Change is inevitable. As the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “Change is the only constant in life.” Midway through season two of the Love in Leadership podcast, we’ve been reflecting on how organizations inevitably change and evolve over time. Growth seldom emerges from stagnant environments, making it essential for organizations to foster spaces where people can continuously evolve, grow, and thrive. Join Laura and Mike as they delve into the necessity of organizational change and strategies for navigating it, especially for those who value stability and consistency and the role culture plays in shaping a company’s approach to change. They explore the idea that an organization’s culture is the sum of its relationships, examine the different paths to shaping culture, and challenge the notion of whether culture can be forced. Don’t miss this thought-provoking episode. Thanks for tuning in!
Key Points From This Episode:
Quotes:
“There's a need to evolve regularly. We have to be changing. We have to be working and improving, and we have to be getting better. That does mean a significant amount of change.” — @MikeJMcFall [0:07:23]
“I think how companies deal with change is important to the culture of the organization.” — @MikeJMcFall [0:11:34]
“The culture of your organization is the summation of the relationships in the organization — Focusing on the relationships and building the relationships, building the trust is how you build a safe culture.” — @MikeJMcFall [0:14:20]
“Building an environment where relationships can occur is the job of ‘leadership.’” — @MikeJMcFall [0:15:30]
“If you desire to be part of the [organization’s] culture, you have to offer some part of yourself to be part of that culture as well, and the culture evolves with your participation.” — Laura Eich [0:18:38]
“We want to utilize the people in our company to the best of their ability and the company's ability because it's also not respectful to leave people in a role where they're not doing something great.” — Laura Eich [0:32:12]
RESOURCES:
[0:00:08] 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. I'm joined as always by the one and only Mike McFall. Mike, how are you doing?
[0:00:19] Mike McFall: I'm over pneumonia.
[0:00:20] Laura Eich: Thank goodness.
[0:00:21] Mike McFall: Which is a really good thing. Holy smokes.
[0:00:24] Laura Eich: That was like a month.
[0:00:25] Mike McFall: It was a month.
[0:00:27] Laura Eich: It felt like a month.
[0:00:28] Mike McFall: A month and three days.
[0:00:29] Laura Eich: Oh, my gosh. It really was.
[0:00:31] Mike McFall: Yeah, it really was.
[0:00:32] Laura Eich: Oh, I'm so sorry.
[0:00:33] Mike McFall: Better life through science and chemistry. I got on the antibiotics and they whooped it. Yeah. That's great. I'm running around. I can run up the stairs now.
[0:00:42] Laura Eich: Oh, that’s nice.
[0:00:43] Mike McFall: Yeah. It feels good.
[0:00:44] Laura Eich: Great. What else is going on in life right now?
[0:00:47] Mike McFall: Oh, man.
[0:00:48] Laura Eich: Are you playing hockey? Is it hockey time at all?
[0:00:49] Mike McFall: Yeah. Yeah.
[0:00:50] Laura Eich: Okay.
[0:00:50] Mike McFall: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're playing. Oscar and Renzo's birthday. They share a birthday. That was cool. We did that and they are – oh, my gosh, are they – they're just like stereotypical little boys. They like smelling bad. They like hitting each other. They pounce on each other for no reason. Just the stuff that you're like –
[0:01:17] Laura Eich: Cute.
[0:01:18] Mike McFall: — “Can't we be better? Do we really have to be this way?”
[0:01:21] Laura Eich: That is better.
[0:01:22] Mike McFall: Yeah, I guess so. We had a good day. That's present. Spent some time with Liam on the video conference, whatever, FaceTime. He's in a great place. He gave Renzel and Oscar a tour of the boat he is on and they were mesmerized. Klava took a video of them watching him or watching them, and they were just like, the whole time eyes wide open. That's just special. As a parent, you just dream for your kids to be in a good spot and we're doing good. We're doing good.
[0:02:00] Laura Eich: All of yours are. Is it the same boat, the actual same boat that you were on?
[0:02:05] Mike McFall: No, no. It's a German boat. It's a cool thing. It's an association that built it — of people that are passionate about tall ships. They built this tall ship. As a member of that association, you get to go on the boat as crew for, I think, two weeks a year.
[0:02:24] Laura Eich: Okay.
