Your Transformation Station - 98. What is a B Corp

Episode Date: February 23, 2022

Nathan Stuck on purpose, what is a B corp, greenwashing, poker tips and the path to purpose in responsibly sustained companies. Millennials and Gen Z are flipping the desk over on the outdated mentality of leadership past. Ethical and non profit participation are vital to the advancing model in this new category of business. Nathan and I highlight the fact that business is doing more than just selling a product. We also focus on the facebook ethical dilemma with in-depth discussions. PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com⁠⁠ Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/apple⁠⁠ Spotify: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/spotify⁠⁠ RSS: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/rss⁠⁠ YouTube: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/youtube⁠⁠ SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Facebook: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/facebook⁠⁠ - Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/instagram⁠⁠ - TikTok: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/tiktok⁠⁠ - Twitter: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/x⁠⁠ - Pinterest: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/pinterest⁠⁠ - Linkedin: ⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/linkedin⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Okay, now I'll say you were Mark Musselberg, Mark Zuckerberg. In that same scenario, what are some ways you might build trust with the public and stakeholders to establish transparency after getting caught with your pants down like that? That ship's still a long time ago. I don't know. I honestly, I don't think you can. I mean, and that's how I operate with people, too. It's like once you burn my trust, why should I ever trust you again?

How can you create a transformation in others if there's no transformation in yourself? Join your host, Greg Favaza, as your voice on the hard truths of leadership, your transformation station connecting clarity to the cutting edge of leadership. As millennials, we can establish change, not only ourselves, but through organizational change, bringing transform. transparency that goes beyond the organization and reflects back into ourselves. Extracting. Extracting. Actionable advice and alternative perspectives that will take you outside of yourself. Nathan Stuck, welcome to your transformation station.

How you doing? I am doing fantastic. How are you? I feel great that I got my camera working because this thing's like a hit or miss with this shit. and I was dealing with the neighbors to see how long they're they're moving in. So they're making a lot of noise. But they said they were wrapping things up.

So it's like, okay, like not be too loud because I can hear you all the way the hell up here and everything's soundproofed. So you guys are definitely being too loud. Well, and luckily, I mean, I mean, whatever. If we're making this work today with a computer that won't let me log in. And so I just will do it from the cell phone. It's like the old, you know, first. world problems that my Macbook isn't letting me log in. The good news is my old MacBook is ready for me to pick up from the office.

They fix the screen. So this is like maybe I don't wait until tomorrow. Maybe I finish this podcast and drive up to Atlanta today and get that computer back. Hell yes. No, I love Mac as far as just like how it easily integrates into the daily things that I'm utilizing it for for podcasting. Because I always had a Windows, and they always kept coming at me with fucking updates. And when it updates, it doesn't really update.

And just like, why do you want to update again? Would you just update it? Or you download the update on Windows, and then it makes you restart. And then it goes, hey, there are updates available. And you're just like, wow, we just did this. We literally just did this. So, yeah, no, I switched to Mac. When I was doing my MBA, I actually took a sabbatical.

and I drove for Uber and then I think they realized like, oh my God, this guy's getting his MBA. And they were trying to launch the Athens market here. And so I started doing driver signups and office hours. And so they gave me a MacBook. And of course, you know, the first day with a MacBook here, like the tracker pad, you're like, what is going on? How do I scroll? Like, you're reading an article. You're like, how do I get to the bottom of the article?

I don't know how this works. Where's my, you know, and then you, and then I accepted the offer to work for Advick. And they gave me a MacBook. So for a while, I had two MacBooks in my backpack. And then I had to borrow my wife's computer and it's a, you know, it's a Windows device. And I didn't know, I didn't know how to use the tracker pad. He was so frustrated. And I was like, yeah, I don't think you can ever go back.

Agreed. You're like a baby boomer trying to operate a fucking DVD player. It's just a pain in the ass. So we're going to transition into what to expect from today's episode. Make sure I have this a little close here. when I have my guest on, I like to have an authentic, raw conversation. We don't,

I don't like to read from a script unless it's very specific questions that I want to address, which we'll go into later. But I always, I just want to have something like a real connection. Like when people start the monologue, I'll just, I'll just stop them right there.

Be like, whoa, dude, whoa, calm down. You are reading from a script and that is boring the hell out of everybody. Please. yourself. So when that happens, I will do something abnormal to get your attention and just be like, hey, let's let's shift the dynamic. Let's keep it like we're having coffee, just hanging out,

chilling, you know, we're best friends, all that kind of good jazz. I'm good with that. I like the conversational format better than the scripted format. I do enough of these that if I, if I sound scripted, because I've probably given the answer before, just yell at me. Which is understandable. It happens because you just go into autopilot. Well, you see back when I was a kid, then we started here. And now here I am running a company. Whoa.

Yeah. I don't know what just happened. I was supposed to ask you. It was 28 degrees and the wind was blowing out of the southeast at 11 miles an hour. I went to an event yesterday. I went to an event yesterday. the two public radio ladies. Every time she spoke, she was like, oh, and I have a fun story for you.

And I was like, oh, my God, it's just so. So, but yeah, it was like, man, this is like NPR, though. I'm just kind of like sitting at the back of the room, too. I'm like, might find myself a nice little quiet spot to just take an app. All right. We're going to get this interview kicked off here. So you have a unique perspective. You essentially, you're in the B court movement.

I have no clue what the hell that's all about. I'm aware of LLCs as far as S-Corp and everything else. So there's definitely a lot to unpack there. So I'll let you kind of break in a little snapshot of yourself and kick us off to speed. Yeah. So, yeah, no, I'll talk all about the B-Corp movement. I mean, the big thing is it's while there is public benefits, benefit corporation status so you can incorporate in, I think, 39 states as a PBC, as opposed to an LLC or an S

corporate or C corp. B Corporation is more of a, well, it's not more of a, it is a certification you can get for your business. And basically just kind of like lead is to a building, certified organic is to milk. You can, you can go get this. It's a holistic certification of how will you treat your workers. How transparent are you? How ethical are you? You know, do you, uh, what's your environmental footprint look like? Are you working to reduce it? How do you treat customers? Do you tell them you don't sell their data and then you sell their data?

Like those types of things. So it's really just kind of a stakeholder-driven principle of kind of shifting or flipping the script on Milton Friedman and the old like we exist, businesses are in the business of doing business and you exist to maximize shareholder value. So yeah. And then, I mean, just how I stumbled into this world, I'll spare you the long story, but I, you know, undergrad at UGA and then just kind of followed a girl back to Athens. And that didn't work out. And you're like, why am I still here?

But all of a sudden, I'm like, why am I dispatching chicken trucks? Like, why did I take this job? Because, oh, because she was here. And there's not a lot in Athens. So I rose the ranks pretty quickly, but I didn't really find any purpose in it. And I didn't really like getting out of bed in the morning. So I moved to Las Vegas. in 2006. I played poker for a little while.

