In this episode of the "Love and Leadership Podcast," Laura and Mike are joined by the spirited and pun-loving Jodi Latuszek, Vice President of HR, Legal, and ESG Programming at BIGGBY® COFFEE. Together they dive deep into the complexities and joys of leadership, tackling the often underappreciated challenges that come with transitioning from individual contributors to managers, emphasizing the crucial role of employee well-being and engagement in an organization's success, and a whole lot more. You don’t want to miss this.
Don’t Wait for Perfect (featuring Jodi Latuszek)
The best way to end up with a great culture is to start trying
GUEST BIO:
Jodi Latuszek is BIGGBY® COFFEE's Vice President of HR, Legal, and ESG Programming. In her own words, her job is to “help our company support people better.” She’s responsible for ensuring that all of BIGGBY® COFFEE's practices and metrics are good for the environment and people, and that the company is being governed ethically.
Links:
CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:
[3:33] - When Leading Gets Complicated
Navigating the transition from individual contributor to manager
The trio discusses the complex journey from being an individual contributor to taking on a managerial or leadership role. It's not just a change in job title — it involves a fundamental shift in responsibilities and mindset. Many people find themselves unprepared for the nuances of managing teams, balancing administrative duties, and the emotional labor that accompanies leadership. Jodi shares that excelling in a previous role doesn't automatically translate to success in leadership, highlighting the need for support and training in this transition and beyond. Leaders don’t just happen — they’re cultivated.
[22:03] - Progressive HR and Employee Freedom
Empower your employees and watch them thrive
Jodi walks the walk when it comes to enacting a progressive approach to HR, advocating for policies that go beyond traditional norms. She shares her focus on empowering employees through autonomy and choice, fostering a workplace culture that respects individual needs and preferences. This approach challenges the conventional top-down, one-size-fits-all policy model, proving that more customized and flexible HR practices can lead to a more dynamic and inclusive workplace.
[31:48] - People First, Employees Second
When people are happy, businesses are successful
The heart of an organization's success lies in the health and happiness of its employees, not just its bottom line. People’s satisfaction at work isn’t only about financial compensation or “perks” — it's about creating an environment where employees feel valued, supported, and psychologically safe. The team agrees that when employees are well-cared-for, they're more engaged, productive, and loyal to their organization, which directly impacts the organization's overall performance and morale. If you want your company to succeed in business, help your people succeed in life.
[33:23] - It All Begins and Ends with Leaders
Accountability and role modeling in leadership roles
A key point is the need for leaders at all levels to not only preach but actually practice the company's core values. Jodi points out a common gap in many organizations where leaders aren’t held accountable for living out these values in a meaningful way. BIGGBY® COFFEE has enacted a culture where leaders are expected to be role models, demonstrating the behaviors and attitudes they expect from their teams. The result? A trustworthy and transparent leadership environment that’s reflected throughout the organization.
[46:50] - What Are Your Values?
Don’t just “be good.” Choose and follow your values.
Mike, Jodi, and Laura agree on the crucial role core values play in defining an organization's culture. These aren't fancy words you put on a website — they’re the guiding principles that should inform every decision, interaction, and strategy within the company. Jodi suggests that when employees understand and resonate with these values, and when they see them reflected in their leaders' actions, it creates a cohesive and authentic culture that drives both employee satisfaction and business success.
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ABOUT LOVE IN LEADERSHIP:
At the Life You Love LaboratoryTM and BIGGBY® COFFEE, we’re out to prove that financial success and healthy workplace culture aren’t two separate goals. BIGGBY® COFFEE's own cultural transformation is proof that not only is it possible to have a successful company where people aren’t miserable at work, but that the happier your people are, the more your business will grow. Each week, join host Laura Eich, Chief Purpose Officer at BIGGBY® COFFEE, and her co-host and BIGGBY® COFFEE co-CEO Mike McFall as they’re joined by guests from around the world to learn how they are fostering a culture of love and growth in the world’s most innovative and people-centric companies. Get inspired. Get real. Get ready to transform workplace culture in America with us. This is the Love in Leadership podcast.
Learn more at: loveinleadershippodcast.com
ABOUT THE HOSTS:
Mike McFall began his journey with BIGGBY® COFFEE as a minimum-wage barista at the original store in East Lansing in 1996. Over the span of 23 years, alongside business partner Bob Fish, he has helped create one of the great specialty coffee brands in America. Today Mike is co-CEO with Bob, and BIGGBY® COFFEE has over 250 stores open throughout the Midwest that sell tens of thousands of cups of coffee each day. But more importantly to Mike and BIGGBY® COFFEE, the company is a profoundly people-first organization.
Mike is also the author of Grind, a book which focuses on early stage businesses and how to establish positive cash flow.
Laura Eich is BIGGBY® COFFEE’s Chief People Officer, having worked in a variety of roles at BIGGBY® COFFEE for the last 11+ years. She helped launch BOOST, the department at BIGGBY® COFFEE which ultimately became LifeLabTM — BIGGBY® COFFEE’s inhouse culture cultivation team designed to help people be the best versions of themselves and help companies support them along the way. In her role, Laura helps people build lives that they love through the process of building profitable businesses and robust, growth-filled careers.
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Laura Eich:
Welcome to the Love and Leadership Podcast, everybody. As always, my name is Laura Eich. I am joined by my very favorite co-host in the entire world, Michael James McFall of Biggby Coffee.
Mike McFall:
My honor, to be your favorite co-host, Laura. I love that.
Laura Eich:
Mike, how are you doing this week? What's on your mind?
Mike McFall:
It's a great week. I was able to... I've completed my last class yesterday at the university. This is the semester I had teach on my own without Brian. I did have Erica Block with me, and she was great, but so much of the administration of the class fell on my shoulders. So anyway, I lived through it. I think it was-
Laura Eich:
Yeah, you love administration.
Mike McFall:
Oh, boy. But I think the students had a good experience. But I feel good about it that I got through it and away we go, and then...
Laura Eich:
Does Brian come back next semester?