[0:02:25] Mike McFall: That's how they staff it with a “professional crew.” The German crew is coming on and off the boat in a pre-regular clip. Then the students stay throughout the program.
[0:02:37] Laura Eich: Oh, that's really cool. That's very interesting.
[0:02:40] Mike McFall: Different boat, much more sophisticated boat than the boat I was on, much bigger boat. This boat is 200 feet boat. What I was on was a 150 feet. Yeah, it's cool. It just brings back so many memories for me and having him experience it. He told me, dad, “I don't.” To have my 19-year-old boy say this to me, he said, “Dad, there's no place in the world I'd rather be right now.”
[0:03:00] Laura Eich: Oh, that's so cool.
[0:03:01] Mike McFall: I know. Yeah.
[0:03:03] Laura Eich: Can you say what the name of the program is again? Because I bet, people are curious.
[0:03:06] Mike McFall: Class Afloat.
[0:03:07] Laura Eich: Class Afloat. Man, that's so cool.
[0:03:09] Mike McFall: It was started in 1984, 85, and then I went ’85, ’86. I was the second year that it happened. It's been around for a while, and they're doing it. It's an amazing, amazing program.
[0:03:24] Laura Eich: Yeah. Now your son's doing it. That's just so cool.
[0:03:27] Mike McFall: It's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's going on for you?
[0:03:32] Laura Eich: We are also in birthday season in this household. We're coming up on Charlie Bear's first birthday party this weekend. That means, of course, we've decided to make our house much more presentable than it was two weeks ago. We're doing a lot of projects and cleaning and trying to finish. I mean, our house will be under construction for some amount of the next probably five years, just doing finishing work and that kind of thing, because that's the stuff we enjoy doing. When we redid this house, we got it to livable. But then, all the pretty stuff is what we slowly work on. When you're forced with a party coming, it's all of a sudden like, what could we possibly get done if we just work our brains off for the next couple of weeks to get it really, really ready, and decorate for Christmas because we're coming up on that season.
[0:04:23] Mike McFall: You enjoy that.
[0:04:24] Laura Eich: I love it. I haven't been able to do it in two years, because we were last year, I mean, I was having a baby, obviously, at this time and I was just not prepared to haul Christmas decor around. Then the year before, we were living at my parents. I'm pulling all this stuff out of boxes and I'm like, I forgot about all of these ornaments and all my snowmen family. I haven't cried mostly. That’s been good, but it's been really just fun. It's fun to see our house looking like a house at least in a couple of rooms to be ready for the weekend.
[0:04:56] Mike McFall: That's exciting.
[0:04:57] Laura Eich: It is fun.
[0:04:59] Mike McFall: Oh, the first birthday.
[0:05:02] Laura Eich: I think this party might be more for Steven and I, if I'm being honest.
[0:05:06] Mike McFall: Oh, sure. Yeah. No doubt about it.
[0:05:09] Laura Eich: I mean, I know she won't remember it, but I'm like, we've gotten through this first year. That is a big deal. It's very special. I want to celebrate it. I want to have all of our friends and family here.
[0:05:18] Mike McFall: Yeah. Yeah.
[0:05:20] Laura Eich: Yeah. Feels a little bit more for us.
[0:05:21] Mike McFall: Yeah, that's great.
[0:05:23] Laura Eich: Today is fun, because today is just you and I. We're just catching up. It's midway through season two and we just get to talk to each other and see what we've got on our minds. I know, we started getting into things, then we’re like, we probably should hit the record button, because we were ready to just start talking about some things. I know we have a couple of things on our mind. One of them is around the idea of how organizations change and evolve over time. It's this thing that is always happening. We're always trying to make things better and I think it's probably true at every company ever that we're always trying to make things better. The process of that evolution that you can only really see after it's happened is just, it's a trip.
I wonder what it was like earlier in BIGGBY days when you were looking ahead. If you imagined the size of our company and how we would operate, I wonder if you ever imagined that we would work from a remote location entirely and I wonder about all these things. If you knew how big our company would get, how big do you think our company will get? I wonder all of these things about how this works, because my only experience has been living in it and you can only really tell what happened after it happened, which is real trippy.
When you're midway through it, you're like, something's happening. I don't totally know what's happening, but something's happening and we're evolving into something new. Yeah. I don't know. I'm just curious about it.
[0:06:46] Mike McFall: I think, there's a conflict in a way, because I think people have a real need for consistency, which is fair. They want to show up. They want to know their work. They want to get competent and learn how to do their work in a way that feels good for them and is productive, and so on. Consistency is, there's real desire for it. The fact of the matter is a company like ours, which I don't know that I put us in high growth mode, but we're certainly growing pretty rapidly, right?
[0:07:20] Laura Eich: Pretty consistent to growth mode. Yeah.
[0:07:22] Mike McFall: Yeah. There's a need to evolve regularly. We have to be changing. We have to be working and improving and we have to be getting better. That does mean a significant amount of change. My brother worked at Facebook for, I think, two years maybe, and he had five different people he reported to in two years. Now, that's not healthy. Maybe someone perceived that as not healthy, but at the same time, there was a need for that at that. They were evolving. They were changing things all the time, he said. It was the pace of change was frenetic.
[0:08:03] Laura Eich: Yeah.
[0:08:04] Mike McFall: Maybe that is something that companies like ours, not that we're growing like Facebook was at that point. But when you're bringing people on board, or you're interviewing people talking about that and maybe getting people onboard with the fact that consistency, although we're striving for it, may not be your existence here for who knows how long? I mean, I hope forever, because I want to constantly be evolving and improving and getting better and changing. I think that that's something that came to mind when you were talking about how you feel in the organization is as you know things are changing, you know things are, well, hopefully improving. You can't put your finger on it a lot of times exactly. There is some unease there. I think you, I'm going to speak out of turn here, but I think you do thrive maybe on consistency, but that hasn't been your experience here at all.
[0:09:03] Laura Eich: Nope. Sure hasn’t.
[0:09:07] Mike McFall: You're here and you're you've taken a significant leadership role. Talk to me about that, right? Am I correct in saying that you maybe seek consistency, or am I wrong about that?
[0:09:20] Laura Eich: I think naturally, I do. I think I mean, on the DiSC style, I'm an S, and we support and stability kind of thing. I am an even-keeled person. I like that. There was some team meeting. Must have been a monthly management meeting, or something like that, but I admitted to the fact that I also, I'm a marathoner. I also thrive on this, give me a challenge and give me a little bit of something that seems way too hard to be possible. I also thrive on that. But not everyone does.
There's also a cultural impact of the frequent change thing that I don't always know how to reconcile. I used to warn people, like I remember my first reorg was, I don't know, six months into being at the home office or something and Tony and Jeremy came into a room and told us we were reorganizing. My mind was blown. Then it happened again about two years later and it wasn't quite so mind blowing, because it was like, “Oh, okay. I've been through this before.” Then I think it happened again about two years later. It's like, okay. Every couple years, because of our growth rate, because we can't stay – that we can't stay the same. It's actually imperative that we keep adjusting for the size of company and the way we operate and that thing.
At some point, I definitely have become, I don't think I'm entirely desensitized to the change, but I very much see how we can't stay the same, and I have to have other ways that I maintain stability and consistency and that kind of thing. It’s like, I have some things that I can know to be true. I'm sure I have my safe people where it's like, you're still here. I know you. I can touch base with you and we're good. Then that allows me to be much more adaptable with every other thing that's changing under most circumstances, all the time. It's necessary, the culture of change for our company and that might not be for everybody. That might not be something everybody wants to be a part of. It makes me curious about other companies. If other companies aren't growing the way that we're growing, do they just stay the same? I don't know.
[0:11:26] Mike McFall: I mean, you're talking to two people that don't have a broad amount of experience.
[0:11:30] Laura Eich: Yeah, we lived here. We’ve lived here a while.
[0:11:34] Mike McFall: Yeah. I think how companies deal with change is important to the culture of the organization. I think, I would ask you, when we go through change, because you said something interesting there. You said, “Oh, you're still here.” A lot of times when we do these reorgs, people that you work with closely might move into a different capacity. Or, we have experienced layoffs. We did this this year. That was an interesting statement for when you said, you're still here. Just talk to me about what you're looking for there, or why that's important.
