Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Monty Moran [Part 2]: Spice Up Your Company Culture | Leadership | E85

Episode Date: October 19, 2020

Want to know how to build and maintain a strong culture? This week, our guest is Monty Moran, former co-CEO of Chipotle Grill and a previous lawyer and managing partner of a law firm. Monty was integral to the massive popularity explosion of Chipotle across the United States in the late 2000’s. Currently, he is a chairman on many corporate boards, an advisor to many start-ups, and a new author. His new book, Love is Free. Guac is Extra. is released October 20. In today’s episode, we have a lot to cover - so much so that we’ve made this a two-part episode! We will start off our conversation with Monty today by hearing his early career journey and how he ended up at Chipotle after being a lawyer for 10 years. We will then dig deeper into his best strategies for creating a great culture, nuances in communication, and hear his fascinating stories of interacting with people from all walks of life.    Links:    Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail] Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com   Timestamps:   00:55 - Monty’s Career Path Thus Far  03:00 - How He Built Trusting Relationships With Employees 13:05 - Where Monty Got His Confidence 16:51 - The Best Strategy to Succeed 19:19 - Why Monty Went Undercover at Chipotle 28:30 - Monty’s Definition of Leadership 31:03 - Why Culture is So Critical 40:39 - Monty’s Learnings from Raw, Honest Conversations 45:26 - Importance of Curiosity and Vulnerability  51:40 - Body Language Tips 58:09 - Characteristics of Looking for Talent 1:06:52 - Advice for Promoting a Mission 1:18:00 - Quick Phrase Explanations 1:24:24 - Monty’s Secret to Profiting in Life   Resources:   Monty’s Website: https://montyfmoran.com/ Monty’s Book, Love is Free. Guac is Extra: https://montyfmoran.com/pre-order-book/ Monty’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/montyfmoran/

Podcast Republic has super cool features like the ability to take notes while listening to your podcasts, and you can even schedule to play a podcast at a specific time. Imagine being able to wake up and start your day with Young and Profiting Podcast. If you're an Android user, head over to the Google Play Store to download Podcast Republic, and don't forget to rate and review Young and Profiting Podcast while you're at it. You're listening to Yap, Young and Profiting Podcast, a place where you can listen, learn, and profit. Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Halitaha, and on Young and Profiting Podcast, we investigate a new topic each week

and interview some of the brightest minds in the world. My goal is to turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your everyday life, no matter your age, profession, or industry. There's no fluff on this podcast, and that's on purpose. I'm here to uncover value from my guests by doing the proper research and asking the right questions. If you're new to the show, we've chatted with the likes of ex-FBI agents, self-made billionaires, sleep psychologists, CEOs, and best-selling authors. Our subject matter ranges from enhancing productivity, how to gain influence, the art

of side hustles, and more. If you're smart and like to continually improve yourself, hit the subscribe button because you'll love it here at Young and Profiting Podcast. This week on Yap, we're chatting with Monty Moran, the former co-CEO of Chipotle and former CEO of the law firm Messiner and Reeves. While at Chipotle, Moran led a team of more than 75,000 employees and helped to grow the company from eight locations to more than 2000. He was key to the massive explosion of Chipotle across the U.S. in the late 2000s. Currently, Monty is a chairman on corporate boards, an advisor to many startups and a new author. His first book, Love is Free Gwaka's Extra,

comes out tomorrow, October 20th. You're listening to Planned. Part two of my interview with Monty Moran. If you missed part one, go back and take a lesson now. In part one, we discussed Monty's early career journey and how he ended up being the co-CEOOO of Chipotle after being a lawyer for more than 10 years without any food industry or real estate experience. And now in part two, we'll go super deep

into his expert strategies on leadership, including how to create a great company culture, his top ways to connect with people, and how to design a mission that will motivate employees to do their best work. So you credit your expertise to curiosity in terms of one of your reasons for being successful as a leader. So do you think that that played a role in terms of developing your curiosity, you know, seeing those homeless people and wanting to learn more about their lives? And then how can you relate that to being a leader today and some actionable steps that we can take? Oh, I think curiosity is an immensely powerful characteristic.

And that's why it was one of the 13 characteristics I look for in hiring people at Chipotle that we all looked for. Someone is curious, right? Curiosity is immense because it shows that someone's heart is alert and awake and wants to learn. It shows humbleness that you know that you don't know everything. You know, it shows that you have an energy where you have a desire to get involved in the world or get involved in somebody and learn something more. So curiosity is enormous. And I think I've always been a person who asked lots and lots and lots and lots of questions.

I was always really hungry to learn. And I had this brilliant mother and father. But in particular, I'll talk about my father for a moment. And my dad was super, super smart, right? Like really brilliant. But he also had this kind of high need to have alone time and quiet time. And for a father like that, I was probably the worst kid he could have had because I was loud. I talked fast.

I talked a lot. I interrupted. I walked too loud. And it would bother him. You know, he'd be like, okay, not right now. Hey, I'm busy. Hey, whoa. Give me a minute.