Mike McFall:
Yeah, January. And I was sweating bullets because I was like, "What if he doesn't come back?" But I don't have to worry about that because he texted me this week saying, "Hey, let's get together and talk about next semester." Yeah, it's great. Great.
Laura Eich:
That's good. Do I get to come back? Because I really enjoyed that.
Mike McFall:
Yeah. I mean, I say yeah, I certainly hope so because I love that and I think it's a really great way to bring the teams together, and I think Brian will be on board with that.
Laura Eich:
Yeah, but I didn't know if it was going to happen when I'm not around. We'll have to figure that out.
Mike McFall:
Oh, right. Well, yeah, I didn't really think about that. And then I also had a cool opportunity to have coffee yesterday with a woman, Sara Best, who runs a podcast called The Bosshole Chronicles, which I love and I was fortunate to be on their podcast maybe a couple months ago. And so she was in town and she called me up and we sat down and talked. We talked for an hour and a half. It was amazing. Yeah, that was a pleasure.
Laura Eich:
That's super fun.
Mike McFall:
How about you? What's on your mind? I bet I know.
Laura Eich:
I've had a wild week. I'm not sure what order this will come out in the podcast release, so this might be out of order for what's happening elsewhere in the podcast, but I leave for maternity leave this coming week. So it's been a very, very, very full week of... I feel like I've just been brain dumping on people like, "Let me tell you all of my thoughts so that someone has them for the next three months," and trying to obviously get some things tied up and wrapped up in a nice bow and make sure everyone has what they need from me and that kind of thing. So it's been a very busy brain week, but we're feeling good. Feeling ready.
Mike McFall:
Yeah, you go on maternity leave in a couple hours, right?
Laura Eich:
Yeah.
Mike McFall:
Awesome.
Laura Eich:
Yeah. So brain is totally fully functioning on all cylinders or whatever the correct-
Mike McFall:
Does Steven get paternity leave?
Laura Eich:
He's taking a month, yep.
Mike McFall:
Oh, nice.
Laura Eich:
Yeah, it's going to be cool.
Mike McFall:
That is cool.
Laura Eich:
Just going to hang out and cuddle a baby.
Mike McFall:
It's a heck of a project you two are about to embark on here.
Laura Eich:
Yeah, that's what I hear.
Mike McFall:
Yeah.
Laura Eich:
So we were talking before the podcast about something you heard that sort of blew your mind, and it blew my mind too, a statistic you heard recently.
Mike McFall:
Yeah. It was that 72% of managers or people that manage and lead others would go back to being individual contributors and not managing people if they could just keep the same pay.
Laura Eich:
Yeah, it's wild.
Mike McFall:
So I've been raking that around in the coals in my brain here, and it's like, well, in some ways I get it. The perception on that is that, well, the reason why people take management and leadership positions is because the only way to get more pay, but then the flip side of that coin is, "Well, yeah. Kind of." So you are taking on these additional responsibilities, leading people, which is, in my opinion, it's some of the hardest work any of us do, being accountable to others and for others and being responsible for people's wellbeing when they're working within your group and so on. That's a lot of responsibility, and you should get paid more to do that. But it's curious, and then you brought up the great question of, "Well, shouldn't there be ways that people can make more money without having to take on this other thing called managing people?"
Laura Eich:
Right, and I know, at least within our org, I've seen it happen where it's not just that it's the next way to make more money, but it's also that you're really, really good and everyone sees you as being really good at the job that you're doing, and so the logical conclusion is that you'll be really, really good at helping other people do that job really, really well. That does not necessarily happen. Maybe they were fabulous at their job because they weren't busy supervising people. If you are a supervisor, if you're a manager, we call it Leadership, Management and Accountability, LM&A, stuff takes most of your time, and it should, because that's your job is to supervise people.
So it's not just frustrating because you might not actually be great at that job because you were great at the thing you did before, but it's going to be frustrating because you'd rather be doing the thing that you were doing before, and you were good at it. And it's so much... I think the hardest job in the world is to care about people and to take on their lives and their livelihood, and knowing that you're responsible for their success and... Oh, it's so hard. I love it though. That's the part where I'm like, "I don't understand." I don't understand people not loving it.
Mike McFall:
Well, in my talk that I've been developing for the last year, I talk in that about how there's nothing wrong with people. So I ask the question, "What's the number one complaint of business managers and leaders?" And invariably it's people or some derivation of people, and then I make the statement, "There's nothing wrong with people. We just have a whole bunch of really awkward and miserable leaders in the world," and that if somebody's underperforming in your group, it's not their fault. And that's the level of responsibility that leadership is. I mean, if you're truly going to be a leader of people, if someone's underperforming, that's your responsibility to figure out what they need, the support they need, the nurturing they need to thrive in the environment, and holy smokes, is that complicated and difficult? And so isn't that interesting? Do we give leaders and managers enough credit for what they have to do in the world?
Laura Eich:
I don't think so.
Mike McFall:
As organizations, I don't think so either. As a company, I don't think we go to our managers and super appreciate the responsibility they've decided to take on and support them and bring them resources directly correlated to leadership.
Laura Eich:
And it's usually not the thing they're... Maybe not everywhere. I don't know about everywhere, but it's often not a thing that they're even held accountable to. And I don't mean get ready to fire them as soon as they're not performing, but very often we have things like KPIs and other very numerical goals that they're responsible for, and that's what they are going to be held accountable for come review time or whenever the reviewing season is, and it's like, why don't we have some form of accountability relative to how effective of a leader you are? And it doesn't mean we're just trying to fire you if you're not a good leader, it just means maybe you should... Again, we have to find different paths for people who are great at something, and it's not necessarily supervising people. But I don't think we've figured out that in the United States yet.