I literally just hustled for a while living out there. I was 23. I'd roughed hockey. I'd make some money at the rink. I'd rough some games. I'd take that money. I'd buy into a poker tournament. Hopefully come out with six, seven hundred bucks, pay a couple bills the next morning, wash rents for beat. I ended up working, got a job because at some point you're like, benefits are nice, steady income's nice. So I got a job with Enterprise, rent a car, which we all loved when I was that stepbrothers when it comes out. what are you going to do next? Why we get a job with Enterprise?

They have a wonderful corporate structure. They give you the tools to be your own boss. I was working there when that came out. We all love that. But yeah, I did two years in rental. And again, no real purpose. What, what? Let me stop you.

Go ahead. You said some interesting stuff. So you did poker for a little while. Tell me about that. Like, I find it fascinating when you're sitting at the table and try and to call somebody's bluff. Now, could you share some insight about, like, behavior recognition or little patterns that you can tell when you just know this guy has a shitty hand?

Yeah, honestly, it's one of the best skills I picked up because, you know, as you, as you get older, you learn to trust your gut. And so there's a lot of poker. I mean, there's a lot of times early on where you're paying somebody, even though you know they have it. and your gut tells you they have it, and you're just like, I'm going to pay you anyway, even though I'm pretty sure you turn to straight. And then, you know, you pay off a bunch of money.

Yep, they turn the straight, you know, and you pay enough for that experience. It's kind of like, why do you go to college? You pay to learn stuff that you could have learned in the real world. But yeah, I think like that with poker, there's a lot of times where your gut just tells you something's off. And you start picking up sometimes on betting patterns. And, you know, like, it's why you should never really show your hand. I mean, there's certain times where it makes sense, like when I'm bluffing sometimes, and I know I have the table on tilt already, or I won a big hand with a big hand,

and then I bet aggressively again, and then sometimes I'll show my bluff just to get the table completely on tilt. And then later, when I have another big hand, they get sick of you bowling the table, and then you can take all their money because they're like, this guy's bluffing again, and they think that they're like a pair of eights is going to beat whatever monster you have. So there's some competitive advantages to it. But, yeah, I think, I mean, even sometimes it's breathing. It's it's just kind of a stressed look that it's either a bluff or it's a monster. If you and I were playing right now, you know, we're just playing fucking digital poker.

Like what would you look at as far as, okay, I'm looking at you. You know, I'm looking at my cards. Like, what would you try to identify? I'm trying to look at your breathing a little bit. You know, are you obviously breathing heavy? Because you're nervous for one of two reasons. You don't want to screw up a really good hand. also usually this like the double look like how many times have you looked at your cards

which is why online it's kind of interesting because there's like you know if you're looking at your cards and don't get me wrong sometimes that you can play that into a bluff knowing that people are looking at that when it's like you know the flop comes heart heart heart and I see you look at your hand again I'm assuming you're going like oh shit did I have a heart so you know so like those types of things but yeah I think the big thing is you sit at a table long enough you it's it's It's really kind of betting patterns and confidence. And a lot of it comes down to, too, like, how willing are you? I think a lot of people like the bluff.

A lot of people don't have the, we'll call it the fortitude to see a bluff through. And you have to fire a couple bear. And sometimes, you know what? Sometimes somebody's got something, and you're bluffing and you're going to continue to get called, but you have to be willing to, it's like that scene in rounders. Like, I don't need to see the cards. I can play a blind. you're more so playing the person than you are, you know,

and then you have the bullies at the table who want to play certain ways. But yeah, there's a whole bunch of it. It was a really good, it was a really good occupation because it taught me a lot about reading people, reading situations. And then, again, learning to trust your gut where then, you know, you should call because you've got, you know, trip tens, but you just know from the board, you know the way they've bet the hands, you know what they were. Like, you just know, like, they, they,

they turn to flush. They turned it straight. Like they've got a full hat. Like I just see, you just see it and you stop paying it. Let's rewind a little. With, when you're, you catch somebody, they're looking at their cards more than once, let's say about six to seven times just to reassure themselves. What that right there I can interpret is he is attempting to make a bluff?

Usually I think it's, it's sometimes it's the case of their, they have something monstrous. They can't contain themselves. They're so shocked. They're so shocked that they don't. They're like, do I really have that? Do I really,

did I really flop flush? Or did I really flop like trip fours when the flop came four four eight? Wait, what rags did I play? Oh, God, I played four seven. So then if they're not looking at it,

then that means that they get, they ain't got shit. So they're just like, I'm fucked. Like, I don't know what to do. Yeah. I mean,

A good poker player should, I mean, that's bare minimum. I mean, those are the things where, like, you know, again, you get me at a table with a bunch of pros and they'll eat me alive because I probably have all the towels that they're looking at. But then you get me at like, somebody invited me to a cash game a couple months ago. And I was like, this isn't fair. This isn't. You know, they're so excited when they have something good and they don't know when to throw it away. And yeah, the average home player is pretty bad at poker. So let's give the audience a little snapshot.

You're helping students find their paths to purpose, inspiring executives to bring their businesses into the 21st century. You're an engaging speaker that will keep your audience laughing and motivating them. That's a nice little description there. And I can see that already with just our introduction that we're going to have a great episode today. Now, what is your background and how would somebody, get started in a B Corp today, a B Corp certification for their business. Yeah. I mean, and again, a lot of that, a lot of that purpose, I guess my path to purpose comes out

of those kind of like those random dispatch and chicken trucks, renting cars, just kind of random. We're like, I don't know. My mission is to create jobs that don't suck. That's kind of my mission in life is to help other people find cool jobs. And I think B-Corps are cool jobs, like working at a B-Corps, but you might be doing something very traditional, like our company does Salesforce consulting. And it's a traditional business, but can you make a traditional job more fun?

So I think that's the important part for business owners of like, can you instill that purpose into work through volunteerism, through what the company cares about, through company actions too, because every company pretends to care about stuff now. Everybody's got a corporate social responsibility mission and commitment to DEI and a commitment to, we're going to be net zero by 2030

and they're still cranking out like plastic bottles and those types of things that, you know, I think for most companies, honestly the easiest way to get started is just taking the assessment, just take the damn thing, like just, it's free, be impact assessment.net, log in, set up your company details

because it's an intuitive or whatever you want, an adaptive assessment. So depending on what industry, how many employees, what your revenue is. It gives you spits out. A lot of the questions are the same, but it does spit out. It's kind of iterative in the form of what questions you'll get. And then some of the questions, like as you answer questions,

it unlocks other questions. So, yeah, I think just taking that assessment is step one and then figuring out, like, where are we, you know, and then what do we say we are? And what is our score telling us that maybe we aren't and figuring out what areas of opportunity. And then you can kind of chunk it out and figure out how you're going to attack it. And honestly, I like to say that it's like, how do you take a good company and make it great? And I think that's what the process of B-Corps certification does. Interesting.

I like that. Okay. Now, what is the B-Corp way of a business? I came across this. What is the B-Corp way? I think it's just transparency. It's honesty. And it's doing what you say you're doing.