You know? And so I wanted my dad's, first of all, I wanted his love. affection because he was a beautiful guy and I wanted that love like every child does. But I also wanted to know what was in his head because he was so smart. I wanted to learn it. And so in order to get, and I talked about this in the book a little bit, in order to get the information out of my dad's head, I had to learn to ask questions in a way that somehow didn't displease him, somehow didn't piss him off or put him off or make him want to walk away. And so I approached him as a, maybe as an apprentice would approach their guru, you know, with this reverence and respect. And hey, dad, I really would like to

understand this better. Would you be able to? And so I learned to approach my questioning of him in a way that worked for him and where he would give me that attention and that the information, which, you know, was a form of love to me, like him spending, focusing on me and not being pissed at me and answering my questions was an indication I had done my job well of approaching him. Okay. So I got really good at approaching people in a way where they wanted to give me information. It wasn't just my father. It became my bosses in the future or just people I spoke with or just someone on the street. If I said, hey, can you tell me how to get somewhere? Something about my approach became, I think, disarming and sort of like people like, oh, cool, I'll help this guy. He seems to really want to know. And I learned the

power of curiosity is enormous. And I'll just give you an example. I mean, one example that's in my book is I worked for farmers insurance for a period of time. And during that job in Los Angeles, I had occasion to be in some very, very, very quote unquote, bad neighborhoods with high crime, a lot of vandalism, a lot of fires. Reason for that is I was a fire claims insurance adjuster where my job was to go rebuild homes that had burned down. A lot of them had done so through arson and so forth. But there were a lot of bad neighborhoods. And I was this sort of nerdy at the time, you know, short sleep, I say at the time, not nerdy anymore. No, I'm teasing. But, but, no, I was this kid who wore a short sleeve button up, as I was required to do for farmers with

little necktie. So I'm in the necktie and the short sleeve button up walking through, you know, Watts in Los Angeles or, you know, some neighborhoods there that were filled with graffiti. Well, one time I was looking at these guys up on the front porch of their house and they were listening to loud rap music. And I just glanced up because I was looking at an address of the house I was looking for because I had parked and I was going to walk to the house. where I had a meeting with my client because their house burned down or partially burned down. Anyway, so I'm walking along and I look up at this porch and there's a bunch of big guys, you know, smoking, I think drinking early morning loud rap music.

And this guy goes, what are you looking at? And I go, oh, I was just looking for the address. Do you know where I forgot the address? But I, you know, 6-825 is? Do you know where 6-8-25 is? And I just looked at him like that. And he goes, oh, yeah, yeah, man, that's a block up there at the left. Yeah, hey, man, have a good day.

Well, what did I just done? And it's not just about curiosity. It was about that I looked at him. and I asked him for help. Okay? When you ask someone for help, it's incredibly powerful. Guess what they want to do? They want to help you.

And I'll just think of the simplest example of the world. You find a busy guy who has a wristwatch on and you say, hey, what time is it, sir? And you say it politely, they're almost always going to give you the time. I don't care of busy there. No one's going to go, hey, I don't have it. It's my watch.

I didn't buy this watch for you. You know, they're going to say, oh, it's a quarter after. And they're going to be glad to give that information. When you need help and you subordinate yourself and say, hey, can you help me with this? I don't understand. it's the natural human instinct to want to help you,

even if it's just asking for an address. That instinct of this gentleman on the front porch who had, I think, approached me with something that you might say was unfriendliness, as soon as I said, hey, can you help me find this address? And I put him in a position of being my leader and me, his subordinate, him being the one with the information and something to give,

me the one in need. It was like my dog rolling over on its back and putting its paws like that. You can't help but pet it. So he reached out to pet me instead of being threatened by me. So a lot of times when people are threatened, and people are almost always threatened seeing a new person at some level, right? There's some threat because when you pick up the call today,

if I had had to look like this, you'd have been like, oh gosh, who is this guy, you know? But so there's that first couple seconds where you're like feeling out, who is that other person? You know, do they want good for you or do they not? Are they nice? And so in that instant when you meet somebody, if they see that you're someone who actually wants to learn from them, cares about them,

it sees that they're a separate human being who has value right away. That's, you're putting yourself in a subordinate position, in that subordinate position. The other person has a tendency to want to come towards you and be of use and be helpful. Yeah, because people like to feel valued and like they can be helpful, and then they'll like you more in return because you made them feel valued and special. So I think that's a great point. And first impressions are so important. They say like the first 14 seconds people will make their judgment about you. And then it barely can change even over years if you've seen them over and over again. You know, it's usually right, isn't it? Yeah. But no, you said it much more concisely than me. So well done.

So in addition to these strategies in terms of like, you know, disarming people by asking for help and being, you know, vulnerable. I always say this word terrible. Vulnerable. Vulnerable. I always like slur when I say that. But anyway, you also have strategies for body language. And, you know, Young and Profiting Podcasts were all about actionable strategies. And what are some tips in terms of body language to know when somebody is, you know,

ready for you to ask them a difficult question or to know that they're open to more dialogue. Like, what do you look for? Okay, well, let me start my answer to that question by saying this. Like, I would recommend to everyone in the world, stop listening to the words that someone says so carefully. It's the least important thing going on when you talk to someone, their words. I mean, unless someone says, what time is it? Well, you go, okay, it's 1115.