Mike McFall:
No. No, it's really a very... This concept of organizations supporting their leaders and maybe evaluating leadership as an individual quality independent of the work at hand, and it really doesn't matter the work at hand. I think you can be a good leader, a good manager, regardless of the work that the team is doing. I have some friends of mine who are golfers and they want me to critique them in terms of their golf swing and playing golf and so on, and I'm like, "I can't. I don't know how. I've hit enough golf balls in my life that I can make a golf ball go, but I don't really know how I do it. I can't explain it," and so I would be the worst... But if somebody promoted me to a manager of golfers or a leader of golfers, I would be the worst because I wouldn't know how to bring... And so that's what we're doing to people is we're not evaluating whether they would be good at leading or good at managing and taking care of people.
Laura Eich:
Yeah, I think one of the coolest things... Someone who works for Biggby Coffee at the home office has very strongly and proudly from day one said, "I don't want to become a manager of this thing that I do," and they've been in their same role for almost eight years now, and we have thankfully figured out policies and compensation structures that allow for someone to stay in their role and still see financial growth and that kind of thing. There's probably a limit to it. I don't really know how that all works, but there's probably a limit to what you can make at that point, unless you maybe add some more responsibility or add something else to the job.
But I've always been so proud of that person, because I'm like, "Thank you for knowing that because we would've just turned you into the manager of that team. That's what we've done with everyone before you." We've found someone who's really good at that job and said, "You ready to lead the team now? Because we need someone to lead the team." And they've been so good about being like, "Nope, I want to do this job and I want to keep being good at it, and I want to stay here," and they have and I think that's beautiful. And we just have to make sure that we as a company are then finding a way to take care of them responsibly with their compensation and even knowing their options for paths forward that may or may not include management if they change their mind.
But the person... Actually, that's a great segue because the person who oversees that compensation structure happens to be the guest on our show today, so we could ask her about it. We have Jodi Latuszek joining us today. She is our... Well, I'm going to let her say her whole title, because one of those that has a whole bunch of words to it because she holds a whole bunch of responsibility and it's really beautiful, and she's going to do a better job introducing herself than I ever could. But Jodi's a beautiful person. She is punny, so heads up, everybody. Get ready for a bit of a punny episode, and I'm just ready to jump into it. You ready?
Mike McFall:
Absolutely.
Laura Eich:
Let's do it. All right. Here we go with Jodi Latuszek.
All right, my friends, we ready to jump into it?
Jodi Latuszek:
Oh, yeah.
Laura Eich:
Oh, yeah. All right. Jodi, who are you, where are you from and what is it that you do?
Jodi Latuszek:
Well, I am Jodi Latuszek, originally from the east side of Michigan, near the Detroit area. I am currently at Biggby Coffee. I'm the vice president of HR, legal and ESG programming, which just means I get to work with a lot of cool people and try to make our company support them better, help support them better.
Laura Eich:
So I know what legal means, I know what HR means. What does ESG mean?
Jodi Latuszek:
ESG is actually a controversial term, but it's environmental, social and governance. It just makes sure that all of our practices and all of our metrics are good for the environment, for the people, and that we're governing our company in an ethical way.
Laura Eich:
Yeah, which your whole title is about taking care of the company in an ethical way. It feels very heavy to me to be responsible for legal, HR, the environment, social everything. That feels pretty heavy. I'm hoping you can... I mean, we'll talk about that probably a little bit more later, but can you talk to us how you got there? How you got here into this world? Maybe just some of the highlights of your career, the lily pads that got you from somewhere in college probably to Biggby Coffee, taking care of everybody.
Jodi Latuszek:
So I would actually love to, but that would be really, really boring if I talked about my whole career. It totally would. I think how I got here at Biggby, because I hope you're sitting down for this, but people don't always get that I went from the Michigan Supreme Court in a decades long career in the court system to a coffee company. They just don't get the translation. So I want to talk about how I got here specifically to Biggby, and it's the pandemic. Yeah. Probably thought in 2023, almost 2024, we'd be done talking about the pandemic, but I am here because of the pandemic. I worked for the Michigan Supreme Court in court administration as an attorney for more than a decade, and by the time I left the court, I was overseeing finance, HR, regional operations and security, and then the pandemic hit and I was overseeing all those functions and it became so critical that what we did with people or for people was right.
And you know what? There was no manual for how to do it during the pandemic. And so I just worked myself almost to the point of being sick to try to get it right, and I saw the impact directly of when I got it right and when I didn't. And so toward the end of that, my family life started to suffer and my kids were noticing side effects of that, and I really started to look for companies where the people side of it, of the company's vision, where that was it. So I researched numerous companies and I saw Biggby, and I learned about Biggby, and Mike, your talk with Bob on TED Talk, and I said, "This is where I want to work. We just got to find a job opening." So long story short, saw there was a job opening for a director of HR, I applied, and the rest is history.
Laura Eich:
Wow. Had you left the courts, I actually realize I don't know this timing. Had you left the courts or did you leave the courts because you got the job at Biggby?
Jodi Latuszek:
No, I'm a Capricorn. I'm a Capricorn. I would never leave a job without having another job, even if I was passing out from exhaustion. It is just not in my nature.
Mike McFall:
I'm so glad that our in-house council believes in astrology. That's a beautiful thing.
Laura Eich:
It feels very us too.
Jodi Latuszek:
I really do, but people listening would be like, "Ah, Capricorn. Totally get it." But no, I'm practical and also I have a mortgage to pay. But I do urge people to find a path toward taking care of themselves first sooner than I did in my life, but I'm here now and Biggby helps me do that, so that's great. But no, I was still at the court when I interviewed with Biggby.
Mike McFall:
Okay. So Jodi, I have to ask. You came into Biggby with certain expectations, and I presume you'd done a fair amount of research and reading things and so on. What was the biggest disconnect for you from what you expected coming in to what was actually going on inside of our organization?
Jodi Latuszek:
So that is an amazing question, and this is now... I just had my second anniversary.
Mike McFall:
I know, I know. It amazed me. It seems like yesterday.
Jodi Latuszek:
Yeah, I know. I got a cake in the mail from you.
Laura Eich:
Wait. Did you? I was like, "Do we do that now?"
Mike McFall:
Mary Lynn's working some magic.
Laura Eich:
Yeah.
Jodi Latuszek:
That would have been so cool. It would've been all messed up in shipping. So the biggest disconnect is I assumed, I did, I assumed that you guys had it all figured out, that we had it all figured out, but now I realize that if a company says they've got all the people practices figured out 100%, then they're full of it because part of it is that it's got to be evolving all of the time, and that's the cool thing about Biggby. So you didn't have the utopia, but what we have is a culture where you try and you learn and you experiment and you implement, and you keep doing that over and over again based on what the people are saying, how they're responding, how happy they are, how well they are, and that is the magic. I thought I was looking for a company that had it all figured out. "We've got the culture 102% figured out, our metrics show." I thought that was the company I was looking for, but it isn't. I was looking for-
Laura Eich:
You'd be so bored.
Jodi Latuszek:
Well, I know. And imagine not being able to try new things consistently and to say... The coolest thing, I think... The disconnects. You hear disconnects, "Oh, that sounds bad," but it's not. The cool thing here is we are willing to say, our leadership is willing to say from the CEOs on down like, "Ooh, we tried this one and got it wrong and it had an impact on people. Let's try newer, let's try harder, let's try different," and again, I think that's the magic of it.
Laura Eich:
Yeah. I think everyone in our company, not just people who have explored and then joined, but even like myself... I think I talk about this in the first episode, that Mike and I talk about how we started doing this podcast, but I talk about how I thought our cultural journey would start and end in about a year or less, I thought, "If we just check some of these boxes, we'll be there. We'll have arrived," and it's a continuous learning process of how much longer the road is that we're on to where every time we achieve something new, try something new, it does work, or try something and it doesn't work, we still are just finding out how much longer that road is.
And the bar keeps getting raised by the employees themselves, which is the coolest, hardest, weirdest thing about trying to stay on the leading edge of workplace culture with anybody is that you are constantly sort of chasing this ever-rising bar. But knowing you, I think you legitimately would be bored if we had too much of it figured out because what would we do with our time? What would we talk about?
Jodi Latuszek:
Yeah, for sure. I did have pretty clear direction, and not to put you on the spot, Mike, but do you... When I first got here, I got a meeting with you and Bob, introductory meeting, but really during that meeting, you both expressed really clearly what the directive was in terms of policies and vision for HR. Do you remember what you told me?
Mike McFall:
No, I don't.
Laura Eich:
Oh my gosh, this is exciting.
Jodi Latuszek:
That's good, because I do. I remember it every day. And you said something to the effect of, and you and Bob were very aligned, is, "Be more progressive than the most progressive policies you can think of." So obviously the Capricorn and the attorney in me digested that information and was like, "Wow. How do I do that? How am I going to do that?" But I do. Knowing that that's what this company strives to be is certainly a challenge, especially when my natural inclination is like, "Ah, risk. But you got to avoid the risk, right?" But it's cool to hear that on your first day as an HR director. It's really cool.
Mike McFall:
Well, I think that the thing that you showed us though pretty quickly though was that you need to get the baseline things in place and very solid before you can start going after progressive, because if you just go after progressive and you don't have the baseline shit in place, all of a sudden you're this thing spinning off in it Never-Never Land. So I do appreciate that perspective you brought to us and you were very clear about it. And so I look forward to when you say, "Okay. All right, baseline's all done and now we get to..."
Laura Eich:
But wait.
Jodi Latuszek:
I mean, to be clear, we don't have to wait until it's completely perfect. I mean, some of the things we do or try to do, we're able to experiment along the way, but I am waiting for that moment too when we say like, "Okay, we're really, really solid. Let's go."
Mike McFall:
Okay, so let me just challenge you. What gives you the most anxiety of any idea you've heard out there in the world in relation to HR policy and so on? I want the one that you're like, "Never," because then that's the one I'm going to attach to and go after.
Jodi Latuszek:
Oh my goodness.
Mike McFall:
I'm kidding, Laura. Laura, I'm kidding.
Laura Eich:
Well, no, the only answer I can think of is having no policies and thinking that that's really progressive or something, and it's like, "Don't do that."
Mike McFall:
No, no. Give me some things that you think about and maybe it's like, yeah, you can see it, but boy, does it give you anxiety.
Jodi Latuszek:
So I'm pretty high-strung, so everything gives me anxiety, but in terms of... Also, P.S., I consider anxiety a superpower, but more on that next episode. I think I would be disingenuous if I just identified one or two things because when you have any HR policies, any people practices, they impact lives significantly because every article starts with, "Oh, you spend more time with your colleagues or at work than you spend with your family." So any impact you have on any person or people, it gives me anxiety because doing it wrong means somebody's negatively impacted. It would be easy to say something like, "Well, pay transparency." No, not at all. I believe wholeheartedly in that. But do I think there's mistakes people can make with it that have negative consequences? Yeah. So that's one of the things like you got to do it right. But I'm not a never person. So anything, even if it gives me anxiety, I see my role as somebody... Yet figure out how to make it happen in a way that is less anxiety-producing, I guess.
Mike McFall:
So I'm going to take this very well crafted lawyer answer of nothing, but maybe a little hint into that it's pay transparency.
Jodi Latuszek:
That's very insightful, but no.
Mike McFall:
I'm kidding. I'm just playing. The answer of no answer, but maybe if it were this, then... That's where I was going with that. You know what I mean?
Laura Eich:
Well, something I've learned from Jodi is the... Oh, crap. I don't even know how to describe this, but there's a thing that Jodi does with her team that is in itself progressive, but might not feel that progressive. Sometimes I think, Mike, you and I, when we're talking stuff, we're like, "Pay transparency, unlimited time off," the really fun-sounding ones. I guess I don't know if pay transparency is fun-sounding, but some of the more extreme fun things. Something I've learned from Jodi and learned from our staff is some of those things negatively impact people because it's not how they would like to manage their lives or something like that, and making decisions that are the most progressive that I can see, that especially Jodi and her team are always trying to do right now, is making choices that actually could somehow fulfill everybody's needs within the company at the same time.