[0:12:13] Laura Eich: Yeah. There's a certain trust that you give everybody when you meet them. Then there's a certain trust that is given and nurtured and maintained over long periods of time. There's a different comfort level with someone you just started working with, you're excited, there's new ideas flowing. I love the thought diversity of working with different people and that kind of thing. Then there's also this home-based, comfortable feeling. I can relax a little, because I know that you know me and I know that you care about me and that you haven't judged me for when I break down crying, or you haven't judged me when I, I don't know, show up to work looking haggard after a low sleep night with Charlie Bear, or one of those things.
It's like, I have this longstanding relationship with a handful of people at our company. I'm so thankful for that, because I do have a different level of comfort and security just knowing those people are there, even if I'm not talking to them every day and not working with them every day. It helps tie the thread from who we used to be. I joined the company when we were 25 people large at the home office. I think at the time, that felt huge. Now, we have a hundred. It's like, oh, my gosh. There's just so many more people. There's some people I haven't met. There's some people I wouldn't be able to spot, because they're not usually on camera and that kind of thing. Yeah, there's just a different comfort level with the people who, there's earned a relationship over time.
[0:13:46] Mike McFall: Yeah.
[0:13:47] Laura Eich: I imagine you have that too, yeah?
[0:13:49] Mike McFall: Oh, no doubt.
[0:13:50] Laura Eich: Other than just Bob.
[0:13:52] Mike McFall: Yeah, for sure. I mean, Tony took a trip with me a couple of weeks back. It felt great. We sync back into these weird dynamics. Sarcasms everywhere. I took note of that. In some ways I was like, boy, I should probably evolve a little in my relationship with Tony.
There's a concept that I was reading about. It is that the culture of your organization is the summation of the relationships in the organization. That really all you have in a company, or an organization is the relationships between people. Focusing on the relationships and building the relationships, building the trust is how you build a safe culture. Then, safety is how we can have the real conversations that we need to have, not presenting things in a way that you think people want to hear it, but just going ahead and saying the thing and getting out there. This concept of relationships to me is fascinating.
I went through something, I don't know, probably 10 years ago now, where I realized in a meeting that the people in that room were going to be some of the primary relationships of my entire life. That was something that hit me hard, right? I walked away from that meeting with a different perspective, the importance of the relationships. To me, building an environment where relationships can occur is the job of “leadership.”
[0:15:34] Mike McFall: Totally agree. Because yeah, it's that confidence in one another. Safety with one another. It's not even safety, but there is a level of trust in knowing you can go there, you can say the hard thing, you could bring up the contradictory idea, and you will all be fine on the other side because you've always been that way. That's the thing that is earned over time. It can absolutely be offered right away. Some of the newer leaders in our org, I have full trust with them. It's not earned trust, though. It's very much just given. It's like, I trust you. You're here. I have no reason not to trust you, so I'm just going to trust you with me and I'm going to assume you keep me safe, unless you give me a reason to think otherwise. So far, thankfully, they haven't.
Then you repeat that for the next 10 years and they become this very safe, I always have said, like the LifeLab team in particular, I've always thought of them as a group that makes me feel brave, because I know they have my back. I know we have each other's back. We will take care of each other even in our worst of times and that kind of thing. It's just, some of that happens over time.
[0:16:41] Mike McFall: All right. I'm going to ask you a question.
[0:16:43] Laura Eich: Uh-oh.
[0:16:43] Mike McFall: You didn't get the prep for it.
[0:16:46] Laura Eich: Okay.
[0:16:47] Mike McFall: Do you think that culture should be mandated? Or should you work to alter change, improve culture? Or does culture just emerge?
[0:17:04] Laura Eich: What if I just answer, yes?
[0:17:07] Mike McFall: You can answer it however you want. I mean, I might make fun of you, but –
[0:17:10] Laura Eich: That's fine. Culture, I think of either in two metaphorical ways. One, it is a soup, is my favorite version is culture soup. There's different ingredients that go in and the longer they simmer together, new flavors emerge and it gets better tasting over time and blah, blah, blah, blah. Another version is a quilt. I think culture is a quilt, where everyone has a different thread, everyone has a different color or fabric that they're bringing to the table. This one's a little trickier, because we talk about when we're bringing in new leaders, especially, they're going to be extra influential, they're going to be an extra strong ingredient in that soup, or a really loud color to work into the quilt. But the concept is that there is a culture, there is a culture that has always been and always will be and a new person brings a new thing to that culture.