But if you get into anything that's more in-depth conversation with someone, the words that they're saying to you are the least reliable indicator, or one of the least reliable indicators of actually what's going on in their heart. And I'll give you an example. So when I go into Chippolda and talk to these 20, 25,000 people that I talked to over a dozen years there, I would sit down and go, you know, how are you? And they'd be like, oh, good. And let's say, I said, well, how do you like your general manager, Bill? How do you like Bill? What kind of general manager is Bill? And they'd be like, oh, he's good. You know, well, what does that mean? Oh, he's good? They ended up with a question, right? And you're like, oh, but he's not great, is he? Well, no, I didn't say that. Well, I see it in your eyes.

He's not great. Tell me, what's not great about them? And they'd be like, okay, well, here's the problem. Like, Bill can be really hard on maybe good. And they would just tell you. They would just tell you. And it was very disarming. You'd look at them. And their words were, oh, he's good. No, no, I said I liked him. But I'm like, but you're not saying it's convincing me at all. Now, when they said to me, they like someone and I said, no, you don't, or some version of that. No, you don't. I can tell by your voice, you don't. You think that would insult them, right? Because I'm saying that they're not being honest. But it's the opposite of an insult. Because what are they really experiencing. They're experiencing that I'm taking the time and I care enough to see what they really are thinking about Bill, what's really in their heart. I'm seeing inside them. And it's very flattering to have someone look inside you, right? It's scary at first. It's like, oh, shit, this guy's

seeing through my BS. That's scary, right? It's scary at first, but it's very flattering, right? So if you come in, for instance, and go, oh, hi, Monty, and I go, hey, how are you doing? And you say, well, I'm pretty good. I'm like, oh, shut, what's wrong? Well, I said it was pretty good. I know, but you said it like, I can tell you're not, you're not okay. Let's say you weren't that well. How would you feel that I had actually looked deeper? You'd feel, oh, wow, he actually cares. He's actually paying attention to what's really going on with me, which is that my dog died yesterday. And he noticed something's wrong. Well, what is wrong? Well, my dog died yesterday. Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry. And it gives me an opportunity to reach, to connect with you to deeper level, to be of use to you. How can I help?

I mean, you want to take a half day off and I'll do your work today, you know, or whatever, right? I can maybe help you. Or even the fact that I want to help you is helpful, even if you don't need the help or want the help, right? It's like, no, I'm fine, but thank you so much for noticing. Thank you for noticing what's really going on in my heart. So as soon as you start noticing what's really going on with people, the next time I say, how are you doing? You might be more likely to say, ah, you know, I'm okay today, but, you know, it's worked a little late last night. I'm kind of tired, but I'm good. How are you, Monty? Oh, I'm good. You know, but again, we start to develop a deeper relationship through my not believing your words. Now, people with their words tend to lie a lot.

And I don't mean bad people. I mean, the example of, if you say, how are you doing today, Monty, and I'm not doing that well, the odds of me saying, oh, I'm pretty well, thank you, because I'm going to say that to you, even if it's not true. Why? Because I don't want to wait. I don't want to wait.

No, I might even want to talk about it, but I don't want to waste your time. I don't presume that you owe me to listen to my problems. So I might just say, oh, I'm fine. I'm fine. You know, how are you? Even if that's not true, right? Even if I'm not a really, really, really honest person.

I value my, I value honesty hugely. But sometimes as someone says, how are you doing? And I know what they really want to hear is fine thanks. I'll say fine thanks, even if I'm not great. Okay. Now, if you get to know me even a little bit, I'll probably say, okay, I'm not that great. I'll probably tell you. But anyway, the point is that people, we've all practiced through our whole lives to use words dishonestly, not badly. I don't mean bad dishonesty right now, although dishonesty is bad when it's really dishonest. But, you know, we've learned to say things to sort of get along. You know, we've learned to say things to not have to stop to every person on the street and say, well, actually, I'm having a shitty day. Thank you. How are you? you know so since we get good at using our words in a way that's actually deceptive okay then you have to ask

well what do we do that's not deceptive well the answer is body language tone pace of speech intonation eye contact all those other nonverbal aspects of communication are way more reliable because people are not as good at taking them you know so when i say hey do you like your manager and you say yeah she's good no you don't like her if if i was your best friend and we were at home having a beer you'd be like God, that manager drives me crazy, right? So I can tell that you don't really like her. And so I'm going to say, well, what don't you like? And you're going to say, well, actually, I don't like, because she chews me out like every day when I'm doing the right thing. And she tells me a different thing to do every day. It's never consistent. She drives me crazy. Once I learned that

she drives you crazy, I'm not going to run to her and go, you know, oh, okay, so-and-so says that Bill, you drive her crazy, Bill. I'm going to be like, okay, I'm going to work with it in a much more nuanced way. I'm going to go talk to the manager. Hey, so with some of your people, do you ever find that maybe you're not connecting as well as you could? Well, to be honest, yes. I'm having a hard time with so-and-so. Oh, okay. Well, and now I'll start teaching how to connect better. Hey, let's have you sit down one-on-one. And I would get them to have the conversation where the truth would come out during their conversation in a way that was, you know, organic and real for them. And then all of a sudden the relationship would start to heal. They would start to see each other

better, understand each other better, know each other better, and therefore have a much more empowered mutual relationship. And that was what I would try to train people to do in order to make the culture way better. At Yap, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence. We even call ourselves scrappy hustlers. And I'm really picky when it comes to my employees. My team is growing every day.