It's walking to walk. And that's where that gold standard of CSR. comes into it, it's that it's, it's verifying your claims. It's verifying that you're a good place to work. It's verifying that you, that you give a damn about the community you're in, and that you're giving back. And you're quantifying things too of like, you know, oh, we care about the community. Okay, well, you donated between your volunteer time, pro bono product, or services, and cash, you did about 0.25% of your revenue last year. You don't care as much as you say you do. You're not intentional about it.

So yeah, I think it's it's it's it's that more than anything. It's it's the B Corp way is is is that you you, you are starting to measure what matters. You are setting goals for what you want to accomplish and then you're reverse engineering that into strategy and you're, you're you're demonstrating to both your your customers. Well, I mean really all your stakeholders, but your customers, your employees, your potential future employees and your

community that you're about it, that you're about businesses of horse for good. Okay. So also, could I caveat and say that they are annotating and being transparent about their numbers and what their culture is actually? Yeah. I mean, like, I mean, that's one of the reasons we put out an annual impact report. We didn't used to. We had like eight employees and we started this process and we're like, yeah, we'll do an

annual impact report. Now we're at 150. And it's like, yeah, we'll do an annual impact report. Okay. For companies, now, is this for specific types of companies or does this vary across all industries? Honestly, it's for all industries. A lot of people think it's primarily focused on like social enterprises and there are a good number of social enterprises. But, I mean, again, we do Salesforce consulting.

I have a wealth management firm in Georgia that's certified. There's a landscaping firm that's certified. And then there's one that's like aiming to end hunger. solving kind of the logistics problem of food waste and people that need food, like pairing that up using technology. So there's still the traditional like social enterprise model. But yeah, we've got everything from like, you know, a green construction company that does remodels. And, you know, like we've got that.

We've got an insurance broker. We've got, I mean, just kind of the gamut of industries. And, you know, I think there's a, there's a misconception for some of them that it's either a social enterprise or sometimes. even the social enterprises get misconstrued is like, oh, you're a nonprofit. Like, I don't know. We're making money and safe in the world. And then again, there's just traditional business models where it's like, let's, you know, let's use our traditional, let's use our whatever, our market force, our clout, our,

the revenue we make, the profit, we make, the jobs we create for good in society and kind of be that example for the rest of businesses to follow. Okay. So if companies are not B-Corp certified and I wanted to get a, I want to establish a coalition to inspire somebody that's in charge that can actually help make this happen, how would I go about doing that? As far as like getting company certified or as far as gathering a team that. can make the right individual start pushing that company in that direction? Who would I incorporate in this coalition? Yeah.

I mean, like internally the company, honestly, I mean, it works best when it's when it's top down. Like for us, it was the CEO and his wife that wanted to do it. But I would say if you have the right person of influence, like for me, my title is director of culture and impact, you know, like. but I also have an MBA. I know how to make the business case for this. So it's the people that know how to,

and I would, okay, so let's reverse engineer that answer. So I would say recruiting, HR, your recruiter that is out, you know, at college job fairs that is out at,

like trying to recruit Gen Z. I think they're going to get it. I think your managers, your managers, especially of that younger generation, I think they're going to get it. So getting somebody that's super passionate about that, So we've got recruiting.

We've got somebody probably with, you know, director title and just kind of the operational side of things, the delivery side of what you do. Marketing, I would say a marketing person is really important because there's a lot of storytelling. And honestly, right now, what is every marketing company or marketing department trying to do? They're trying to break through that greenwashing clutter again. Watch the Super Bowl ads. Every night I watched, I just thought to myself, man, I'd love to see their annual impact report because they're showing a lot of diversity. see, a lot of climate pledges, a lot of everything in these commercials, I'd love to read your annual impact report.

So I think that is, that's, that's probably where I'd start, because then you can start to make the ROI case. And I think I think a lot of B corp shy away from talking about ROI. And I think that's a mistake. I think that it makes sense to, to have the marketing team have, you know, where's your ROI? It's recruitment retention. It's, it's telling the story.

It's, it's differentiating in your brand. it's being able to get through that clutter, that noise that everybody's doing this. And it's like, oh, everybody's doing this, you know, like, okay, like me being the doubter watching Super Bowl commercials. But there was one. I didn't run in our market, but I know it ran in Asheville because I had a friend send me a link. Did you see the B Corp ad? And there was a B Corp that ran an ad during the Super Bowl. I forget what the name of the brand was.

I was like, holy crap. Like that's, but like that was kind of it. Oh, it was a, I think it was a gin distillation. out of the UK. And it was basically their whole ad was about save our restaurants, save our bars. Like, they still need your support. And then kind of like a picture of their bottle of gin and then the P-B4 logo. And I'm like, that is solid.

Like, that is so cool. And so, yeah, I think that logo is starting to get to the point where it is all the validation verification you need for your claims that you make as a marketing department. Anyways, along with an answer to say marketing is probably number one. Yeah. Make that our own case. Like you got to sell that, you know, businesses, like, it's still capitalism. Like, you still have to, these are all, it's nice to have and it's nice that businesses are trying to solve the world's problems.

But like, if you ain't making money, you don't have a business. If you can't make payroll, you don't have a business. You don't have a business. You don't have a purpose anymore. You can't change the world if you're not making money. Doing this in a way that allows you to make, to thrive as a business and to grow and to create jobs and to reinvest in the business. and to scale the business and grow the business means for me every year when we set a revenue target

and I know that I have two percentage points out of that revenue for impact. Oh, hell yeah. Okay, we're going for whatever, 30 million. Awesome. I just know that my number just went up. My budget just went up. Okay.

Let me look at this real quick. If somebody's tuning in right now, they want to know, let's say they see a company and then they see another company with the B-Corp certification. Between those two, what is the line in the sand that will say, oh, okay, that makes sense.

I'm going with this company. You know, I mean, I can't say that that other company's not great, but I don't know. I don't know. And I honestly will not tell you that the B-Corp is perfect, but I know the amount of work that goes into certification. It is not easy. I mean, you have to go through that whole assessment.

Then you have to upload a bunch and send them a bunch of verifying documents. And then you also have to, you have to go through an audit. So some of them are on site where somebody, yeah, somebody from the nonprofit that's a parent organization actually comes out. And, you know, sometimes it'll be like either be on site or it'll be like a two-hour phone call where they go question by question. Like, why did you answer that way? You know, I mean, and it's, it's intimidating.

And then every three years you have to recertify. So you have to continue to, you know, keep those KPIs that you establish when you go through it. And, you know, for me right now, like I know 2024 is our research year. I know I will start that process fall of 2023, which means 2022 are the numbers we're going off of. So we just recertified in 2021. You think we could take a little victory lap, take our foot off the pedal. But I already know that this year is more important than any year for what we do, making sure our team's volunteering, making sure we're doing pro bono work, making sure we're hitting all these numbers, making sure we have a great year as far as is not just the diversity and recruiting side, but also the retention side, the inclusion side of that equation, of making sure that we're starting to kind of, you know, we're continuing to become a better version of ourselves and that you never kind of lose sight of the destination. I don't know that we ever all get to perfection. I think that's what we're striving for, you know, and that goes for just people as well.

but yes no I agree and I like that I mean I look at a business as a living entity I mean as far as what I can do to perfect myself I can do the very same with an organization now let me ask you do you see a lot of pushback when you're when you try to persuade businesses to get the B Corp certification and is it due to possibly them being uncomfortable with being transparent I think the biggest one I've gotten, we had a project last year of the University of Georgia. It was more concerned with, you know, what's our ROI? What are our sales numbers going to do? What is this? And I'm like, it's, it's tough to quantify because I can't, it's not like running a marketing campaign where you can, you know, you can create a unique URL for your LinkedIn. And it's like, oh, man, we, you know, we got 38 conversions out of that LinkedIn campaign. And then four of them ended up buying from us.

like our ROI was X. So I think that's probably the biggest one. And then I think there's still a little bit of skepticism around, I think there's still, let's just call them Milton Freeman holdouts that just think this is all kind of a fad. And I mean, God bless you, but I think it makes sense to get out in front of the curve. And then on the other side of it, though, I see like, especially in like the CPG space, I see, you know, I'm working with a soap company right now,

and the woman who owns it was telling me that filling out stuff to like try to get into big box chains and retailers and some of these big department stores, like that's on their supplier. They're worried about their supplier questionnaire for their own annual impact report. So there's actually questions on some of these supplier questionnaires now, just to get into the store of like, do you have any third-party certifications? and one of the options is B-Corps. So now there's almost this scrambling from a lot of younger companies

to make sure that they're checking that box. So you're seeing it and now really become a competitive event, especially in the CPG space where, like, they know they need to have that logo on the box, on the packaging, on the bottle, whatever it is. And for the younger companies, oh, what that might be, the scramble, what might that be due to, the fact of millennials and also Generation Z as far as making that look appealing to them?

Yeah, I think a big, it's a, I always make the, I joke that, uh, millennials never really like the status quo, but we, we were still so close to Gen X and, you know, our parents generation that was kind of like, hey, you get a job, you work real hard, you move up, just keep your head down, don't rock the boat, you know, we're kind of like, you know, we're kind of like, you know, And we were kind of like, man, this status close. So what did you give us to take over? But we didn't say anything. We were kind of like, eh, well, you know, it is what it is.

And take our parents' advice. And then Gen Z showed up, like, F this. And, like, they just started flipping over desks. And I think that helped millennials find their voice. And, I mean, you're seeing it right now with whatever you want to call the great resignation. I hate what things become trendy, the great resignation, the great awakening, the great reckoning, whatever the stupid title is.

People don't just, they're not going to work at crappy jobs. not going to do it. And if you roll out a policy or you change something or you do something, they want to know why you're doing it. They want to understand what's the business use case. Like they, you know, and I think we used to want to, but we were trained to like Nathan jump. Yes, sir. How high. You know, like that was ours. And now it's like, hey, Gen Z jump. And they're like, eh, why are we jumping? But I think the companies that get it are the ones that they're like, okay, we're going to need to kind of adapt or go away because, you know, if we're that old school kind of that naysay or Milton Friedman,

Milton Friedman wrote that op at 1970. And for somebody born in 1983, it's like, that wasn't that long ago. And you're like, oh, yeah, that was 51 years ago. Like, so if he was, you know, the people that were 25, 30 even reading that are 75 to 80 now. Like that generation's kind of going. I mean, what every generation eventually does, it goes away. And it was in the history book. I think companies that get it are realizing that, like, the oldest Gen Z turns 27 this year.

They're getting out of college. They have money. They have disposable income. Millennials are directors and PPs and executives. Like, well, the oldest millennial will be 41 this year. We have mortgages and kids and a lot of disposable income. And a lot of us didn't have kids. So we have any more disposable income.

So I think there's that element of it, too, that I think that they're starting to realize that, like, if you're going to recruit and attract and retain this talent, and you're also going to to get them to spend your money their money with you you better be about it you better be doing something more than just creating a product that solves a need yes no i i agree i like that as far as what you laid out on the type of individuals and what they want as far as uh millennials and generation z now with having that that authenticity into a company what might organizational leadership look like inside a B Corp versus a regular corporation? I think the biggest thing is going to be transparency.

I think you're going to see a lot more of the, you're going to see a lot more of like what, the example I just gave of helping people understand the decisions being made. I still don't think that there's still like the, it's not some like drum circle, like, you know, everybody gets a vote and whatever the majority. I mean, maybe some companies operate, like ours doesn't.

We still have an executive. sweet that makes decisions, but helping people become a part of that decision and creating a culture where people feel empowered to speak up. And, you know, we always say, I say it on every onboarding call that we're, you know, we're an eight-year-old company. We've grown. We've been successful, but we don't claim to be perfect. We don't have all the answers. We're in the IT space. We're very iterative. What works, works, and what doesn't? We scrap it and we move on and we try something new and we move fast. And if you come from a different company that did something and you're like, here's this problem.

They're still having, and we solved it at this company I was at. I don't care if it's your first day. We've had that happen where somebody literally was our onboarding process like four years ago. Somebody started her first day. And she was like, hey, our onboarding is terrible. And she was like, but she also then threw out the one thing that every executive wants to hear, can I be a part of helping you fix it?

And, you know, so she and I worked together like, okay, and they need to meet with this department, and they need to meet with this department. And here's the checklist and here's what we'll include. And here's the first slide. deck. And now we're at this point where we're, you know, we're even revamping all of that again and really polishing it. But I think it's that. It's, it's, do you create a culture, even from day one, that employee recognized that this was a company where you could speak up and be a part of the solution. And it would be welcomed and embraced. So I think that's the big thing is, is a culture of

transparency and candor and from the top down and from the bottom up and really fostering. So what you were describing there, were you a change agent team? I think that's what I'm trying to look at. Like a team that was put together to change the behavior for this specific purpose that I'm explaining is the onboarding process. Were you and the other individual put together to as change agents to recalibrate that. system to make it flow more evenly? Yeah, I mean, I think we do a lot of that sometimes. And it's like if you make a good business use case to our executive team, like,

here's what we're doing, here's why we're doing it. They get it. They understand it. They understand the value. You know, I mean, you can napkin math out a little bit. But for the most part, like, they're going to get your assumptions. They're going to get where you came up with the numbers. And, you know, and if it means that, you know, for us as a consulting firm,

if it means that somebody that might be, I'm not billable, but if somebody that is billable wants to work on this, and there's a good business case made as to why there is a return on the investment of their time that is not billing customers will make time for that. So, yeah, we have, I mean, we've got to pause you right there. So with making a case, all right, to who you're ever trying to appeal, now that is based on what drawn the emotion out of the individual that you're presenting the case to, So it might be different depending on the various stakeholders.

Yeah. And I think knowing what, you know, presenting to a CFOs, different from presenting to the, you know, the president of the company or the CFO. Like there's, there's that element of like what is important to them and how do you, you know, how do you make your argument? I mean, obviously, I think emotions are part of it. But I think for the most part, you're trying to make a business case. If this is why this is important and this is why like right now we're redoing our end. intranet. Why? Because everybody on the survey told us like, oh, that internet's kind of outdated. It looks like a website like your friend built for you in 2002. And we had some people and it was like,

okay, we have people that want to do something about it. Let's empower them to just kind of, hey, you own this. And when are you going to have it done by? What other stakeholders do you need to bring in for different pieces of it to help? If you get any pushback, let me know. And that's kind of the way the company will operate with stuff like that, what it needs. I mean, obviously, you have to prioritize things if you're really busy with actual client work. Maybe that's a Q2 instead of Q1. But yeah, empowering our people to be a part of the change when things need improving. Okay.

I really like that. And you said with redoing the internet. Now, I'm imagining, of course, like adaption into information systems. Now, is the main thing behind this, would it be? bringing a vertical all of the employees at a

vertical level down to a blatant structure where communication is able to disperse more evenly oh we tried the flat hierarchy

it didn't work very well speaking of things we hit it from well we tried it around like 60 employees and it was just nobody reported to anybody and it was

I don't want to say it was a free-for-all but no it was more so the opposite that it was a malaise because nobody knew where to go with anything. And so people kind of started going to a couple, like, I was in operations at that point. Everybody came to me with everything and you're like, I don't know.

I don't have the answer. So anyway, that lasted about three months. But no, we've, I mean, a lot of it now, especially some of the change stuff we do is cross team. Like, we've got different teams and we have different, I don't want to call them verticals, but because we have, I mean, we have verticals that we sell into as far as being in the Salesforce space. but we also have, you know, each team might have, you know, we have developers, we have data analysts, we have people who actually do the configuring within Salesforce, which is a lot more what we call declarative, point, click, drag, kind of understand the business use case, and you're building

out what the solution looks like within Salesforce, we have people to write custom code. So there's, those people are all, there's a good mix of them on each of our team. So when we do projects, it's kind of a cross-team approach, which can kind of, also be beneficial because then people who might not normally work with each other on a usual, you know, client project get to work with each other internally and get to know each other. And you start breaking down some of those, you know, even as we've grown to 150, you still start all of a sudden you realize you're creating silos within your own company that you didn't have at 20 employees because everybody knew everybody and their spouse and their kids.

But at 150, you're like, uh, remind me of your name again? I like that. Now I'm going to draw it towards a couple questions that I like for myself. Now, let's see which one I want to go to. Let's say you're in charge of hiring an ethics officer. What would you look for, where would you place him, and why would that be important? Ooh, an ethics officer, it's a good one. I definitely want to be involved in the interview of this just because I live in the B-Corp space.

And I think there's a lot of overlap with my current role as far as culture and impact. And I'd probably, honestly, I would want to know some answers to some, I would probably throw out some hypotheticals. And I would also want to know, I think, more than anything, they need to be a culture fit for the company too, because just like anything, I think there's a lot. Even in ethics, I think there's gray. You know, there's levels of offense. there's levels of of of there's a scale I guess it's probably a better term than levels of you know is this term is this termination worthy is this um you know but I mean a lot of that work is kind of what I do of like I think because there's an ethical part of the B Corp certification it's that comes into I've heard our CEO describe it as guardrails for corporate decision making so and that's what our B Corp certification especially as you're scaling like this is the pretty heavy stuff. in the boat. So when you're taking out of water, we should probably chuck some of this out of it. It is my job to make sure we do not. So I think from an ethics officer standpoint, a lot of that

comes down to the B-Corps stuff too. Is what we're putting out to the world what we're actually doing? I think that's the North Star I want to know. Are you okay with saying that we're doing something and spinning something to maybe sound a little bit more rosy? If you know that you know, four of every 10 employees complained about that on the last survey. That's where you start to get into, at least for me, the ethical part of the mark, because I have a marketing background and operation. So, like, are you who you say you are? And is it okay to be telling stories touting something that you aren't?

Okay. Does that answer the question? It goes into it a little bit. And I'll caveat a little bit with the idea that I see behind an ethics officer with having them higher up in the chain of command is to have that balance of the equilibrium of ethics and the legality of the issue when a business is needing governance or counsel. Now, with hiring an ethics officer, what like key traits or. just characteristics would you see inside one of them and where do you think he would be sitting inside a a hierarchy of an organization structure um i mean i'll speak from experience here a little bit because in a weird way a lot of what i do is this um i don't necessarily know that i don't

sit in on every business strategy meeting but i report directly to the CEO. So I have that year, but I think as far as traits, I would look for traits like things that are correlated to high character. So, you know, do you serve, how do you serve your community? Are you on nonprofit boards? Are you in leadership positions on nonprofit boards? How long have you been doing this?

You know, like, because, you know, have you been booted off any nonprofit boards? Like, how long were you at your last company? And honestly, I would just want them to tell me their story. I think there's a lot in somebody's story of, I don't want to say job hopping because everybody, you know, it's not as bad as it used to be. But I just want to know like your why, like what motivates you. What is your own personal mission in life? What is your own personal North Star in life of what guides you? What guides your decision making?

Because, yeah, I think there's, you know, and what I was touching on too was even beyond the traditional roles that you said like he or she may be like participants. fading in of like the legal stuff but also I think there's you know that's kind of the B corp thing is like taking it above and beyond that to the other stuff of like just maybe it's not illegal but is it kind of shady business practices and how is that perceived by the public now like when I'm thinking of an ethics officer I think of them as like a silent partner inside a inside the board of directors or along with the board of directors they're like he's just in the corner with the little notepad and the board of directors are having a meeting and he's just writing notes. And then he's like, he has like a gapple when something's like fucking off. Like, no, no, don't do that. That is wrong. You don't do that. Well, it's funny too because even as my role has evolved.

And again, I used to be super hands on in operations and I ran financial operations. I did invoicing and I did all our audits, you know, making sure we haven't overbuilt clients. And if we have like, hey, what do we do? Like, what's, or we've underbuilded a client. What do we do? What happened? So let's solve it. But as I've gone more into this culture and impact role, I am more of a kind of that silent observer.

And even last year, we had a couple things where it wasn't an ethical concern, but when we rolled them out, they weren't well received. And it's part of that now is becoming a sounding board for how do we, you know, I just kind of sit and I'm the fly on the wall. And then I go, hey, what are we doing? Why are we doing this? What's the goal? So I think somebody kind of And it goes back to the previous question I think of the culture side of things too

Also somebody that understands that element of how does this affect The culture of the company But I think also a big requirement of this is having somebody that also understands How businesses make money That can take an idea and not necessarily say no to it But take an idea that maybe they would say no to And then help the company adapt it into something that That everybody can feel better about making

So I think that's a big thing too, because otherwise, I think if you get too many people who don't necessarily get the business behind the decision making, then they're just going to be, they're just going to be a no person. Okay. Now let's transition to another little role play here. Now, let's see how, what's question? How do I want to do this? What do you do in the face of, of a, of an ethical issue that comes to, that comes to, light. Let's look back at, with Facebook. Now we had Francis Hodgins. I had to literally Google that just to make sure her full name was correct there. With Francis Hodgson coming forward

as she shined a spotlight on all the unethical things that Facebook has been doing and the lack of transparency. Let's say you were in her position. How would you handle that? problem. Oh, that's a great question. My first answer is that probably wouldn't work for Facebook. That's the guy who quit Facebook. I'm like, no, I'm good. Yeah, I probably wouldn't.

