value? Right? And so remember we talk about values drive actions. Values drive decisions, you know? And so it's a fun exercise.

And I think anybody can do it. You could do it by yourself. But I'd love for people to do it around maybe their top leaders, do it with their top leaders. Exactly the way we just laid it out. You can't screw it up. No wrong answers. No wrong answers.

And by the way, five minutes from now, you can give me a different movie, different character, and we'd see the same themes. So let's say a leader has got 30 minutes this week to get started on creating their personal core values. What's the best use of that time? I think quietness and I believe powerfully in writing things down. So I'm a pencil and paper guy. And you know this. It doesn't have to be a pencil.

It can be a pen. Tycon Rogue a number two for a kid. That's it, man. But I think just getting alone and writing things out, we know from psychology studies that getting the thought out of our head. So if you want to type it out, that's fine too. But I just think there's great power in writing things down and looking at it. And the reason I use the pencil is because I believe in the eraser.

And I write it down and I look at it. And if it doesn't feel right, I'm going to erase it and edit it. But I'm going to get alone with my thoughts. And this exercise of writing things down does one simple thing. It allows your head and heart to get aligned. and I just spend 30 seconds on that little thing because it's the heart of the exercise. My thoughts aren't always right,

but I believe that my heart is. And what I mean by that is, if I'm sitting down and I'm asking myself the questions, what do I care deeply about? So I'm going to think of my family. I'm going to think of results from my work. And this is what I said earlier. If I go to, okay, what do I believe?

Well, I'm going to go to, There's some theology and spiritual beliefs. There's going to be some political beliefs, some moral beliefs, right? So those are your things. So as I'm getting alone and I'm just listing out, what do I believe like passionately? And then what do I care, what results or who are the people I care deeply about? And I begin to list that out. I am now dumping my heart on the page.

And it's important for my brain to see my heart. Because I can believe something deeply as a conviction in my heart. but you put me under pressure, maybe peer pressure, or you put me in a situation where I'm watching somebody else spout a different thing, and my brain can start to go, huh, huh, because that's the logic. The brain is a logic machine, and it can process thoughts, but we really need to always get our heart to connect with the thoughts so that the heart is driving the thoughts, and then those thoughts are in alignment with the heart, and now we get good actions. And so that's the whole point of values. You know, you talk to somebody who screwed up, a leader who maybe had a fall from grace.

I don't think their beliefs changed at all. I really don't. I don't think their values changed. I think their head and the influences on them got them to a place where they ignored their heart, their values, and then they fell into a trap. I don't think they all of a sudden became evil people. I really don't. I think that a perfectly, I come from the church world. We see a lot of well-known men of faith below it. I don't think they changed their values. I think that they allowed their thoughts to overwhelm them and take them to a really negative place. And they lost touch with their values. They did. They absolutely lost touch. And their actions did not reflect their values because they stopped paying attention to the heart and what the heart values. So that's

my take on. It's a little bit of a nuance. But I think that's why it's so important. have values so that when we begin to have negative thoughts and paranoid thoughts and insecure thoughts and all the thing, we've got to be able to retreat back to some truth. And the exercise is get it on paper and then once you finalize it, I mean, if you've got to put on your closet door, if you've got to review it every morning and your quiet time, do it. But make sure those stakes are in the ground. That's powerful, man. Well, I love how you live this out. And you are who you are on Mike and off mic and on Saturdays and on Tuesdays. And we love that about you. I love that about you. the way you're helping people out there. Thanks, bro. I appreciate you. You're doing a great job.

Appreciate you. I always love having our friend Ken Coleman on the podcast. Now, the point of that is to lead people well. That's why we create these personal core values. And we talk to thousands of business owners every year, and that's one of their biggest challenges as leading people. We say business is easy until people get involved. So how do you solve this? Well, you've got to stay connected with your team consistently. And we can help with that. Entree Leadership Elite Weekly Reports is our system to help you track your team's workload and stress every week at a glance. And right now you can try it free for 30 days. So go start your free trial at ontrae Leadership.com slash elite or click the link in the show notes to learn more. If you enjoyed today's episode of the show, follow or subscribe and leave us a

review wherever you're listening. Or even better, share this episode with your team, with your friends, or on social media. Speaking of social media, you can follow us at Entree Leadership. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, edited by Jacob Harrison, and mixed and mastered by Will Rudder. I'm your host, George Camel, and on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team, thanks for listening. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading.