In this Season 2 premiere, Laura & Mike talk about everything that's changed since the last season ended, as well as new dreams for this season of the Love in Leadership podcast!
Welcome back to Love in Leadership! In the season two premiere, Laura and Mike dive into how BIGGBY® COFFEE is doubling down on leadership rooted in love and personal growth. They discuss recent shifts, from Mike’s return to a day-to-day focus to Laura’s expanded role that includes leading the BIGGBY COFFEE Operations team as well as the Life You Love Laboratory™, a leadership incubator designed to foster personal and professional development. Reflecting on past challenges, such as integrating external hires with BIGGBY®’s unique culture, they share how these lessons have shaped a stronger, more aligned vision for the company.
Looking ahead, Mike and Laura reveal their plans for the LoveJoy Retreat Center, designed to deepen connections and encourage leadership growth. They also share their vision for the podcast, a restorative, people-first workplace, and an exciting live podcast recording at the 2024 BIGGBY® Nation Summit, plus so much more! Packed with insights on leadership, culture, and leading with heart, this episode is not to be missed!
Key Points From This Episode:
Quotes:
“[The new leaders] all brought their understanding of what a culture should be – We didn't powerfully introduce them to our culture – What should have happened was – there should have been an amalgamation of all of that into something new that's even better and more powerful.” — @MikeJMcFall[0:06:26]
“It's so powerful to get people out of their norm, out of their comfort zone, and into a place where you can just be: – be a person, be together, be vulnerable, and be authentic.” — Laura Eich [0:19:51]
“[BIGGBY®’s] differentiator is going to continue to be a people-centric company, where [people are] creating your cup of coffee, greeting you at the window, probably by name, and asking about your kids – That's our biggest difference maker in the world.” — Laura Eich [0:22:09]
“The big fantasy for [this podcast] is that we are able to compel people to be powerful in their own lives and make decisions to work for employers who are supporting them in their development.” — @MikeJMcFall[0:28:36]
“It doesn't have to be that work leaves you worse than it found you. It can leave you better than it found you.” — Laura Eich [0:31:24]
RESOURCES:
[0:00:07] Laura Eich: Welcome to Love in Leadership, the podcast where we explore what happens if you bring a little or a lot of love into the workspace. My name is Laura Eich and I am joined as always by the one and only, Mike McFall. Mike, how you doing?
[0:00:19] Mike McFall: Wonderful, Laura. Good to see you.
[0:00:21] Laura Eich: Good to see you. Welcome to season two.
[0:00:24] Mike McFall: We did it. We got to season two.
[0:00:25] Laura Eich: They're letting us do it again.
[0:00:28] Mike McFall: Yay. You can't have season 40 without season two.
[0:00:30] Laura Eich: It's true, and we've learned a lot. I think we are going to talk a little bit about that today. But before we jump into some of our hopes and dreams for season two, I just want to catch up a little and see what's been going on in your world. Talk about a little bit what's been happening in my world. What's happening in life right now? What's the good stuff? What are the challenges? What's exciting?
[0:00:50] Mike McFall: Yes. Yes. Cool. I want to talk about you though. That's more interesting. Well, there's been a lot of change at BIGGBY® in the last three, four months, and we're in the midst of all of that. We're recalibrating, readjusting, figuring out what new relationships look like, how to support each other, and all of that. So, I am getting more active in the business than I have been for some time.
[0:01:16] Laura Eich: Yes, it's been fun.
[0:01:17] Mike McFall: Yes, it is fun. I mean, I'm in weekly meetings, and standard sort of like the standard operational flow, which I haven't been for a while. I guess we can get into some of that at some point, maybe as to why. But also, I'm super excited about your role, and what you transitioned into with your team and what you've taken on. Can you share it or you want me to share it?
[0:01:39] Laura Eich: No, I got it.
[0:01:41] Mike McFall: I said, you share.
[0:01:41] Laura Eich: I got it. A couple of months ago, we really had a moment of realization, reckoning, understanding that something that we had been doing, which was keeping The Life You Love Laboratory™ team in its own little bubble, wasn't working for us anymore. It's the people and leadership incubator group for the company, and the goal was incubate the ideas, develop the ideas, and then insert them into the operational system. It was that piece that just wasn't working for us anymore. So, we, over the last couple of months, and still, we are mid this work, obviously, but we are merging together the idea of traditional franchise operations with the Life You Love Laboratory™ Group.
We still have LifeLab™. We still have this incubator and idea development team that's happening, but we're working directly alongside now with the actual folks that write the operational system for our company. We just reduced the friction, reduced the barriers, tried to make it a little bit smoother between idea, and implementation, and it's been a lot of fun. So, I have had the honor of stepping in to oversee both of those teams now. My technical title is the vice president of operations, but I'm never not going to be the chief purpose officer in my mind either. So, I'm just going to hold on to that forever. We've been figuring this out.
[0:03:04] Mike McFall: Well, and the leader of LifeLab™.
[0:03:06] Laura Eich: And leader of LifeLab™. Yes, it's all still part of it. I've added. I haven't really taken anything away, which has its own challenges in itself, but it's been a lot of fun to step back into the world of operations. That's where I started in our company. So, coming back into the world of the traditional, beautiful, efficient operation has been so much fun. It's really good people.
[0:03:28] Mike McFall: Yes, it's amazing.
[0:03:29] Laura Eich: Well, you talk more about your change, because first of all, when people hear about a CEO, A, I don't know that they know what that really means, because I don't really know if anyone knows what it means to be a CEO, except for CEOs that are doing it. But can you talk about, you said you're stepping back into the business. Where were you? What were you doing?
[0:03:50] Mike McFall: Well, where were you?
[0:03:53] Laura Eich: I've been here, man. Where you've been?
[0:03:55] Mike McFall: I heard that LifeLab™ used to be just blowing unicorns and rainbows into the air.
[0:03:59] Laura Eich: Yes, that's what we were doing. We were talking about our feelings, and singing Kumbaya.
[0:04:05] Mike McFall: Yes. As the CEO of this company, what my function is – we follow the EOS model. So, CEO and visionary are part and parcel. In EOS, you're considered the visionary, and sort of traditional parlance, you're CEO. You're just really responsible for three things. One is strategic thinking, strategic engagement, meaning you're thinking about the business from five to seven, to ten years out. Secondly, you're responsible for the key relationships in the organization.
Then, third, you're responsible for the culture. So, we were doing that, and we were doing it at – when I say we, it's Bob and I. We were doing it from what I would consider to be arm's length and we were still maintaining key relationships, of course. We still were definitely involved in strategic thinking, no problem. You obviously do that from arm's length. Then, most of the relationships that we were responsible for were not sort of in the minutiae, but there was this other thing called culture. That was something that we tried to manage from arm's length, meaning, not being involved in weekly management meetings, not being involved in so much of the nuts and bolts of the day-to-day.
In the end, Bob and I agreed that we feel like we let that slip a little bit too much and that we needed to bring back some, and get more involved to sort of encourage the organization to move in certain directions that we believed were important, that may have slipped to some degree. That was really the impetus behind coming back within the organization to try to bring some more of the things that – the problem here is, here is the mistake we made.
We brought in outside leadership, what I would call powerful outside leadership, people that are incredibly experienced and veterans, for lack of a better term. They come with all of their previous culture and they bring that into your world, which is what they're supposed to do. The issue being, though, that pretty much our whole leadership team, with the exception of you, was all brand-new people. So, they all brought their understanding of what a culture should be. What we didn't do was, we didn't powerfully introduce them to our culture. That's what we needed to do.
I think that was a mistake on our part because what should have happened was the new leadership team should have brought all of their stuff. We should have brought all of our stuff, and there should have been some amalgamation of all of that into something new that's even better and more powerful. But instead, when we left this big void, then there wasn't a whole lot to build it around. So, so much of what we had built over 25 years was just had drifted away. That's what I'm doing and we have great people in place. I’m invigorated to be back, involved in things that – I had a meeting today with people about our legal strategy, so nuts and bolts of a couple of contracts.
[0:07:30] Laura Eich: Cool.
[0:07:30] Mike McFall: It's cool. Anyway, that's why I brought it back or why I'm reentering the day-to-day. It's all about the culture.
[0:07:37] Laura Eich: Yes. It's hard to say if any of this stuff was a mistake, because I think we've been talking about this a little bit lately with LifeLab™. LifeLab™ was really born out of operations, and we pulled it out and it's like, was that a mistake to pull it completely out of operations? I can't say, because I think we've done so much good work and it's really only been in the last year that that work was being called out as confusing, that it was separate. Even the perception that it was separate because we didn't actually go anywhere, like we're still here, we're still part of the company, we've still been involved in a lot and intricately connected. But it is different than actually being part of the operational creation system. So, it's hard to say if any of these were a mistake. Was it a mistake that you guys pulled out, or was that what you needed to do to learn some lesson?
[0:08:25] Mike McFall: That's like the sort of rainbows and unicorns' answer.
[0:08:28] Laura Eich: Well, I am who I am.
[0:08:33] Mike McFall: I love you for it. I am who I am, and I like to call things mistakes. It's okay. For me, anyway, I think it's okay for me to say I made a mistake. I believe this was a mistake now, the way we did it, the way we withdrew from the leadership team in the first year or two. I think we should have been more involved. The LifeLab™ answer, I do think it's a little more complicated, but I think it was kind of a mistake to make it its own. But remember when we're going to make it its own company, and they were – anyway. I understand your rainbows and unicorns' approach to it.
[0:09:05] Laura Eich: Thank you.
[0:09:05] Mike McFall: Your answer is more appropriate for your situation than maybe mine, I think.
[0:09:10] Laura Eich: Yes. No, it's fine. Either way, I'm glad, I'm excited about our new time. We get to spend more time together now, which is really exciting. Having your influence on – you mentioned that we had all these leaders from the outside that are exceptional, and they are, they are brilliant, they're wonderful human beings. But it did occasionally feel like I was a little alone holding on to the tendrils of BIGGBY® history that needed to be brought to the table and that kind of thing, without feeling like I was squashing ideas or squashing the good things that they were bringing in and are bringing into the organization. I think we're in a great spot.
[0:09:45] Mike McFall: It's an incredibly delicate balance. I mean, you think about, if you have a mature leadership team, you might transition a leader every two years or something, out of a six- or seven-member team. You might transition out a member, bring in a new member every two years, somebody retires, somebody takes a different job, somebody, whatever. But we created a leadership team from scratch in a matter of two, three years. Think of that. It's kind of a crazy proposition. All of a sudden, you go from not having a C-suite to having a C-suite. That's complicated.
[0:10:18] Laura Eich: Yes. I wonder – if you were talking to someone else, if you were coaching another CEO, maybe going through the same sort of growth cycle experience that we've been in, would you recommend what we've done as far as creating a team from scratch? I know you've already talked about the part about you and Bob pulling out, but what about the actual starting-from-scratch leadership team creation process? Would you recommend that? Is that a thing you teach in your class?
[0:10:45] Mike McFall: Thank gosh I didn't have to teach leadership or management. I teach entrepreneurship, which is kind of a fuzzy subject. It is just a whole bunch of fun. But I would say that we needed to, but I would do it differently. How I would do it differently was, Bob and I meddled to a large degree in the first couple of hires that we shouldn't have. That was so natural though, right? Here we are. We're talking about bringing on these incredibly important, powerful leaders from the outside world into our organization, the organization we've run for 25 years. But I remember, we realized it was a mistake.
So then, there was the hire of Erin. We hired Erin as our CFO and I never talked to her. I remember telling some people in my YPO forum that we did that and they didn't believe me. They didn't believe that I would have hired a CFO inside of our company that I never even interviewed, but we needed to give John that authority. We needed to give John. So, I would change that. I would let him hire the entire team from scratch. I think that that was – there's my word again, that was a mistake that I would change.
[0:11:57] Laura Eich: But it has yielded a very strong team. So, very recently, we just got off of a retreat where we retreated with this leadership team. You were there as well, which was so awesome. I could just feel the cultural rightness. Everyone coming to the table with such big hearts, and so much care, and love, and intelligence, and brilliance, and care for what happens next with our company, and all of our franchise owners, and everything. That retreat felt so good. We didn't get to talk after, I don't think.
[0:12:28] Mike McFall: No, because you got sick.
[0:12:29] Laura Eich: I got sick. That's true.
[0:12:31] Mike McFall: I reached out to you to debrief and you were like, "Ugh, got cold."
[0:12:33] Laura Eich: I'm dead. So yes, what did you think after the retreat?
[0:12:39] Mike McFall: I thought it was a great couple of days. I saw people's natural tendencies, natural strengths, and I thought they were great, and I love that. I saw people bringing themselves to the group in a way that was healthy. I thought it was highly authentic. I thought people were really bringing what they felt and what they thought, and that was great. I mean, they were bringing shit that wasn't easy. I mean, talking about our rewriting our values series.
[0:13:12] Laura Eich: Sneak peek, everybody.
[0:13:14] Mike McFall: What's amazing about that is that I'm in the middle of this book, Beyond High Performance. It's like, in that morning that that stuff was proposed, I read in that book that senior leaders, the company needs to reflect the culture of the leadership team as it is today, not what it was 40 years ago. It's like, "Oh, that's what we have to do."
[0:13:33] Laura Eich: Yes. That's maybe what we haven't kept up with doing.
[0:13:37] Mike McFall: I think that might be true, yes.
[0:13:39] Laura Eich: Yes. That might be a mistake we've made. The season two opener is just owning up to all of our mistakes in the last couple of years.
[0:13:47] Mike McFall: Yes. There's been a lot of great stuff too. I mean, for sure. There's so much that – have we not done it the way we did it, then we wouldn't be in the place we are today. So, cool, right? I can always take that approach. But I wonder, have we done it a little bit differently, could we've gotten here quicker?
[0:14:03] Laura Eich: Yes, I always have that question in my mind, but it's true. I think in general, looking at our company, looking at the leadership team, having you be there, everything feels really good and positive right now, which is so exciting, because it hasn't always felt like that for the last few years. It felt a little complicated. Still like we were putting all the puzzle pieces together, and I feel like we have the puzzle, and the puzzle makes a proper picture, and the picture is beautiful. It's getting me very excited for work every day. So, take us back.
You wrote a book called Grind, it's beautiful. You wrote a book called Grow, with a really fabulous forward written by yours truly, which of course we don't need to rewrite. But tell us what you were thinking yesterday versus what you're thinking today and beyond.
[0:14:48] Mike McFall: Yes. The original project was four books, and it was going to be from concept to cash flow. From the day you commit to the concept to – that was going to be a book on business startup. Then, book two is going to be a book called Grow, which was going to be, how to take your business from your first day of cash flow to thriving. That was going to be a book on leadership, of building a team, of supporting the business in getting to the point where it was profitable, and returning the way it should, and good to its people, and a great culture, and understanding your purpose, having a great vision in place. These things that a mature organization has in place.
Then, book three was going to be called Guide, which was going to be from that moment through into where the founders, Bob and I are irrelevant. That would be about building a leadership team, getting a board structure in place, so that we don't have to be involved in the company anymore and the company will continue to thrive. Book three is going to be called Guide book, four is going to be called Grace. Book four was going to be about legacy. Okay, cool. You've built a great company, it's now sustainable, you don't have to be involved anymore. Now, what are you going to do to improve the human condition? That was going to be book four, Grace.
So, I'm struggling with it, because I didn't get into any of the stuff yet around transitioning to a leadership team, transitioning to a board, sort of fiduciary board, managing the business, or leading the business. I didn't get into any of that stuff or any of the, I didn't go deep on anything in relation to innovation, and diversity. They're really important things to become a truly, what I would call sustainable business, regenerative business. I didn't get into any of that in Grow.
[0:16:49] Laura Eich: So, maybe Grow doesn't need rewriting, but maybe Guide still does.
[0:16:54] Mike McFall: Maybe.
[0:16:55] Laura Eich: Okay. That's exciting.
[0:16:56] Mike McFall: Yes. I thought you were asking maybe was, did we secure a property for our leadership retreat?
[0:17:04] Laura Eich: I didn't ask that, but hey, Mike, did we secure a property for our leadership retreat?
[0:17:09] Mike McFall: We did, Laura, and I can't wait to get y'all involved in it. Like two weeks ago, it's like brand new.
[0:17:15] Laura Eich: It's like really brand new. I guess we're telling the world now, which I didn't know if we were doing that yet or not.
[0:17:19] Mike McFall: Yes. Why not?
[0:17:20] Laura Eich: Okay, great.
[0:17:21] Mike McFall: So, that's news.
[0:17:22] Laura Eich: That's big news. Will you describe Love Joy a little bit more?
[0:17:28] Mike McFall: Yes. Well, let me first say this concept of a leadership retreat for BIGGBY® Coffee has been in the works for a decade. You remember many, many years ago, us working on it. You, and I, and Bree, and Bob working on this.
[0:17:40] Laura Eich: We have toured many very sketchy properties in the State of Michigan trying to find it.
[0:17:45] Mike McFall: Yes. This one, like everything else that seems in my life, this one just appeared like magically. Like Nathan Havey appeared magically, Bob Fish appeared magically, Veta appeared magically. This property appeared magically. I could keep going on the magically stuff. There's a lot of magic. Yes, so we ended up securing it. It's in Linden, Michigan, which is kind of partway between here, it's about 45 minutes from here, and 45 minutes from Lansing. It's near Fenton if you don't know where Linden is. It's 40 acres, it's on a lake, a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful lake. I don't even know how to describe how cool it is. It's like the coolest property. We're going to be able to do so much with it. We have tons of walking paths and trails. We've got the lake, obviously, to have fun in. We have this barn that's crazy cool.
[0:18:36] Laura Eich: It's so pretty.
[0:18:38] Mike McFall: To have meetings in and stuff.
[0:18:40] Laura Eich: Just to paint a little bit of the picture, like Mike said, about 10 years ago, we started something called the Leadership Forum at BIGGBY®, and it was called the Deluca Forum, inspired by the founder of Subway.
[0:18:51] Mike McFall: By the way, we're having a Deluca Forum reunion there the first week in November.
[0:18:55] Laura Eich: Oh, perfect. Can we talk about that date? Because I might be at Walt Disney World during that date, and I would really like to be at that reunion.
[0:19:03] Mike McFall: Who said you were invited?
[0:19:04] Laura Eich: I'm part of the original Deluca Forum, Michael James McFall.
[0:19:11] Mike McFall: We've got to get with the group because they're ironing out that date. Anyway, we'll work on it.
[0:19:15] Laura Eich: Anyway, we'll talk about this later. But yes, we went on this original forum, it was called the Deluca Forum. The magic of it was taking all of these business folks who have something in common. The thing we all have in common is BIGGBY® Coffee, and loving people, and loving our coffee, and loving each other. We took us out into the woods, which sounds very strange, but we had just some experiential learning days in the woods with each other. It was so impactful for everyone, that several of us left that retreat saying, "We need a way to recreate this, and recreate it for ourselves, because it's so powerful." It's so powerful to get people out of their norm, and out of their comfort zone, and into a place where you can just be, and just be a person, and be together, and be vulnerable, and be authentic.
We've been trying to figure out how to make this happen for so many years and gotten really close a couple of times, but it's finally time, and we're going to turn Love Joy into this retreat center where we hope to not just impact BIGGBY® leaders and franchise owners. But I know you've got a dream for baristas filling the lawn, doing yoga kind of thing together. We've got some big dreams for this place, so that's going to be just a lot of fun to develop over the next however many years or next decade.
[0:20:31] Mike McFall: Yes, super excited about it.
[0:20:35] Laura Eich: And it is beautiful, and the barn happens to also smell good, because I think people hear barn and they think it's where cows lived, nope. This is like a fresh, beautiful, smells like cedar when you walk in kind of barn. It's just amazing. So, very exciting. Any other exciting – I know that something on my horizon is BIGGBY® Nation Summit. BIGGBY® Nation Summit is coming. Are you ready?
[0:20:57] Mike McFall: I'm in denial.
[0:20:58] Laura Eich: No. You're in denial.
[0:21:00] Mike McFall: I'm in total denial.
[0:21:02] Laura Eich: I'm not. I'm deep underwater though, for trying to prep for it. Maybe denial would be better.
[0:21:10] Mike McFall: I actually thought about the keynote this morning for a few minutes.
[0:21:14] Laura Eich: Do you have the hook? Do you have the inspiration?
[0:21:15] Mike McFall: I think so.
[0:21:16] Laura Eich: Okay. You want to give us a sneak peek at all?
[0:21:20] Mike McFall: I don't know exactly. I got to get it framed up enough to present it to you, and a few other people to see if it's about right. But the concept I think is, "Hey, our biggest problem is we have declining customer accounts in the stores."
[0:21:36] Laura Eich: True.
[0:21:36] Mike McFall: How do you change that? You change that through providing the customer an extraordinary experience. Then, I'm going to spend a half hour talking about how to do that.
[0:21:46] Laura Eich: Awesome. That sounds right. I was just with Rita and Erin in preparation for our BIGGBY® Nation Summit presentation. The term coffee wars kept coming up. There's a pretty intense war going on to win the customer to your concept kind of thing. I'm a full believer that, at least for BIGGBY®, our differentiator is going to continue to be a people-centric company, where there are people creating your cup of coffee, greeting you at the window, probably by name, and asking about your kids, and asking about their soccer game that they had the night before, and everything like that. I think that's our biggest difference maker in the world.
[0:22:28] Mike McFall: Yes. Like, there's some real simple fundamentals that we've been leaning on for 30 years. Sometimes, I feel like we get away from the fundamentals, and we get into a whole bunch of conversations around things that are fairly complicated, and really truly how we're going to build this business is through the customer walking in and having an extraordinary experience. How we do that is through some fundamental systems that are in place, that are really awesome. I'm going to talk about perk, I'm going to talk about position priorities, I'm going to talk about the same things again, because that's the answer, right?
[0:23:07] Laura Eich: Yes, back to basics.
[0:23:09] Mike McFall: Yep, that's my flow. I'm about four bullet points. That's kind of what I did last year, is I had four bullet points, and I went up there, and I just talked. So, we'll see. I'm going to probably try to build that out a little bit more in more detail than I did last year.
[0:23:22] Laura Eich: You nailed it last year when you went somewhat from milk coffee. I remember you being very nervous about that, but you nailed it.
[0:23:29] Mike McFall: That's a feeling that you can't really duplicate. Because most people go up and are going to get in front of 700 people, and they've got it pretty well scripted.
[0:23:38] Laura Eich: Yes. You know I have a full script.
[0:23:43] Mike McFall: Generally, they have a full script, and they're going to go up, and they're going to nail the script. I mean, I went up there without anything, and that was intense. Like that is the moment of like –
[0:23:53] Laura Eich: It's cool, though.
[0:23:54] Mike McFall: – the world goes, whoop.
[0:23:56] Laura Eich: Yep, a little tunnel vision. Yes, it's very exciting. Well, I'm excited to see what does turn into. We've got eight days to figure out what we're going to say on these –
[0:24:05] Mike McFall: I'm going to spend six of them in Germany.
[0:24:06] Laura Eich: Yes, no big deal. Actually, will you talk about that? I wasn't necessarily going to ask about the Germany trip, but it's just so cool what you're doing.
[0:24:16] Mike McFall: Yes, real quick. When I was 15, I went on a boat trip called Class of Float. It was on a 150-foot barquentine, square rig tall ship. I lived on it for my junior year of high school. It was great. I mean, it was great. About a year ago, we started talking to my son about whether he'd be interested. We wanted him to do it for his senior year of high school. That was kind of the thinking. He didn't want to leave for his senior year, so then we approached him and we presented it to him as an option for his gap year, he accepted it and he wants to do it. He's super excited. So, he's going to go on the very same program I went on 35 years ago, and he's going to start in Europe, and they're going to sail down the west coast of Africa. They're going to sail across to South America, sail at the eastern seaboard of South America and North America, and cross the top of the Atlantic. Anyway, it's this big thing, but he's going to spend his entire year from next week, until May, end of May on this boat.
[0:25:11] Laura Eich: So cool. Do you have the ability to talk to him while he's there?
[0:25:15] Mike McFall: Well, I mean, sort of. They're going to be like on – when they're out at sea, we won't, no. In port, with Wi-Fi, but we're not getting him a cellular data program. So, that's purposeful. I don't want him doing that.
[0:25:30] Laura Eich: Wanting to just sort of be free and explore.
[0:25:33] Mike McFall: As best you can. I mean, he'll still be connected with Wi-Fi and whatever. But it's one of these deals where it's like, no, like I kind of want him going and not talking to me, and not calling because I want him to – he's 18 years old, like go do it, go do your thing.
[0:25:47] Laura Eich: I know. I can't imagine that at the moment. I have a nine-month-old though.
[0:25:54] Mike McFall: You will, or maybe you wouldn't. But it's kind of this thing where I have people that I know who have their 18-year-old kids on Find My, and they know where their kids are 24/7. I'm like, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life. You're going to track your kid, your 18-year-old kid 24/7? Like, no. My God, let the kid –
[0:26:12] Laura Eich: Admittedly, my mom and I have each other, so that we can always find each other.
[0:26:18] Mike McFall: I guess if you consent. I get the safety argument, but it's a little different. You're a grown adult, isn't it? Anyway, I'm on a rant.
[0:26:30] Laura Eich: It's all good. I think it's fun. I can be like, "What are you doing at the grocery store? Can you grab me this?" or whatever. It's kind of fun. Okay. BNS, something else I wanted – I'm going to come back to BIGGBY® Nation Summit, because something else that has to do with this here podcast that we're doing is, we're doing a live show.
[0:26:47] Mike McFall: I know. So cool.
[0:26:49] Laura Eich: How do we feel about that? How do you feel about that?
[0:26:53] Mike McFall: I feel like this is a live show. I do. When I sit here, and I spend time with you, I don't think it's going to feel a lot different than what we're doing right here.
[0:27:01] Laura Eich: I hope so. But there will be some unknown amount of eyeballs on us while we're doing this, which somehow, it's sort of like when you have to type in front of people, and all of a sudden, your typing ability goes away. Do you not have that? Is this not a fear?
[0:27:13] Mike McFall: No.
[0:27:13] Laura Eich: Oh my gosh. Okay. No, I think it's going to be great. It's going to be so much fun because we will have, like I said, a room full of people that we know who may or may not want to weigh in on a few things we have to say about this here podcast world. So, that's going to be a lot of fun, but it's going to be an adventure.
[0:27:28] Mike McFall: Yes. No, I'm excited. I'm glad we decided to do that. I made us commit to 99 episodes. No, 100 episodes.
[0:27:35] Laura Eich: 100 episodes.
[0:27:36] Mike McFall: If you're going to do one, we're going to do 100. I think that the live episode is a cool concept. I would love to get this thing to the point where we could go to a remote market and do a live thing with people, and get Q&As going, and so on. I think that would be really, really fun. We've got to get our content ironed out so much stronger and better, and we will. I believe we will. It's going to be exciting.
[0:28:02] Laura Eich: Yes, I agree. I think we should spend a few minutes talking about that. I think it's interesting to learn how people are thinking about their own podcasts. I know it's a little bit meta, but I'd love for us to talk about some of our – not just hopes and dreams for season two, though. I think we do have some things we're trying to do differently for season two, but in the long run, what do we hope for this podcast? How can people who are listening maybe help us think through the future of – we're trying to do something good here. So, how can we do more good, better? If that sentence made sense.
[0:28:36] Mike McFall: I mean, the big fantasy for me, the big one, is that we are able to compel people to be powerful in their own lives, and make decisions to work for employers who are supporting them in their development. That it's almost like a movement of sorts. If the employee goes to work and says, "I'm not interested in this being a financial transaction anymore. No, I'm not going to give my heart and soul in 50 hours a week to you for $12.85. Then, that I want more out of my time here. I want this to be a place that encourages me to thrive, and brings me resources, and supports me in my personal development."
To start to have that conversation in the world. The evolution was back in the labor movement, unions came to be because employers could essentially hurt their employees, and employees worked in horribly dangerous conditions, and so on. The labor unions were like, "Nope, we're not going to do that anymore." Then, labor unions got into fair compensation, and benefits, and so on. So cool, that's great. I mean, that’s a big step forward.
Then, in the most recent couple of decades, we've gotten into wellness, where companies are actually bringing resources to their employees, and that's good as well. My dream would be that, we go a step further, and that is to actually engage in the help me.
[0:30:13] Laura Eich: Restorative is my word.
[0:30:14] Mike McFall: Yes.
[0:30:16] Laura Eich: Restorative, yes.
[0:30:17] Mike McFall: That organizations are restorative, and that organizations are – the purpose and idea is for people to come to work and get engaged in developing personally, which in turn develops in them as a more powerful employee, but develops them personally so that they can thrive in the world and so on. It's not just about showing up doing a job, getting paid, and going home. That's my dream, is to start that conversation.
[0:30:44] Laura Eich: Yes, exactly. That's what we're here doing. I always – I shortened that down to like, leave people better than we found them, because I think if we all have to go to work, which we do. Like everyone has a bill to pay or many bills to pay, which means we have to get some form of income. Whether that be that you're a business owner, or that you're an employee of a business owner, or some other type of employee getting a paycheck somehow. It's so backwards to me, and we're having to work backwards, making that obligation out of life, not hurt people. It's just that simple, it's so complicated, because there is a history that we're sort of fighting against, but it doesn't have to be that work leaves you worse than it found you. It can leave you better than it found you.
Some of that is on the onus of the employee, some of that is on the onus of the employee finding the right thing for them. Because like if you try to fit a square peg in a round hole, that's never going to work, that's never going to reach that point that we're talking about of being restorative, and maybe being fulfilling, and having your cup overflow. But mostly, it's on the responsibility of the workplace. All of the workplaces, our own included, are figuring out how to do this better. Because, I also think the employee expectation has risen over the last few years, to where it's – maybe not to the point where it actually expects a workplace to be restorative,
but it expects a workplace not to harm them, I think. Or we're getting closer to that expectation being normal.
[0:32:13] Mike McFall: Yes. I don't think the workplace is ever going to do it until the employee demands it.
[0:32:22] Laura Eich: Demands it. Absolutely.
[0:32:24] Mike McFall: That's the rub, right? I mean, that case study I did where it was with a program, an MBA program, and they went through and reviewed all of our LifeLab™ stuff. I spent two class periods with them, so six hours on two separate days. We broke up into 20 groups of three and they dove into all of it. They basically came back and said, “Well” – by the way, this was Harvard. This is a sophisticated group.
[0:32:52] Laura Eich: No schleps.
[0:32:54] Mike McFall: They came back, and they said, "If you can't prove how this is going to make the franchise owner more money, it doesn't matter. It won't work." I was like, "Well." I mean, it pissed me off at first. I was like, "Really?" You know what, what they're saying is, is until the owner, the owner of the business feels that they are missing out on an opportunity for themselves by not creating this culture, it probably won't happen. It's kind of a sad commentary in some ways. But at the same time, I think there's some truth to it.
[0:33:33] Laura Eich: Yes. I don't even know if it's sad. It's more just, when someone's in survival mode, which I bet a significant number of franchise owners are, and a bunch of business owners are in the world. You have that lizard brain thing going on that Jodi always talks about, where you just can't think of something more than surviving. So, we have to show them that you have to actually think about this in order to get yourself out of survival mode. By the way, it will also dramatically benefit your employees and actually will create a stronger future because people will want to work for you, and all the beautiful things that we've seen happen and the franchise owners do put their people first and other business owners.
That's why we wanted to do this podcast because we wanted to bring those stories together and bring together people who don't just agree with us. Which actually is kind of one of our hopes for season two, and probably a little bit beyond is, I do sometimes fear we're living in an echo chamber of – I know you and I agree on all this stuff, and that's great, that's why we're doing this. Sometimes we bring in people who we know agree with this too, but I'd love to have some maybe more challenging perspectives brought to the table and figure out what the challenges are there. Because there's probably things that we aren't considering because our view is so much BIGGBY® Coffee, and the people of BIGGBY® Coffee who automatically just have certain value things in common, like loving our people, and loving our coffee, and our customers, and our employees, and everything like that. There's a lot of love in BIGGBY® Coffee automatically. I hope we bring in a few maybe contrarian voices this season.
[0:35:10] Mike McFall: I want to as well. That was important to me, and we talked about it, and it was important to you. I want to be able to have that conversation in an incredibly respectful way. It's one of the things that has rubbed me the wrong way by some of the, like the Conscious Capitalism Movement, and so on. Are we really going to take somebody that's built some incredible business and like make them feel shitty about it? No, like they've done incredible stuff in the world, and they employ X number of people, which is a big deal, and so on.
The other thing, so one is, is I do think it starts with the employee. I mean, at the end of the day. The other thing though is, is that when you create these environments where people are thriving personally. Then, they come together, you end up with what they call this pod of superheroes. This pod of superheroes can accomplish extraordinary things. In the business, when you have these pods of superheroes throughout your organization, the business is going to thrive. I believe thrive beyond what you could have ever dreamed about or expected.
[0:36:12] Laura Eich: Absolutely, yes.
[0:36:13] Mike McFall: Originally. I think we do have a lot of that going on inside of BIGGBY®, with so many people that are performing at extraordinary levels, whether that be franchise owners, store level managers, and leaders, people at the home office. It's pretty incredible.
With the contrarian view, I don't think anybody's going to come out here and say people aren't important, or that I don't believe in people thriving. I mean, I think – it's more of like, "Well, I want to explore with them how they do it, that might be different than how we think about doing it, that we can learn from them in relation to how they think about it in terms of supporting their people, and being good to their people, and bringing their people resources to grow and thrive.
[0:36:58] Laura Eich: Right. I think it was actually at dinner the other night when we were on the retreat, I was talking with Rita, our CMO. She was referencing about – she worked at PepsiCo back in the day, and she loved her time with Pepsi. She talks about how the culture was completely different than what we imagine a healthy workplace culture to be. But for her, and for that moment in her life, and for the style of work she was looking for at that time, it was exactly the right thing for her, for that period of time, and that kind of thing.
I think that's an important element of it too, is there are so many different ways that people could be caring for people, and they're not all going to look the same as how we care for people at GoDev, or even within our stores. Those are all okay too. I think the key is that we need to bring together all the voices. We need to keep growing this community so that it isn't just the – I think when we talk about this, people do sometimes hear this like, "We have a stress-free environment, and everyone just walks around and gives hugs and loves each other, and blah, blah, blah." It's like, “No, man. We actually have a pretty stressful environment all the time. We're always changing. We're always trying to do more, and better, and harder, and faster and more efficient."
[0:38:11] Mike McFall: There's a shitload of work that's getting on.
[0:38:13] Laura Eich: Oh my gosh.
[0:38:15] Mike McFall: Yes. No, that's a good point. It's a good point.
[0:38:17] Laura Eich: There's just different styles.
[0:38:19] Mike McFall: Yes. I think that there's sports analogies here that work, and the teams that perform at the highest levels, it is this – I mean, oftentimes, it is this chemistry that they talk about within the team, within the locker room, and so on. But these players are, they're getting beat up to get this done, but they do it for each other. They do it to support each other. That ultimately at the end of the day is what you want to try to create inside of an organization too, is a piece of that. They were here doing this together. I think in a lot of ways, even in unhealthy cultures, I do think that people come together to support each other as individuals in their worth.
[0:38:58] Laura Eich: Yep, I think so too. I think very few people in the world are not supportive, and loving, and caring of other people in their own way. I think most people generally care about one another, which is a good thing, I think. So, it's for season two, we're going to get some different kinds of voices on. We're also probably going to have a couple of BIGGBY® voices, hear a couple of BIGGBY® stories as well. We're going to do a live show, see how that goes, see what happens. We'll find out pretty soon here. Any other dreams for season two?
[0:39:29] Mike McFall: No, those are cool. We've broadened our list and we're doing a live show. I think that's cool. I'd like to get a little sharper. You know what I mean? I want to ask the hard questions. I mean, that's it. You asked me what my dreams are. I just want it to be a little bit more like, if somebody says something that doesn't make sense, I want to point it out. I just want to be a little bolder in engaging people and calling out stuff that I see or hear that doesn't make sense.
[0:39:57] Laura Eich: That's my word for this year is bolder. That's fun. Be bolder.
[0:40:00] Mike McFall: For the whole year for you?
[0:40:02] Laura Eich: For me, yes.
[0:40:03] Mike McFall: You need to be bolder?
[0:40:05] Laura Eich: Yeah.
[0:40:06] Mike McFall: I don't see you as not bold, but okay, cool, be bolder. It's awesome.
[0:40:08] Laura Eich: It gets me unstuck. So, last year, the word was moxie. That worked for me a few times, where I was like, "You got to show moxie." So, this year, it's about, “What's the bolder idea?" Get yourself out of your – I can sometimes be complacent or like, "This is good enough.” Nope, be bolder. That's my thing for this year. We're working on it.
[0:40:32] Mike McFall: I didn't know that, It's September and I just learned what you're –
[0:40:35] Laura Eich: It's no big deal. I mean, it lives on a little note on my screen. So, unless you're sitting where I'm sitting every day, you might not know about it.
[0:40:42] Mike McFall: Do you tell everybody about it?
[0:40:44] Laura Eich: I don't think I did this year, but it's also because I do normally write a word or words at the start of the year. At the start of the year this year, I was on maternity leave. So, everything was just a little bit funkier. Everyone knew my moxie one last year, I think, at least on the team that I was seeing most regularly. They'd come in occasionally if they saw me starting to get tentative about something and say, "Hey, Laura, where's the moxie?" It was a good little push.
I know we also have talked about this is not just season two, but in the future, I think we both dream of having this not be so much of a seasonal podcast but being more of an ongoing either weekly or bi-weekly or something like that podcast. So, I just wanted to put that out there as a dream too.
[0:41:26] Mike McFall: Yes. I mean, we just have to work. What I mean by that is, you got to get a bunch of episodes like in the queue, and you got to – so, if somebody goes on vacation for two weeks. Yes, but that would be the dream, would be like, this was just a regularly occurring event, and we had amazing leaders. That's part of the dream of turning BIGGBY® into a high-profile company and making this more high-profile. Just think of the super cool people we could talk to. That would be fun. Then, being able to leverage those people, and bring them into our world, and I find that really invigorating.
[0:42:02] Laura Eich: Super invigorating. It's my invitation to those of you that are still listening right now. If you have anyone that you're like, "This is an amazing business leader," or they have an interesting business story about how they're caring for people maybe differently than you've ever heard of before, we want to hear about that. If you could email lifelab@biggby.com, that would be great. We'd love to hear those or find us on social media or wherever and we'll get them added to the list, thankfully. That's about every time Mike and I talk, we add somebody to the future dream guest list. So, don't hesitate on sending those through. We want to hear about them.
[0:42:34] Mike McFall: And if you could help connect us, that would be great.
[0:42:37] Laura Eich: Even better. If you know them, just make the connection.
[0:42:40] Mike McFall: My dream is to have Dak Shepard.
[0:42:42] Laura Eich: Okay. He loves a podcast, and he's from Michigan.
[0:42:47] Mike McFall: I went to junior high school with him. He's like three years younger than me.
[0:42:50] Laura Eich: You did?
[0:42:50] Mike McFall: Well, I don't remember him. He was three or four years younger than me, I think. But he went to my little tiny junior high school. Yes.
[0:42:59] Laura Eich: Oh, that's cool, and he's a podcaster, I bet we could do it.
[0:43:03] Mike McFall: Yes. I mean, someday.
[0:43:05] Laura Eich: Someday. All right, Mike. Anything else we want to talk about today?
[0:43:09] Mike McFall: No, looking forward to getting this thing rolling again.
[0:43:12] Laura Eich: Yes, me too. It's going to be very exciting.
[OUTRO]
[0:43:24] Laura Eich: Dear listener, to make sure that you don't miss an episode of Love in Leadership, be sure to hit that follow button wherever you find podcasts. While you're there, do us a solid and leave us a rating or review. To follow along with Mike and I as we explore the world, follow us on our social channels @lifeyoulovelab and @mikejmcfall.
If you have an idea, like I said, for a guest that you think we should connect with, please email us at lifelab@biggby.com. To learn more about BIGGBY® Coffee's purpose of supporting you in building a life you love, check out BIGGBY.com. We love you for who you are, and we'll see you next time. Okay. Love you. Bye.