I mean, that's also goes back to my personal mission creating jobs that don't suck. Like I don't ever want to be in that situation again where, you know, and I've had jobs like that where I just don't feel good about why we're doing things the way we're doing them. and I've eventually left and it's hard when you're, you know, because you also have a family to feed and people that sometimes I think people are afraid

to lose their job and they just kind of put up with crap or put up with things that are unethical. The big thing for me and my work is, excuse me, like, and why I love the B-Corp thing is that those, how do you just, you know,

it's a lot like there's a case study we did in our MBA program. And it was like, okay, you're a water company executive or you're on the board of directors or whatever the hell it is. And you had this aquifer. And it was running low. It hadn't rained a lot. But you kept draining out of the aquifer.

Well, now you've gotten all the runoff from the local farmlands. So now this water is poisonous and there's a dead baby. And you've still been selling the bottle of water. And the whole exercise is how do you handle the public relations into the nightmare? And I was in this class in my MBA. And I've already been interviews to the B-Corp stuff and everything. but I'm just in this class and I'm like, how about you just don't do shady shit in the first place?

And then you don't have to come up with a strategy on how to get out of getting caught doing shady. Like it's so weird that we is business schools and still that we have professors and PhDs that study corporate crises. I'm like, what if we just didn't do shitty business practices and that we need a strategy for when we get caught being horrible? Like, what is our strategy to get out of it?

And it's like, So I don't know that I have a good answer because I hope to never work for a company like that. Like I hope to honestly eradicate companies like that and get everybody so, you know, I mean, not that every company is going to certify as a B-corp, but get it to a point where we're like, man, there's enough options out there and enough decent-sized company options with good jobs that pay well that you can just go like, I don't want to work for you. And there's this like resignation wave that just hits that company. Like, I had a buddy, well.

You're monologuing. you're about to start modeling. I'm going to cut you down right there. You're down like a lumberjack, just like that. But no, I like that what you brought up. But you still dodge the bullet a little bit. But I want to chime in because you said something else. With this just like preventing shady shit from happening,

I feel like this could be done at a corporate level where going down to the basic decision making If you just transparent and you're an advocate for change, one way or another, companies will adapt, otherwise they're fucking gone. If you just, if you're just transparent about everything you're doing, you annotate that shit because it's everything's public. One way or another, we're going to find out. So you might as well take the little steps and do it right the first time. and if they just were to do that, just that basic structure and let that delegate down as the standard,

I feel like that will be the standard. And that's how we can adjust our company culture into what we need today. And that's authenticity. Yes. And I mean, I guess my answer to your question would be I would be in front of it and I would put my foot down before we did the shady thing in the first place. Like, I think that's,

that's what's missing in corporate America is where's that voice saying like, oh, we're like tweaking this Facebook algorithm to like spiral people into this like web of like, you know, like craziness and and, and, and, and,

and, and, and, and, just to keep them on the website longer, like, whoa, like,

isn't there another way we can make money? Isn't, I mean, seriously, like, I mean, at what point do you, does somebody raise their hand in that boardroom of,

of Zuckerberg or Cheryl Sandberg and say like, whoa, this is, is this is this is what it's boiled down to this is how we make money now and then our goal is to hope that nobody whistle blows so yeah i agree i mean it's kind of the big thing okay now i'll say you we're mark bursleberg mark zuckerbird in that same scenario what are some ways you might build trust with the public and stakeholders to establish transparency after getting caught with your pants down like that uh that ships still a long time ago

I don't know. I honestly, I don't think you can. I mean, and that's how I operate with people, too. It's like once you burn my trust, why should I ever trust you again? You've shown your true ethical compass and that all your, you're going in front of Congress, your apologies, everything. And I think people should be allowed some grace for mistakes. But if your mistake was really letting greed get in the way of ethical decision-making,

then I don't know that there's rebuilding that trust. If I'm him, I just step down and take my billions and just fade into the history books. I think that was the only ethical thing for him to do was just to say, you know what, I don't know what got into me, but this isn't healthy. It's not good for the legacy of my company. And maybe it's time for new leadership. And I think that would have been the brave, courageous thing that maybe would have restored some trust in the company and in him as a human being. But just going out and kind of berating and tiptoeing around the questions.

and giving the corporate legal answer of why that wasn't necessarily illegal is just, there's not a lot you can do. Yeah, I feel that now this is subjective here. I just feel like he's untouchable or he thinks that he's untouchable, thus he's pretty much doing what he wants to do. But at this point, he's got another thing coming with what should be happening probably in the next few years because I know we are not going to accept. that. Now, it brings me to another question. What if the business, let's say Facebook again,

let's say he was up front before Francis came forward and said, hey, we are using your data and we are controlling the algorithm to benefit us. And how do you feel about that? Do you guys like that or do you not? And why should we stop? Yeah, I mean, because I think a lot of company, I mean, if it was not buried in page 22 of the checkbox that they require when you set up an account, I think it would have been okay. But yeah, I think there's something there of being transparent about how you make money. You know,

I think about like when I used to sell and we'd show the client, like so we make a little bit of money here on the front end. We make a little bit of money here. And we make a little bit of money here on the backhand. And it was like, boom, that's how we make our money. And you can see it. Here you go.

I think that builds trust, but yeah, I don't know. I mean, I don't know if they did it in a way where consumers could actually understand what, you know, what the, where the ethical concerns were. But to me, it's just, it's gotten to a point where if it's, if it's legal, do it. And I hate that. I hate that. Like, wait for somebody. Like, and to me, that's the old school way of doing business versus, like, you know,

asking not necessarily is illegal. is it ethical. And having that control group maybe or focus groups that tell you like, no, I don't want you doing that. Like, you know, and honestly, consumers too, though, it's like at some point consumers have the power like, delete your damn account if you really care. And so maybe they don't.

Maybe they know they're being manipulated and they're still doing it. And it's a good news story. But at the end of the day, I think most consumers know what Facebook does and they still do it. I mean, I know, like, logging into, like, even like the LinkedIn algorithm, like, I go through it and you get sucked in for hours. Like, I know what they're doing. I know why they suppress my posts that have, like, an external link on them. Like, I'm not stupid.

You don't want people even LinkedIn. So, but, you know, at some point I'm okay with that as a consumer. Then you're okay with that as a consumer. And I think that's, that's, and that comes back to the whole like B-Corp thing of, like, you know, consumers, voting with their dollar, voting with their ethics and like where they're going to do business, they're going to work for. So note, you brought up a good point where I was trying to transition to. Like, we are already like having an Apple iPhone, like if you don't go down to the settings,

the privacy settings, and you don't uncheck that box where you're being exposed to add specific things online, then you're allowing that. or when you're going and entering a website, you're accepting those cookies or the cachet of, you're accepting those caches when you go on to leave your data stream. When you're downloading this podcast, we are getting data analytics to find out exactly what type of listener is listening to the show so I can tailor this content better to those that are listening.

Now, we all expect that to happen. and we know it's happening, thus it's not a big deal. And I feel like if transparency was much more open, that we could literally see through the company's intentions and then thus get a real understanding of not only the company's culture, but the individual behind it who's running it. Yeah, and I think that's, I mean, it's funny. That's a lot of those questions are in the customer section

or the B impact assessment of, you know, do you disclose what you're using data for? And it's like to me, there's some beauty. And, you know, I did a lot of market research during my MBA. I just fell in love with it. So any experiential project I could do, I loved it. And I think it's kind of some of it's really cool. You know, some of it's really that you can tailor, you know, your product, your service, your podcast to based off of, okay, I'm starting to figure out that my demographic is 35 to 49-year-old,

you know, married men who, who listen to me while they're exercising or listening, you know, whether walking the dogs or they're driving the kids to school. Like if you can start to figure that out, you're just going to give them a better product. So I think that's the difference is like, are you willing to take those extra steps as a business and do things on the up and up?

Or are you kind of like, um, trying to kind of pretend one way or the other. And there's, you know, and to me, why I love the B-court movement, because the answer isn't just to regulate everything. I mean, if we've learned anything, at least in my lifetime, government just doesn't seem to do anything, especially now. It's just like, whoever's in power, the other party just obstructs, and then the other party gets elected, and then the other party obstructs, and you can't say one's better than the other because they all do it. So, yeah, I think just the answer isn't regulation.

I think the answer to some of this is business is self-regulating, but to move the needle, it has to be in that business's best interest to self-regulate, which means consumers have to give a crap. They have to care. They have to demand more. Employees have to care. Employees have to demand more. And until that business case is made and that needle moves,

I think I'm just being optimistic that companies are going to self-police. But I also feel like that's why I'm in this movement. That's why I'm, I'm recording a podcast two o'clock on a, I don't know, what is it Wednesday, like why I do these all the time and why I speak about the course, because I think, I don't know that they're the solution, but they're part of it. I like that. Now, I feel like with really establishing change in organizations, yes, self-policing is definitely a major key factor, but I don't feel like we can really get the change initiated without. having the right leadership in office, in position to establish this kind of movement. Now, what might be a key action item for those that are in a leadership position to initiate this change?

Lead by example. You know, ethics is the definition of doing the right thing when nobody's looking. So do that. think do that. I think it becomes very clear to your team. I mean, I've been here five years and I didn't even get into my whole backstory, but I mean, before I did my MBA, I had four jobs in 18 months, and then I took a year off because I quit the fourth job and I had nothing else lined up. And so I was flying to grad schools and I drove an Uber and I, you know, and I worked part-time minimum wage shifts at the convention center in Athens and kind of, I'd never really

seen how the other half lives. I had, you know, even in high school. my job was roughing hockey. I made $25 a game. You know, I mean, I was just rolling all cash, baby, like going to Europe every summer, paid my way through college and all that money. And I'd never worked a minimum wage job and seeing all these people working, you know,

part-time jobs and so they don't have to get benefits. And, you know, but they don't have to make them full-time. So just seeing like, oh, my God, all these people work like three, 20-hour-week jobs. And to me, it's like at some point, like, do I want to give somebody like that my business? And so now as I'm getting to the point where I have the ability to put on conferences and like where do I want to have it, like, I don't know. Like I want to know, I want to know how you treat your frontline workers before I give you my

convention business. Those types of things that, I don't know, I just wish more companies, more leaders would think about things with intention and, and value their, you know, again, it's like that old adage, like how did they treat the, you know, the person cleaning out the, you know, when the office is clothes and you're the last one working, how do you treat the custodial staff that's coming in? Because somebody has to empty your trash cans. Yes. Somebody has to take out the trash. Somebody has to do all that work.

And, you know, and honestly, not everybody can be the CEO. So we're always going to need that person. And why, I'd love to see more leaders value them, pay living wages and just kind of, I don't know, do things for the benefit of society as a whole and not necessarily the bottom line, you know, if it means your margins are 9% so 10%, but everybody, but what's your retention worth then if that person stays and goes above and beyond all the time and does great work for you as a custodian. As, you know, like, to me, that's, that's where leaders need to start asking those gut check questions too, that there's more than just the money in and the money out, I think

that needs to go into decision making because I think a lot of it is good for business. And I think business owners, like, like my boss, I think he gets that. And he's, you know, I mean, we've literally we'll be 200 employees by the end of June probably. So like we're seeing, we're reaping the rewards. And I want other people to know that. That's why I tell the story. I like that. Now, something just came in my mind here.

I feel like with like a company that's becoming tainted by its own actions that they have a bad reputation in the corporate culture from somebody that's looking at the bottom up, I feel like that occurs. when leadership decide to take a shortcut just because maybe it's a Friday or the data says it's 9% and we're just going to round up to 10%. I feel like these little, just these little changes or actions lead to this, the strangulation of the identity that they are no longer that perceived company that those values and their, mission statement is stated, but they're the complete opposite because of these actions. Now, when an employee is recognizing that, how can they step up and be heard so they can realign what is being seen but others don't even recognize it exists? Again, it comes back to that building, that culture where your employees feel in power to speak up.

And if they don't like something, I mean, I've, I've done a lot with our service. to keep them anonymous and encourage there's a qualitative part to every single quantitative question. So it's all like it scale, but then would you like to add more? Would you like to add more? So building that so we can actually get some of that feedback. And honestly, if you speak up and whatever you want to call it, it doesn't even necessarily need to be whistleblowing that you caught them really doing something shady, but just like, hey, have you thought about how that might impact so-and-so? Having some old leaders, maybe direct. below the C-suite.

Like for us, we have some of those, myself included, but other ones as well that I've worked with for a really long time and respect. And I know if I'm not there, that they'll speak up, that I think having that and then having other employees below them that see that behavior, and maybe

you're even transparent enough to share the story of, hey, we talked about doing this in the leadership meeting and we decided against it because X, Y, and Z, and I had my concerns, and they see that behavior. And now they're a tier below, and then they speak up. And then honestly, if you're at a company

where you see something that is unethical or shady or makes you feel uncomfortable and your feedback isn't heard and you're kind of labeled as a complainer or a whiner or they just don't get it, send your resume to a trusted friend who's good with resumes, get it polished up and get the heck out of there. I think that's the way to get through

to some of these businesses is when their top talent starts leaving. But, you know, and at what point do we is individual employees have to start kind of taking some accountability for where we work and what we put up with? And knowing now, too, that there's this talent gap and we control a lot more of our own destiny than we used to. I think we need to be empowered as workers to own some of that. And if it's bad, get out. Get out. If you don't have a boss that's encouraging you.