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and see if there's something deeper that you can try to get out of them. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yep. And it all starts with curiosity. And it all starts with not listening to the words, but what you know is the truth, you know? Yeah. Let's go back to finding the right talent and identifying talent. I heard you just a few minutes ago saying that there's 13 characteristics that you used to look for when hiring someone. I'm sure you don't remember them all or maybe you do, but what are some of the characteristics in terms of looking for talent? Because I know that you value, you know, character over actual experience. Character is way more important. Can't train it. You can train experience. And also, people don't even want to be paid for their character. They want to be paid for their character. They want to be paid for. their experience, which is weird because character is more important. But anyway, let me start answering your question by saying, so I came up with a certain 13 characteristics at Chipotle that I thought were really important for Chipotle

because it was a company where we were hiring literally 100,000 people a year at very entry-level positions, usually, who we needed to interact with customers, be exciting to customers. And also we wanted ambitious people who were going to move up and take on manager positions because we needed future managers and we wanted to get all of them from crew people. So those 13 characteristics may not be appropriate for, let's say, a computer programming business or a translation

business or whatever. But the point is, for whatever job you're hiring, there are certain characteristics that you can't train. There are things that people just will either have or not have coming to you, and you can't train them to have them. So those are the characteristics that you need to hire for, right? You have to hire for the stuff you can't train because if you can train something, then by definition, you can give someone that during their job experience. So I'll give you an example. So at Chippolay, the 13 characteristics included things like infectiously enthusiastic, happy, motivated, polite, conscientious, hospitable, motivated, ambitious, presentable.

Okay, so there's a bunch of the 13 characteristics. Those are all things you can't really train. So when you come into a job interview, within the first 10 or 20 seconds, you can usually tell if someone has those things. Oh, well, Monti, how would you tell if someone is conscientious? Well, I don't know. I mean, it's the type of thing where if you drop an napkin on the floor, do they reach for it before you?

You're sitting at a table, but you drop an napkin on the floor. Are they going to reach to pick it up before you? that's an example of someone who may be very hospitable, very conscientious, right? Or, you know, if someone, how can you tell if someone's excited? Are they, are they leaning like this in the chair? Are they leaning forward in their chair? You know, I mean, are they, you know, if one of, one of the characteristics, it was smart. Did I mean that someone could do like calculus? No, smart meant like the lights are on, someone's home, the synapses are firing, you know, they're making, they're listening to you, they're communicating with you. They're there,

they show up, right? So smart, smart meant the lights are really on. Like this person, can grasp if I teach them something, they're probably going to learn it. So, yeah, so these characteristics. But the key is you've got to find what characteristics you think are very important for your particular business. And the characteristics have to have two things in common in my book to be considered characteristics that you should hire for. Number one, things you can't train. If it's something you can train, then don't make it a characteristic you're hiring for because you can train it. I mean, unless it's something like knowing fluent Spanish to be a translator, well, okay, that's not a characteristic.

That's knowledge, but you should hire for it because you don't want to teach everyone a whole language before they can translate. that's going to be difficult. So, although we did teach people in English at Chbleroy, but anyway, that was a long-term thing. So anyway, so it's something you can, you can't train and something that you can identify very rapidly in a conversation, right? Like right away, when I get on the phone with you today, I was like, oh, wow, you know, she's pretty, she's alert, she's awake, she's really nice, she's cooperative, she's concerned, she's conscientious.

I mean, I can tell those things about you in two seconds because you're like, you're an interested person who's really nice and who's like, wants to learn and wants to share, and so you're ambitious, you're motivated, you're enthusiastic, you're happy. I can tell all those things in two seconds about you, right? If you were missing one of those characteristics, I promise you, I could tell you, but I could tell that characteristic who was missing in like 10 seconds, right? So these aren't hard things to figure out. But they're really important because if you were, and people used to say, well, Monty, do I have to have all 13? Like, what if someone only has 12? And I'd be like, well, tell me one of them that you'd be happy to do without. You know, just tell me one. Well,

okay, let's say they're not very happy. Okay. I mean, so how do you know they're not happy? Well, they came in and they were just kind of low energy. And they're, oh, okay, so now you're saying they're not happy and they're low energy, because high energy was one of the characteristics, you know, or infectiously enthusiasm. High energy and infectiously enthusiastic. So how did they make you feel to be with them? Well, it kind of bummed me out, but they seem like a really nice person. But man, how are you, that's, you're talking about trying to make someone happy.

I mean, you can line up all the psychiatrists and psychologists in the world. And all of them will tell you, you can't just make someone happy. You know, you can do years of psychotherapy and give someone techniques by which they can gradually, gradually, gradually, gradually, slowly, slowly, slowly, work towards maybe being a little happier, but it's a life journey. And you can't teach it to a crew person at Chipotle in 10 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. And they have to want it for themselves. Like, they have to have it in themselves to want to improve themselves and motivate themselves and be happy. Young and Profiting Podcasts, I actually have a huge team. I have 27 people. And I just had