And everyone has different needs. We've got around 100 people in our company and it's trying to offer something or options for something that could fulfill at least 99 out of 100 people's life needs, I think, is the most progressive, but it doesn't seem that sexy to talk about, to just be like, "We're giving them options for things." But I think that's something I've really learned from how Jodi does her work is that that's super progressive to try and provide more options, more paths that people can take. Do I have that right, Jodi?
Jodi Latuszek:
Yeah. So actually Laura did something that her team is awesome at doing, which is helped me realize what I'm thinking. So she said, "It may not seem sexy," but the thing that scares me the most that's the sexy in terms of this stuff is giving employees choice, control, empowering them and making that as broad as possible. So that's scary if employees have unlimited choice, unlimited control, but the more we can do that and have policies that promote that, that is what's scary and exciting, I think.
Laura Eich:
We're already talking about some HR things, and I imagine you hold some HR beliefs and we know that sometimes HR teams especially get a bad rap about just being the police about things, or just there to get you, or it is terrifying if HR calls you into their office, or whatever the thing is. I believe that you do things a little bit differently and I think that the way you try to think about things differently is probably based in some foundational beliefs that you hold, and I'm curious if you can explore those a little bit about when you're trying to craft policy or you're trying to craft a new benefit, something or other, or what have you. What are some of those core beliefs that you personally bring to the table and are trying to make decisions upon?
Jodi Latuszek:
Yeah, so that it is all about the people that you can as an HR person, whatever role you play in HR, you can help the company and employees at the same time. It's not sides. So right now, if you looked at TikTok, I don't know if you're familiar with the TikTok, it's fantastic, but there are so many TikToks about the HR Karen who is there to be the gotcha person, or I saw one this morning and it was, "HR is not on your side. HR is not..." It's an us versus them mentality, and I truly believe we are here to serve both the company and the employees, and the best way to serve the company is to think about policy and think about implementation of policy and everything from the perspective of caring for people first, and by doing so, you protect the company.
A lot of times people think there's this spectrum, the company think thinks it's most protected when the rules are the strictest, when the HR department is the, "I'm going to come down on you. You broke a rule, you violated something," but actually the company is most protected when employees are engaged, when they're happy, when they're well, personally well, physically healthy and things like that. So if we look at it from that perspective and create policies that really focus on making sure those employees are physically, mentally, emotionally well, that they have all the information they need, then ultimately the company will be protected. Of course, we look at everything through a legal lens as well, but there's ways to do that, to marry compliance and legal with putting employees first, and that's what we try to do at every step of the way to varying degrees. It is what I believe personally is the right way to go.
Mike McFall:
So our vision is to improve workplace culture in America. If there's one thing that every corporation in America could do, if you had the power to wave a magic wand and say, "Every corporation in America has to do this to improve workplace culture in America," what would that be?
Jodi Latuszek:
Put their money where their mouth is.
Mike McFall:
Okay, more.
Laura Eich:
Say more.
Jodi Latuszek:
So leadership is critical. So many articles will talk about 70% of people leave because of poor management or leadership plays this percentage in company culture, and it's true, we know that, how important leadership is. But then when we look at whether company leaders are modeling the values that the company talks about at meetings, I'm sure that in seven out of 10 of those companies, you've got leaders who have been there for decades, who everybody in the break room will say, or the virtual break room, virtual water cooler as it were, will say, "This leader does not model the values." People don't say what they think around this leader. They're scared of the leader and the companies don't handle that situation, and we see companies continue to endorse leadership that's contrary to their values and where they want to go culturally as a company, and I think that is so damaging to the creation of a healthy culture and it's rampant. So the biggest impact I think companies across the country would see is if they held leaders accountable to modeling the values that they want to see in their organizations across the board.
Laura Eich:
Well said.
Jodi Latuszek:
It's hard though.
Laura Eich:
It's really hard. First they have to have values, which some of them do. They might actually first have to establish that.
Mike McFall:
Yeah, the fact that... I think a lot of companies have values, it's just whether they're living them, and if you went up to every leader in the organization and said, "Hey, let's talk about our values and let's talk about what each one of them means to you," my guess is most organizations are, or yeah, I think most organizations would be a little surprised by what they would hear back from their leadership in relation to the values or what they might be surprised that people don't really even know the values or haven't given them much thought, that kind of thing.
Jodi Latuszek:
Yeah, and it makes me think of a training I went to at one point, and they're talking about company culture and the question came up, "How do you know? How do you know when your employees, when your leaders are modeling the values? What is culture?" And so the presenter drew a picture of a fishbowl in there and had people contribute what they see. What do you see in your culture? And it was looking inside the fishbowl and that's your company culture. What do you see? How do people treat each other? What do they say? Are people open and free with their ideas? Are they hoarding work? Stuff like that came out and it was like, yeah, you just really got to watch. You really got to see how people are behaving on the day-to-day to determine whether are we living the values.
Laura Eich:
Were there value stated,,, I legitimately don't know this. Were there values stated in the court system?
Jodi Latuszek:
Yeah, absolutely.
Laura Eich:
How'd that work?
Jodi Latuszek:
Yeah, absolutely. So within our organization that oversaw the courts, we had our own values and then each court created, their management teams created values. So some of the courts had values, some didn't. It really depended on the sophistication of their individual leadership teams. But yeah, one of the things I liked about, you'd be surprised, is the Supreme Court had values and one of them was courage and thought and action, and it reminded me of Biggby, because Biggby, have courage is one of our values. So we did, but the organization had 500 employees, and so really ensuring that that values were modeled was a little more difficult.
Laura Eich:
Sure. There was 500 people in the Supreme Court?
Jodi Latuszek:
So it's the State Court Administrative Office, it's the organization that oversees the court system, but then you get the issue with the individual courts that you've got elected officials, and so what happens if an elected official doesn't model the values?
Laura Eich:
Yeah, what happens? I don't know.
Jodi Latuszek:
Not much. It's not like they have progressive discipline or get a writeup or whatever. So it's really difficult in those individual court systems because it's really hard to attach accountability for things like leadership and for things like modeling values when ultimately there are no repercussions for not doing so.
Laura Eich:
Okay, I have to keep diving down this rabbit hole because I'm so curious, because I feel like the courts are like this mystery to most of us probably. Are there parallels? You work for a privately-held company, now a franchise system. Is there parallels between the courts, the actual courts? It sounds like there's an organization that you worked for, but then there's also the actual court system. Are there parallels there between that and where you work now or very strange differences, or I don't know, what comes to mind?
Jodi Latuszek:
So according to me, they're identical. If you think about it, the organization, I work for the Michigan Supreme Court and thereby the State Court Administrative Office, they're like a franchisor, so like Biggby Coffee Home Office, and then the courts across the state are really franchisees, which are independently owned and operated. However, the State Court Administrative Office, Supreme Court, franchisor, set some guidelines, some expectations. Think of it as the courts have standards and guidelines, like an operations manual. So they play very similar roles. So one of my roles with the courts was to go out and visit the franchisees or the individual trial courts and their leadership teams and just talk about data and talk about improvement, talk about values, culture, things like that. So I think there are parallels.
The other key parallel is this: So if you think about being a judge or an elected official, you have to have so much confidence in yourself to run for election, to think, "I've got this. The people are going to vote for me," just like an entrepreneur. It takes guts. It takes guts to start a business and to be comfortable with the risk of like, "Eh. What if it doesn't work out?" Entrepreneurs I learned don't really think like that though, it doesn't work that way.
Laura Eich:
They believe it won't work out.
Jodi Latuszek:
Yeah, but it's very similar, and so a lot of the personalities and the leadership dynamics and the management dynamics are almost identical. So it's really interesting. I thought a little bit about that before I started to work here, but I really see it more and more every day.
Laura Eich:
Yeah, that was good. I followed that full train of metaphor.
Jodi Latuszek:
I tried. I tried. It almost felt like my job interview to work here a little bit.
Mike McFall:
I wanted to rewind and go back to values because you brought that up and I love that, right? In fact, the speech I've developed, one of the very first thing I start with in terms of unlocking your team's potential is to go deep into and evaluate your core values. Anyway. But I also think, Laura, I think you asked the question, "How do you know that they're working?" I think, and so one of the things that I would love to see in our organization and I don't very often is our people talking about the core values in relation to their interactions and behaviors within the organization, and I don't see that so much. And I think back to things like perk and position priorities. I mean, we hammered those so aggressively for so long that eventually everyone was using them within the organization. I think that that's something that we can focus on is using them so much and referencing them so often that they just become part of the language and part of the gestalt of what we do within the organization.
Laura Eich:
Good use of the word gestalt.
Jodi Latuszek:
I know, I loved it. But actually, I mean, there is hope. One of our newer employees, our AR program manager, yesterday she sent an email and it was about some upcoming communication. Spoiler alert, about this home office support team that she's creating, and she had to collaborate with so many people at so many different levels, I guess we don't really have levels, but levels in the company to really get people aligned and get this stuff to work and get people excited about it. And in her communication, she acknowledged one of the key pieces of the communication is she said, "I've never seen a group of people exemplify the values of this company more than this group of people I worked with on this project," and she went on to name each employee and how they modeled the values and that it was the most productive group she'd worked with. And the fact that it was a newer employee, Angela Combs... Let's shout out Angela Combs. And she did that. It was amazing. So I think that really shows the power of what you just said, Mike, and highlights the importance.
Mike McFall:
In many ways, it doesn't surprise me that it's a newer employee. People have around for 15 years and haven't been using that in their language, it's not part of their world, it's not part of what they do. And by the way, I do love that too, but I'm waiting for the day that someone hits me up and says, "Mike, I don't think you're representing the value of live consciously or love unconditionally, or..." I'm waiting for the day that somebody holds me accountable to one of the values.
Laura Eich:
Haven't people done that? I have a memory, but I don't want to tell someone else's story. I thought I had a memory from the last couple of years of someone picking up the phone to call you and calling something out.
Mike McFall:
Maybe you're thinking... Yeah, you're thinking of... Oh my brain. Yes, we did.
Laura Eich:
The point is it's been a while.
Mike McFall:
It's been a while. It should be a regular component of communication is calling people to account on the values, everybody. And that's the other thing about values is they level the playing field, everyone. Laura has to be accountable to the values the same as somebody that started two weeks ago, and I think that's a beautiful part of it too. So I'm highly endorsing and stamping my big MJM stamp of approval on your answer to the question about core values. I think it was beautiful.
Jodi Latuszek:
And I value that perspective. [inaudible 00:46:10]. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Laura Eich:
How would you suggest, Jodi... Because I know, technically I don't think you were here when we wrote at least whatever the original version of our core values was. It has evolved over the years, but if you were giving advice to someone at another company who was like, "This. We need the values thing that they're talking about," how does someone get started with that?
Jodi Latuszek:
They have no values and they want to create values?
Laura Eich:
Or they at least haven't written them down, and there's something to this where they know there's something here.
Jodi Latuszek:
Yeah. So first of all, kudos to this hypothetical company because they're well on their way toward a better culture, but let me start with what not to do. This is what a lot of companies do: We need core values, so we're going to get our suits in the room being the executives and they're going to talk about what values are great, and then they're just going to identify words, words alone, and then they're going to send a memo out about it via email or maybe Teams because we're virtual now, and it's not going to mean anything to anybody, but they can put it on their website and they can put it on all of their material. That's what not to do. That's how not to do it. Also, would make a great TikTok.
So the first step is getting people together, getting a representative group together. If you're a company our size, you can get good representation from the whole company, but at a 500 person company, it's got to be a tailored group. But you get a group together and you go through a facilitated process of getting input on the core values, what is important to everybody, what they believe the core values should look like, and that feels like, "Oh, no. But what if that doesn't align with what the suits want the values to be?" Generally it does because usually companies are hiring according to their core values without even knowing it, so the employees that are currently working for the company will have a good idea through that exercise of what the values are. But yeah, you get people together and you work on the values together.
A lot of people don't do that because they think it's cumbersome and it takes a lot of time. Oh yeah, it does, but then your employees have a stake in it. They say, "This is us. This resonates with us. This means something to us," and they are more inclined to live it if they're part of the process. So I would say get everybody together, facilitate a process for developing values. And then the key thing is, I mentioned words, like I'm using a lot of right now. But what Biggby does that's great is, and this was before I got here, you have behaviors and misbehaviors for your core values, for our core values, and it really makes it clear what that means to us. And in addition to the words, when we have our core values, we describe them, and so people know exactly what they mean. And I don't know about you, but if you just use one word, people can construe one word in so many different ways.
Laura Eich:
Yes. We've talked about that I think a couple times on here where the power of language and taking the time to debate over that language and decide as a group of mixed brains in the room about what something actually means and what that actually looks like in action, not just what it means and everything like that, it's so hard for people to slow down and stop and do that kind of work. When we stopped and did that with our purpose and our vision, and we spent a year on each one, and our purpose is, I don't know, 10 words long or something. Our vision is even shorter. We spent a year on each of those phrases so that we knew exactly what we meant, and that's work that is always really challenging to introduce and get everybody on board with, but then once you actually do it, there's years and years and years worth of value in having that debate upfront and taking that time upfront to do that definition work and everything like that. But it's hard.
Jodi Latuszek:
I was just going to add that the Gen Z'ers and the generations that follow, having authentic values means something to them, and they're about accountability to values. And so if you have values like professionalism, that's not going to mean anything to this next generation of workers, so all the more reason to have values that mean something, that resonate, that aren't boring. Yeah, it's really important.
Mike McFall:
Well, I think a couple things. There's a hack that EOS brought to us, which is in developing your core values, you should picture the employee that you would, what do they call, clone a million times over if you could, and then describe that employee in great detail, and in that you're probably getting pretty close to what your values are. Another exercise that I read about, I think it was last week, that I thought was a good idea, was to poll your employees on an annual basis in terms of which values they feel are most authentic and least authentic. And so they have to go through and give thought to which one of our values is the least authentic, which one is the second least authentic, and that's a difficult challenge, but at the end of the day, when you get those results, all of a sudden, that's pretty darn telling. Anyway. There was a couple of exercises in relation to values that I thought were pretty solid.
Jodi Latuszek:
So the first one have definitely used that with courts. I think we used it at the Supreme Court as well, and it really, nine times out of 10... It's pretty quick too.
Mike McFall:
It's pretty close. Yeah, I know. It's amazing.
Jodi Latuszek:
Yeah. Your second idea, I think Laura and I, you saw our eyes, we're up to no good now. I think that might be in our future.
Laura Eich:
We were making eyes at each other for sure.
Jodi Latuszek:
Don't worry, I'm not going to go and poll everybody and say, "Okay, which ones do you think those would be here?" Oh my goodness. That's a great one, Mike.
Laura Eich:
I think that's a brilliant idea, because we talk about our values quarterly at our quarterly meetings, and sometimes there's questions raised, but sometimes that's just one person's question, and then sometimes you find out that secretly 40 people are questioning the same thing, but we don't have a great way of aggregating that. I hope Jodi does go... Just go rogue and ask everybody.
Mike McFall:
Well, how about this? How about we ask each of you which one we're least authentically aligned with.
Laura Eich:
Of our own [inaudible 00:54:06]?
Mike McFall:
Yeah. I'll answer it too.
Jodi Latuszek:
Who's going to go first? Are we going to rock-paper-scissors? Are we going by Zodiac signs to bring it full circle?
Laura Eich:
I'll go first. I don't know if it's inauthentic though, but the one that popped into my head is live consciously. Like I said, I don't know if it's inauthentic or I don't know that we've done a good job describing what that one means, and that's such a... I mean, if I said that to my husband or my mom that one of our values is live consciously, I'm not sure either one of them would know what it means. So that one, I just think that one's hard to attach to. It's hard to reinforce. It's hard to model and compliment when someone's doing it and that kind of thing. So I think live consciously is maybe our least effective core value.
Mike McFall:
Yeah, I would say I think mine is, even though I love it and it's my favorite, I think kickass is somehow... Again, similar to what you're saying, Laura. I'm not sure people know what to do with that one. I mean, I think it's clear, but I think there's some question marks in our world about how to live up to kickass maybe.
Jodi Latuszek:
Mike, I'm in the kiss-ass... [inaudible 00:55:45] your company value. Oh my goodness.
Mike McFall:
Kiss ass.
Jodi Latuszek:
Kickass camp for the reason that I do think people don't know what to do with it, and in fact, I think sometimes we celebrate kickass as the person who works themselves to the bone, but that might mean you're not prioritizing your own wellness, that might mean you're not good at organizing work. I don't know. So there's all kinds of reasons you might be grinding yourself to bare bone there, and so that's not what we want because we think of people first and we want them to be well. And I think the idea, what we all agree with, I think, and what we all want to achieve is employees who kickass, meaning they do great work, they step up, they're a team player, all of those great things, but you don't have to do it at the expense of your wellbeing or your personal vitality or all the other things we want for people. So there's opportunity there. Replace it with kiss-ass. I don't know.
Laura Eich:
No.
Jodi Latuszek:
I like the Zappos one. What is it? Be weird. Be a little weird.
Laura Eich:
Be a little weird, I think, yeah.
Jodi Latuszek:
I move for be weird.
Laura Eich:
All right, I think we need to start wrapping up. Jodi, this is kind of a big one, but I'm curious what your hope is for the future of the American workplace.
Jodi Latuszek:
That is a really big one, Laura.
Laura Eich:
Yeah, that's right. Love to wait for the end for that one.
Jodi Latuszek:
Yeah. The future of the American workplace. Simple, put people first. Train leaders in MBA programs in colleges and community college. Even start in high school. Train people to lead with love and put people first, but teach them also, there's practical meaning behind that. There's things you can do and things you cannot do that will set you up to be that type of leader, and that alone will transform the American workplace greater than any other thing.