to do the right thing that's doing the right thing by example that you have to tell them to do the right thing every time. Yeah, find other employment. I should have preface that my comment with a psychological safe workplace as far as them stepping forward and addressing a concern. But you hit the nail right on the head with your statement. I completely agree with you. Now, for those that want to be. become a better individual right now. What is one key action item they can do that can help them get in line with the direction

they're trying to go as far as, say, an employee with them not liking their job with a business or an individual in charge of a business deciding to go forward and get this B Corp certification? What is one key action item you would recommend to them? Put your keys in the ignition, turn the car on and back out of the parking. space. You can't drive 500 miles if you don't drive the first one. Well, you can't drive 500 miles if you don't back out of the parking space. So, like, start, just start taking action, you know, individually too. You sign up for a volunteer event. Go give back to the community. See how good you feel afterwards. Go volunteer to mentor, student. Go just figure out what your passion is. Just sign up for something,

get involved and figure out where your passion lies and run with it. I think there's a, one of the Secrets to life and happiness is service to others. So on an individual basis, I know the more, I also think that I'm a firm believer in karma, the more I give back, the more good things come and return. It's not why I give back, but I've noticed that my luck has changed dramatically, the more, it's highly correlated with volunteer hours. And that's led me to get involved with nonprofit boards. You know, just volunteering got me like, oh, I can serve on this nonprofit board.

And guess what you get to do when you're on a nonprofit board? direct a nonprofit, direct their impact. And then they're like, oh, hey, you want to serve as board chair? Oh, yeah, I'd love to. Now you really actually get to steer an organization and steer the impact they're making. So I went from, you know, picking up, you know, volunteering for a trash pickup or a food bank to, you know, chairing two boards and a committee on another. So now it's like, oh, man, that spiraled quickly in a good way. And then for organizations, same thing.

Just be impact assessment. It's free. Just sign up there. If you're a CEO or C-suite executive and you're just like curious, like how does our business stack up? How do we, where do we rank as far as,

you know, like what we say we do and what we say we value. If you value diversity and inclusion, like run your employee demographics. What percentage of women? What percentage of your promotions last year were women or people of color?

Like, just put some numbers behind it. And don't, we're so quick to cancel now because it's like, whoa, that's it, 8%. okay it's 8%. You're never going to prove you don't know that it's 8%. Okay, so what can we do differently?

Come up with a strategy based off of it's 8%. Even for us, we never even set a goal around that stuff. We just knew our industry overall is heavily white males. So like, how can we think intentionally and set a strategy around recruiting and where we recruit and all those different things. So like start moving the needle and start improving. And then we can set some goals.

But if you're not happy with where you're at, it's okay. Doesn't mean you're horrible. Just kind of start making small improvements and just give yourself a couple of goals for 2022 and where to go. But yeah, take the assessment and start quantifying, you know, measure what matters. You can't improve it if you're not measuring it. I really like what you said with volunteering.

I mean, doing that, you gain a lot of insight in doing things that you thought you would never find actually appealing and making you feel great in something. what I like about that is if you do that consistently, you're now getting an internal understanding on what makes you feel good that you didn't recognize makes you feel feeling good. So this in return will allow you to pivot towards opportunities that you didn't see as an opportunity at one point. Yes, I think so.

Yeah, I think it just, again, it's just getting. that momentum. It's getting that momentum going. Even if it's just, I mean, I literally have trash grabers, like, in my garage that I'll just go. Sometimes I'll put on it, I call it triple tasking where I put on my earbuds. I put in an, on like an auto, audible, can't even speak English, an audio book on audible or a podcast, and I grab my trash grabber in a bag, and I walk around the neighborhood, and I clean up the streets. I listening to a book, I'm getting an exercise, you know, like, but just something like that. Just, just start. I think that's the tough I mean, like anything, what is it like the, an object at motion remains in motion.

So, but the tough part is getting that. It's like starting your workout plan for the year. When you say you're near resolution, like, hey, buddy, and I'm guilty of this. So it hits home like, hey, I keep saying like, hey, next week I'm going to the gym again. All right, we'll go to the gym. Yes. I like that. An object in motion stays in motion.

Now, Nathan, is there anything else? No, no, no. First, how can our audience get in touch with you if they want to learn more? Yeah. You heard my Facebook rant. So the only social I'm on is LinkedIn. So it's LinkedIn.com slash Nathan A. Stuck. And feel free to connect, follow, whatever. I don't post anything to world changing, but I try to inspire. So, like, you'll see a lot of pictures of me picking up trash. Christmas time. You'll see me dress up with Santa picking up trash. Santa's a big hates litter bugs. So I put that standard suit to good use. But yeah, and then, you know, and then obviously through Be Local Georgia, if you're in, honestly, wherever you are listening to this, there's probably a B Local chapter near you. They're all independent nonprofits, but we all have a memorandum of understanding with B-Lab, so branding guidelines and all that. But, yeah, if you're near Georgia, come out to a Be Local Georgia event, you can follow us on LinkedIn at LinkedIn.com slash B-Local, GA. But yeah, that's, and then we have a website to be local Georgia.com.

Beautiful, beautiful. Now, is there anything else that you would like to share with the audience before I let you go? No, I mean, that last one set me up perfectly. I mean, that's kind of, I had T-shirts made last year that said take action, make progress. And I literally was talking to somebody earlier who's playing this whole green business fair in Atlanta. And it was the same kind of premise of like, we're not, we're not going to solve climate change. you're not going to solve unethical bit. Like you and I are not going to do it alone,

but being a part of the overall grounds. We'll put in our own ripple in the ocean that builds the wave that turns into a tsunami of change is what it's all about. So don't be overwhelmed by the amount of problems facing whatever society or the world or the climate. Just shut up and get involved. And I hate to say that, but sometimes it's like I don't have time for people who want to complain.

Same thing like the day come to the boss with a solution. Like that's great that our onboarding is terrible. But, you know, it's valuable as saying, I want to be a part of making the onboarding better. It's the same thing. Like, I don't really have time for people who just want to talk about how bad things are, who just want to sit behind a keyboard and, you know, cancel people, take people down. I have the utmost respect for people who are out there actually trying and doing the work. So go do the work.

I like that with the ripple in the wave. I was doing a little oceanography research, I think maybe three years ago. And it's just like the wind blowing onto the water on one side of the ocean, it takes like a thousand miles for that to become a decent size wave crashing into the sandbar. Some useless knowledge that seems to come in handy right now. But you're right. That's what it's all about. But if you're sitting there, if you're sitting there where the wind's blowing, you're like, the wind's doing nothing.

And then if you're standing, you know, off the coast of Africa. And then if you're on like, you know, the coast of Georgia or something, you see in the waves crash, you're like, yeah, that started way back there. So, yeah, it's a cumulative effort that we all need to be a part of. I completely agree. Nathan Stuck, I appreciate you come on to your transformation station. Yeah, man, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. You've been listening to your transformation station, your voice.

voice on the hard truths of leadership. We hope you've enjoyed the show. We hope you've gotten some useful and practical information. Make sure to like, rate, and review the show. Remember, your transformation station is on all major platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and YouTube. And visit the website. Till next time.

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