10 interns come on the team. And I hired for character. I did not hire for experience. We had like 60 applications and I really hired just based on their character and everybody's doing great because they're just motivated to learn and they're willing to learn and that's really all you need. And you know, because you learned it, you know that you once didn't know it and now you know a lot more and you learned it. But you know, the reason you learned it and learned it quickly and learned it well and are having success is not because just of your study, it's because of your characteristics. You know what I mean? And so, yeah, so it's critical to hire for these characteristics that you can't train and not focus too much on experience. Like I say,

certain, like knowing Spanish, you got to know Spanish. You're going to translate English to Spanish. Okay, sure. There's certain things you need to know. If you're going to be a computer programmer, you've got to know how to program a computer. But beyond that, the characteristics are very important. And I think for everybody listening out there, if you feel that, you know, you don't get opportunities when you apply to them, you feel like you're constantly rejected, maybe it's time to look at yourself and see what you can improve internally and how you can be a more motivated, happy, upbeat person and make that good first impression. Because I think it's not to say that, you know, there's no hope for you. There's definitely hope for you, but you've got to take

the time yourself and deep dive into the self-help and self-improvement materials that are out there to help improve, you know, your outlook on life and your motivation internally. Well, and I can give one piece of advice that will help anyone going to a job to find that sort of enthusiasm. And that is a lot of people right now are They're applying for jobs that they think they should get or a job that they think is supposed to be a good job. Or they want to go to college because they heard that they're supposed to go to college. And they want to go to study engineering because they're supposed to be an engineer. Their dad wants to.

If you're ever doing something because you're supposed to do it, you're not doing the right thing, probably. The primary motivation should never be you're supposed to do it, right? I mean, yeah, you're supposed to pay your taxes, but that's different. I'm talking about like in terms of what guides you through your life, if you sit there and do things that you feel like you should do or are supposed to do, you're on the wrong track. you should be doing something that you're enthusiastic about, that you love, that you want to do more than anything.

If you follow a path in your life of doing what you're most passionate about, what you really want to do, what you really want to do, what you don't even consider to be work, like I'm so lucky to have this job, I can't believe they pay me, you're going to be much better at it, you're going to learn more quickly, you're going to give more value, you're going to be more enthusiastic during the interview because you really want the job. If I go to a job that I think I'm supposed to have but I don't really want it, what's my affect going to look like?

I might be like, okay, yes, I'm going, yes, I'm very, I'm a self-starter, I'm smart, I really work hard. My biggest problem is that I work too hard sometimes, you know, bull crap like that, you know. But if I'm going to get a job where I really want, I'm going to be like, yeah, I want this job. What are you doing? Oh, it's so cool what you're doing. I want to be part of it. And if the enthusiasm is going to come right across the counter, and the person that's interviewing is going, wow, this person wants this job, will value this job. Let's talk about mission. So you just kind of touched on it, the fact that mission is so important when it comes to hiring people and having people be aligned to your company's mission and purpose.

In your book, you say, as leaders, we must not believe that we do. deserve the power bestowed on us. Rather, our power arises only from others' choices to follow us and only to the extent that we can harness their energy toward our mission. So what's your advice in terms of designing and promoting a powerful mission within your company? Well, it's a great question. I think way, way, way too many people or bosses or leaders, they give some mission or vision that frankly no one can be excited about or they don't even have really a mission. I'm on a number of boards of directors and so forth. And in a recent board meeting at one of these companies, and it's a startup restaurant company. They had these two questions at the end

of the board packet. Number one was basically, how do we get people to do a better job? Why aren't they doing a good enough job? How do we hold them accountable? And the second question was, how did we create a better culture? And I knew that was thrown in there for me because they know I'm a culture guy. And I said, you got the questions backwards. Don't even worry about the first question. How do I get them to stop screwing up? Don't ask that. Build a good culture and guess what? I'm not going to screw up. Okay. So to more directly answer your question, if you have, when I was at Farmers Insurance, for example, in California, they whisked us all into this theater where they said, hey, they give us all mugs and coosies and like desk pads

and stuff that said pride, P-R-I-D-E. And it stood for people responding in dedicated effort. Pride. I was like, that's so not motivating. Like we laughed. We literally like this mug, seeing pride on the mug is going to make me have more pride in my job. That's ridiculous. But, you know, all the higher-ups, they hired some marketing firms or some whatever, PR firm, or whatever they did, to come up with this little, you know, whatever you call it, what do you call it, acronym or what do you call it when the, whatever they heck is? I think it's an acronym. Yeah.

Anyway, they came up with this pride thing and they thought that everyone's good. Oh, pride, wow, people are responding and dedicated. People responding. It's just dumb, okay? So, and it's not going to motivate anybody. You have to be honest about what your vision is. Is your vision something that actually is going to cause people at an entry-level position, if that's what the job is, to actually go, wow, this means me.