Laura Eich:
Oh, that was good.
Mike McFall:
Second-largest productivity hack since the microprocessor.
Jodi Latuszek:
Love.
Mike McFall:
Love.
Laura Eich:
Very cool. That seems like the perfect place to end. Jodi, thank you so much. I do feel like we have more to explore with you, so there's a good chance we're going to have you on here again sometime season two. We'll talk to you then. But just thank you so much for bringing your brilliant mind and your heart to the show today. It was so fun to talk to you for the last little bit.
Jodi Latuszek:
Ditto. It's always a pleasure.
Mike McFall:
Thanks, Jodi.
Jodi Latuszek:
Thanks guys.
Mike McFall:
Well, I got to say, there's so much there with Jodi, and I love hearing her think. She's got this amazing broad perspective on organizations that I love, and I don't think that way. I don't. And so I'm always deep diving down into some rabbit hole on something and getting all fired up, but she's got this levelness to her and she's able to keep the broad perspective so well, and I love that. I mean, it's a quality that I cherish in her. The people that bring stuff that you're terrible at? Oof. Yeah.
Laura Eich:
I mean, she's also this really fabulous personality mix of someone who legitimately loves the legal stuff and a truly legal process and black and white things as much as they can be black and white things, and still is always thinking of things in a really whimsical way. I find so much joy in her metaphors.
Mike McFall:
Yeah. She's not afraid to try the joke on. You know what I mean?
Laura Eich:
No.
Mike McFall:
Some work and some don't, but she's not scared to try it. I thought one of the more interesting components of that conversation, it was the observation that you made that may be the most progressive thing that Jodi does or brings to the organization, is this concept and idea of working as hard as she can to make everything work for as many people as possible, and that it's not like, "Hey, we think this is the right thing to do, so if you disagree, sorry, we're doing it anyway, and adjust," and that's not how she approaches it. So I thought that was a really cool call out on your part, and I think you're right about her. That's amazing.
Laura Eich:
Well, and it's something we didn't even get to dive into is the HR director before Jodi was me and I was very much the unqualified HR director who was just carrying it forward until we found someone properly qualified, but that was one of those... I remember when I was in the same position, I spent a lot of time trying to just come up with the coolest thing, and then we would do it, and sometimes it would work and sometimes everybody would love it, which was great, but then sometimes we would roll something out and we would find out that one person was super uncomfortable because we've tried to either blow open transparency or treat everybody kind of the same, which I always thought was the thing to do.
And Jodi has really taught me since she started is there's very functional ways to still do the progressive, cool thing that somehow still takes care of everybody and gives people a lot of autonomy, and that's a big one that I am glad she highlighted that too, is that she's a big believer that people should be able to have choice and so much employers, to protect themselves, take away choice because it eliminates risk., and instead she finds a way to eliminate risk and still give people choice. Oh, it's just cool.
Mike McFall:
Yeah, and we didn't go down the path further, but I presume had, it would've been a conversation that when you allow people choice, when you allow people to be adult, human beings weigh in on their own lives, they're more connected to the process, and that brings them more fulfillment in their role within the organization. And you think about how powerful HR is in that, and if you're running an HR department that's this militaristic, brutal top-down, which I think HR has been in most organizations traditionally anyway. Yeah, I think it's not a very nice place to live. But I think that's where we would've gone had we had her open that envelope a little bit further and show us.
Laura Eich:
I'm pretty sure we're going to have her on again sometime, because I also still want to explore more of the courts thing because that just feels like this total mystery to me that I want to understand because she spent a decade in it, and I feel like there's some stuff to learn there.
Mike McFall:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, imagine an organization full of lawyers-
Laura Eich:
And judges.
Mike McFall:
And judges. Holy smokes. There's nobody more powerful on the planet than a judge. Oh, God. Yeah, so I really enjoyed having Jodi, and she has this beautiful way of disarming people too. It's a bit of a superpower. Oftentimes, she's talking about stuff that if someone else were presenting and it would be dry and awkward and boring and whatever, and then all of a sudden Joey's presenting it and you're laughing.
Laura Eich:
You're laughing. I love that so much.
Mike McFall:
You're laughing not at the joke, but how dumb the joke was.
Laura Eich:
That too, yeah.
Mike McFall:
Not always. Some of the jokes are funny. Some of the jokes.
Laura Eich:
No, they are. All right. Well, everybody, if you enjoyed today, if you enjoyed laughing along and you want to follow more about what we're doing, the types of conversations we're having, you can find out more at loveandleadershippodcast.com. You can like and subscribe at wherever you find podcasts. Leave us a review even if you are interested. If you want to follow along more with Mike's journey, go to michaeljmcfall.com. If you want to follow along with the The Life You Love Laboratory, who's hosting this podcast, follow us on social media channels, @lifeyoulovelab. We'd love to have you follow along and join in the conversation over there. Mike, do we have anything else to tell people this week?
Mike McFall:
I do. I want you to know as you embark on your journey here, that of anyone I know who I would think is going to be the most spectacular parent, it's you.
Laura Eich:
Oh my. That's too nice.
Mike McFall:
And I'm so happy for you and Steven, and I just can't wait. I can't wait to hear about it. And here I'm tearing up, but I wish you the very, very best.
Laura Eich:
Thank you so much. I'm going to miss you.
Mike McFall:
Yeah, me too. This has been fun. I've enjoyed this time together, getting to hack through stuff.
Laura Eich:
When I get back, we've got lots more to do with season two. It'll be great.
Mike McFall:
Well, you promised me 100 episodes, so I don't know, we're 10 in, so we got 90 more to go.
Laura Eich:
We got a ways to go, a few more conversations to have.
Mike McFall:
All right. Well, my very best. I love you and I know that it's going to be an amazing, amazing journey for the two of you. I can't wait to hear about it.
Laura Eich:
Thank you so much. And everybody else, we'll talk to you soon.