This vision includes me. I can benefit from this vision. I can be part of this vision or mission. Okay. So a lot of companies just have these, like, we're going to build the best vehicle ever built in the world if you're a car company. Okay, well, that's actually a cool vision, I suppose, if you're the CEO or one of the guys who can affect that change and maybe really make it up,

but someone who's coming in an entry-level position, they might be good that you have that goal. But what are you going to do? What vision are you going to give them for themselves and their immediate group of people they work with? you know and so like likewise at chapulte we had this this i think really neat vision of changing the way people think about and eat fast food and that's cool right we wanted to change fast food so people were dug dug that but people at the entry level position coming in at 10 bucks or 12 bucks or 15 bucks an hour didn't really think that they could pull that off as one of 80 000 people that wasn't

what was really going to make them motivated today right because it's too esoteric it's like how do i do that. Well, I don't know if I can do that. So we had to give them a vision of something that they could do that was going to be hugely beneficial to them and hugely beneficial to their team and make them more successful. And that's where we came up with a vision of creating a restaurant to a culture in every restaurant. And a restaurant tour culture was a team of all top performers empowered to achieve high standards. And we had definition of empowerment, which I already gave you, and then the definition of top performer, which was someone who has the desire and ability to perform excellent work and through their constant effort to do so elevates themselves, the people around them,

and Chipotle, or whatever the organization is. Okay. So empowerment and top performance. We want you, so if you come in and we say, hey, I want you to be part of, I'm hiring you today, or I'm interviewing today for a job where you're going to be part of a team of all top performers who are totally empowered to achieve these very high standards. Okay. And when you're part of that team, you're going to be, when you build that team in this restaurant, when you help your manager you do that, your manager is going to become a restaurateur, which is an elite manager. And the whole team is considered an elite team at that point. And you know what's great about that? You're going to be part of a team where everyone on the team cares about you, cares about you,

individually. They're going to care about you and you're going to care about them. They're going to want you to be successful. You're going to want them to be successful. You're all going to be in it together as a tight team that cares about each other, loves each other, and wants each other to be at your very, very best. And man, it feels awesome to achieve that. And when you do achieve it, it also happens to be something that's going to help you really excel at this company. you're going to move up to the ranks. You're going to become a manager, maybe a multi-unit manager someday. Maybe beyond that, you could become an executive. I mean, this guy is the limit of this company, and you can do it. I know you can do it. And that's why I'm willing to hire you today.

Well, you know, if you say that to someone, they're going to be like, holy shit, I came in for a, you know, a $14 an hour job or whatever it is now. I don't know what they're paying now. But, you know, I came in for a job scarcely above minimum wage. And they're treating me like I'm going to be the future of this company. Whole. And I can see the path. You know, I can see that, first of all, build a great team and be part of that great team. And then I'm going to get the benefit of being part of a prestigious team from which the company is going to select its future managers. And that's going to be me someday.

Cool. So that's the kind of thing. When I talk about vision, the vision has to be something very, very, very personal to the people you expect to be motivated by it. If it isn't personal to them, and let's not kid ourselves that it is when it isn't. Okay, let's not kid ourselves.

That when, you know, I remember that there was a terrible vision. I think it was, there was one company. I remember, like, I won't even say the name of it, but a large public company that had as its vision one year, we're going to make the most money of any company, you know, of any company per employee. I got to tell you, that doesn't motivate people. It doesn't. It might motivate the top guy. Frankly, if it even motivates them, there's something wrong with them.

Really, the vision has to be something that would appeal to a top performer, okay, appeal to a great person, appeal to someone has the right characteristics. So it has to be something that will actually help them become a better person, but also is they're going to be part of something that's good for the world, you know, and it could be that they're part of a company that's going to make solar power available to everybody, or it's going to help the environment be better in some way, or it's going to help people, you know, feel better about themselves, or it's going to help people feel more comfortable or have less injury or whatever. I mean, it could be a zillion things. But they have to understand how their individual participation can have a significant, can quickly, relatively quickly, have a significant impact on that vision.

If they don't think that by working really hard for a year or two, they can really affect change. It's the wrong vision for them. It doesn't mean it's the wrong vision for the company, but it means you have to have a more broken down vision for that particular subset or group or restaurant or a retail store or whatever that team is. Yeah. So I think that's a really great advice in terms of having a mission that will motivate people to be engaged, all this talk that you spoke about before in terms of connecting with employees, making them feel heard. This is not just like, you know, pie in the sky stuff. This actually impacts the bottom line. So I have a couple statistics from Forbes.

They say employees who feel their voices heard are 4.6 times more likely to feel empowered to do their best work. And then another statistic from the same article, disengaged employees cost U.S. companies up to $550 billion a year. So this is important work. It's not just, you know, fun and games. No, no. And this is the thing. I would get every now and then people would ask me, especially analysts and stuff, wow, you've got this. I was actually amazed how much analysts really did understand the importance of culture.

But every now and then you had an old-fashioned person, yeah, but what about the margins? What about the bottom line? I was like, oh, wow, well, listen, folks. I mean, when you have a team of top performers who empowered your chief eye standards or like what we call the restaurateur team in one of our restaurants, the restaurant had lower food costs because they wasted less. They had their equipment was better calibrated, and therefore the food tasted better, but also the equipment lasted longer. The restaurant was cleaner. The customer service was better.

The bathrooms were clean. You know, they had much higher customer service scores. They had much higher food scores. In other words, NPS scores, so net promoters scores. You know, every aspect of the bit, their margin was much, much better. They got more done with fewer people. So their labor costs were lower. You know, their food costs, lower.

Labor cost, lower. Every variable cost would be benefited by this, such that the margin of the restaurant would be extraordinarily high, and it would kick off a lot more cash. That cash would go to the bottom line. And when you had top performers at the corporate office, then G&A cost was a lot lower. I mean, I remember when I was at Chipotle, you know, people were often surprised by how

numerous I was. In other words, I'm very good with math. I'm very good with numbers. I'd say that's something that I always excelled at. But I never ever talked about profit at Chipotle. I never talked about money. I never talked, you know, because that, talking about money, doesn't give you more money. Talking about when the lottery doesn't make it more likely you win the lottery. What does make it more likely you win the lottery? Buying a lot of lottery tickets, okay? What makes it more likely that you're going to make a lot more money in a company? having each of your restaurants white hot with talent, super clean, awesome food. And then what's that going to do?

It's going to give you tons more customers coming in the door. How are you going to deal with those customers? Why are you going to have really fast throughput? Because really excellent employees work much more quickly, serve the food more quickly. And when it's served more quickly, guess what happens? The food's hotter, tastes better. And the customer's more satisfied because they didn't have to wait in line. So what are they going to do?

Come back more. What are they also going to do? Bring more friends. What's that mean? Sales are going to go up. What's that mean? Higher profits, higher margins, great stock price. So when I was at Chipotle, our stock went through the roof.

I mean, it was one of the best performing stocks on average in the entire S&P 500 for the entire time we were there. I mean, that I worked there and it's still been going up and up and up, you know. And so the company had a phenomenal run, one of the best runs of any company during its time. Well, I'm certain it's the best of any restaurant company during that time, for sure. And one of the best of any company in the S&P 500 for that 12 years that I was there. Why? Because we focused on money? No, we didn't focus on money.

we celebrated when the success came, we said, oh, cool, it worked, you know. But by talking about profit, you don't turn on anybody who comes in as an entry-level employee. They don't care about the profit of the company. I don't mean they don't care. They have no equity, so what do they care? They have no equity initially. And even when they get equity, guess what? You know, really top performers, they want to do something well.

They want to do it where they're a big part of it. They want to be a key player, right? They want to feel that they are personally important to the success. And they want to feel that they are a reason for their success. And when they feel that, you get fewer people that do a lot more work. You know, you don't have to hire as many people. They're excellent. They don't turn over.

They don't leave. You don't have to train as many people. I mean, the amount of benefits that come from having a great vision that really makes sense to them and then empowering your people and hiring the right people, like that combination, is so powerful to any business. And it's so powerful to the bottom line that any good CEO should spend almost no time talking about the bottom line, almost no time talking about margins and profitability. You can save that for your own office with your officers, or you can save it with an analyst call where the analyst is asking, how are your profits, how are you margin? And you can report back to them on the great success that you're having

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What a great answer. So many gems shared right there. So we don't have time to cover all the leadership strategies in your book. By the way, it is called Love is Free. Gwok is Extra. You guys should go check it out. It comes out October 20th. So make sure you go get that.

So I thought we would close this show with a quick fire segment. I pulled some headlines from your book. And I thought you could give me your one minute perspective on what I jump off on right now. And then we'll close out the show. Sounds good. So I'll trigger you. I'll say that. the phrase, and then you give me your one minute thoughts on the topic. So the first one,

don't focus on things you cannot control. Oh, such a waste of time and people spend lots of their lives doing it. There's so many things in the world we cannot control. And that's fine. But there are things we can control. If you spend your time working on the things you can control, then you will have the biggest impact possible. And some of the things that you can't control, well, heck, over time, you might start moving the needle even on those. But if you focus time on on things you can't control, you'll be frustrated, you'll get nowhere, and other people around you will see your bad example, follow it, and also get caught up in it. It's a big waste of time, and it's a waste of time to talk about it, it's a waste of time to work on it. Find out what you can

control and do it. If there's something that you're not liking about your life and you can't control it, then do your best. If there's something that you can change and change it if you want to and then move on. But man, this focusing on things you can't control is a giant waste of most people's lives. My own, and I've made the mistake a lot myself, a lot. Okay. Number two, money is not the motivator that you think. Oh, yeah. This is one that just no one seems to believe. No one wants to believe this. But money is not a primary motivator for people. Now, it just isn't. What motivates people is feeling valuable, okay? What motivates people is feeling that they're at their best,

that they're important, that they're part of something important, that they're valued, that people value them, that they're seeing, valued, loved, understood. That's what motivates people. So now, a lot of people go out and try to earn a lot of money because they think if they get a lot of money, people will then value them, love them, understand them, and see them more. You know, I mean, you get some people who put their name on top of buildings all over the country because they think that that will make them more seen, valued, loved, and understood. It doesn't work. And earning a lot of money doesn't make you feel more seen, valued, loved, understood, but everyone seems to think that it will. It doesn't. So it's like,

money is not the motivating you think it is. It's true that people need to have enough money to be comfortable and you have to have a certain amount of money. It's a motivator to a point, okay people aren't going to work for free because they need to eat okay but when you get to a certain level of money where people are comfortable and their basic needs are taken care of and they can eat food and have a comfortable home and safety and Christmas presents for their children and so forth a lot of money beyond that doesn't become a motivator anymore great book on this call by daniel pink called drive that describes it in great detail i interviewed him oh cool okay well he's his book really is amazing and it gives you very very it's very convincing if you read that book called drive

yeah, super good. And you realize that if you're, some people like, you can give bonuses and stuff, and even bonuses typically aren't what motivate people. What motivates them is that which it took to earn the bonus, which they found important. Okay. Number three, a nicer office won't help your business. Oh, yeah. I see so many companies going out and trying to find, you know, they're like, oh, we're going to move to this office and we're going to have more efficiency and we're going to have more chairs to be more comfortable with a better view. And it's going to really motivate our employees. Well, other than the fact that it does motivate employees when they think that you care about their comfort when they think that you want them to be in better circumstances. That'll motivate him

because they know you care, but it's that you care that's motivating them, not the nicer office. So I always say to people who are out trying to find a nicer office, I've been in some really lousy offices that were uncomfortable and that had bad lighting and everything, but where I was, where it felt like magic because the team was so excited and empowered. And I've been in offices that were perfect in every way physically where the team was very disempowered and unhappy in their jobs. A nicer office is not what it motivates your employees. It's very far down on the front. It's It's about the culture, not the location, the environment of the company, not necessarily the physical location.

Bingo, yeah. Very good point. Again, you summarized it better than I said it. Well done. Okay, the last quick fire question or topic, don't fall for the morale trap. Oh, morale. Yeah. Moral is a kind of a dumb concept.

Okay. So, oh, our employees morale is low. When you find your, people find that their employees morale is low, they almost always do something that would never, ever help it. like put up posters that say, you know, team or whatever, you know, or buy more donuts. And I make fun of that in my book a little bit. You know, low morale, what people call low morale is a result of a culture that is not a group of empowered top performers.

Okay. When people are not empowered, morale is low. But let's not talk about morale because the people, when you hear about morale being low, when people come in and complain to their boss, hey, morale's low around here, what they almost always want is to work less, to have more time off. to have a longer vacation, to have more donuts, to have more soda pop in the fridge, or something like that. That's when they use the word morale,

they always seem to be looking for something that's not important. But if someone comes to said morale is low, what you can always be sure of is that at least that person, okay, is not an empowered top performer. They may be a potential top performer, but they're not empowered. So again, you've got to look back at empowerment. Empowerment means confident in your ability and encouraged by your circumstances,

such that you feel motivated and at liberty to fully devote your talents to a purpose. That's my definition. I'm sort of proud of it. I've said it twice during today. I must be proud of it. So, it's a good definition. Yeah, but I really like the definition because it's actionable and it's like prescriptive.

Like you look into that definition and find what you're failing on. Are people confident in their ability? Well, okay, if they've got a good typewriter and their type and their job is to type and they've got a good typewriter in a comfortable chair, they're probably and they're confident of their ability. But are they encouraged by their circumstances? Well, if the lighting's crappy, that could be an element of poor circumstances, okay?

It's not a morale issue. It's that maybe they're not empowered. So if you go through that definition of empowered to make sure that every employee is empowered, which involves a vision, it involves and then involves knowing what they're doing and having great circumstances in which to do that, then they'll become empowered. Okay. And when they're empowered, morale is never low. But if morale is low, people try shortcuts to get there.

There are no shortcuts. You have to empower your team. Empower your team. Don't just buy donuts. Don't give them more sodas. Don't, you know, yes, you can give them better lighting in a comfortable chair. Those things are important because those are part of encouraging circumstances. Okay.

But they're not important for, it's not about morale. It's about excellent culture. And excellent culture always comes when you have top performers who are empowered to achieve high standards. I love it. Great job. So the last question I ask all my guests is what is your secret to profiting in life? I think the secret to profiting in life is to value what's happening right now and not get

too caught up in what you're going to be, going to do, going to become. but instead find in your heart the gratitude to understand that what's happening right now for each person is exactly what's supposed to be happening in your life for the universe to teach you the greatest lesson that you need to learn right now before the next moment comes and if you enjoy the moment right now and just try to love the moment and if it's a difficult moment forgive the moment forgive yourself for being in the bad moment if you're having a really hard day forgive yourself and forgive the moment forgive the day it's a day and that day is important somehow you don't know why right now, but it's an important day. This moment is the most important thing in any of our lives,

and it's the only thing real in any of our lives, because the next moment is a fantasy and the past is history. So like love this moment, embrace this moment, learn from this moment, live it fully, and guess what? I promise the next moments that come, many of them you'll find to be wonderful ones that you might value more. But each one is equally valuable. So motivating, so inspiring. And where can our listeners go to learn more about you and everything that you do? Oh, geez. Where can they go to learn more about me? So love is free.com is our website that regards the book and also some other things we're doing. And so yeah, love is free.com. Amazing. So this is Monty Moran. I don't want to say that wrong. Moran. Moran means I'm really

done. Moran. Yeah, I was like, that sounds wrong. So, yeah, love is free.com. Don't worry. Yeah, love is free.com. This is Monty Moran. Don't forget his name. I'm sure you're on social media as well, and we can go search for you and find you. So thank you so much for joining the show today. It's great talk. Yeah, it was really fun to meet you and thanks for all your great questions. And thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Thanks for listening to Young and Profiting Podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please write us a review or comment on your favorite platform. Nothing makes us happier than reading your reviews. We'd love to hear what you think about the show. And don't forget to share this podcast with your friends, family, and on social media. I always repost, re-share,

and support those who support us. You can find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn. Just search for my name. It's Hala Taha. Big thanks to the YAP team, as always. This is Hala, signing off.