I guess, even no matter whether they are a formal leader or not, they're going to bring something to that culture. I think there are individuals that join an organization that don't necessarily care to be part of the organization's culture. I think that's okay, too. There's people who don't want to eat the soup. Now that sounds weird. Like, how weird. Don't want to be an ingredient in a soup. I don't know, whatever. They're there for a while. Those are usually not folks who hang out for forever, and that's okay. I do think, if you desire to be part of the culture, you have to offer some part of yourself to be part of that culture as well, and the culture evolves with your participation. Did that answer any question? I don't even know what I just said. I just blacked out.
[0:18:56] Mike McFall: No, you said a lot. Good. I mean, it was good. What I'm driving at, I guess, is we created LifeLab and we created this, and I'm going to fill you in as to where this is coming from.
[0:19:09] Laura Eich: Thank you.
[0:19:10] Mike McFall: But we created LifeLab. The idea was to put together some offerings, whether it be coaching, the LifeLab curriculum. A lot of effort and energy went into the creation of this stuff. I think that we – maybe it hasn't had the impact we wanted it to. My question was really stemming from that concept, which is, were we/are we trying to force culture? And, can you do that, is the question.
[0:19:51] Laura Eich: Oh, heavy question there, Mike. Interesting. I think people have felt we're trying to force a certain flavor into the culture.
[0:20:04] Mike McFall: Into the soup.
[0:20:05] Laura Eich: Into the soups. Thank you. That probably doesn't feel good, because it doesn't feel quite as organic. It doesn't feel quite as teamwork-y as people would prefer. it almost makes it feel like, culture can only be one thing, which is not true. Every organization, every community has its own culture. Some cultures are stronger, or louder or more well-defined. Some cultures are less well-defined, or broader, depending on the community. I think sometimes people see LifeLab as being like, you only think culture can happen one way. It's about talking about your feelings and doing highs and lows and having debriefs and team exercises, or something like that.
It's like, that hasn't been the intent of the LifeLab team. LifeLab has definitely brought – we've tried to bring very literally the mission of the LifeLab team is to bring tools and practices you can use to create an extraordinary workplace. That's what we're trying to do is offer tools and exercises, tools and practices that people can use to create the culture that they desire. When we're talking in the direction of our franchise owners, that culture is going to have a really strong flavor of that franchise owner. That's great and wonderful. We're just trying to offer you tools, exercises, equipment that help you implement the culture that you are desiring.
Now, interestingly, when you're part of a franchise, you're also part of this bigger culture that's defined by the whole brand and the whole company and things like that, so there is an element of maybe we're telling it in a certain direction. I might have lost where this question started. Sorry, I got too excited.
[0:21:47] Mike McFall: It was this concept of forcing culture.
[0:21:50] Laura Eich: Oh, right, right, right. Yeah, we never want to force a cultural ingredient. I don't think anyone does, because I know that just doesn't work. You can try to provide opportunities or possibilities for culture to sprout from, because culture is easily carried forward by shared experiences and then the future storytelling of those shared experiences. But you can't force it. When people are feeling forced into something, it probably means that our tool is not working for you. Our exercise is not working for you. It's not getting you the thing that you need for your cultural exploration. That just means we haven't created that tool yet, or we haven't discovered it yet, and we need to talk more about how to make that happen. Yeah, even introducing things, people just may not be ready for it, and that's okay.
[0:22:42] Mike McFall: I mean, that's where this comes from. I was with my therapist. He was asking me about my work, my books, my last book, Grow. Then I just charged into explaining LifeLab, because he was like, “Improving workplace culture in America? Holy smokes.” I tore into everything. His take was, “Hey, you might be on a fool's errand there.” I was like, “Oh.” Kind of like, getting kicked in the stomach, right? It was like, oh.
He explained it this way. He said, “Listen, the stuff you guys are trying to do, sure. Commendable, great. But people need to be in a place where they can accept it, imbibe it, and understand it. His take was is that not everybody is going to be there.” It was like, so we drilled down on that. The stuff he was talking about was scary to me. He said his guess was something in the range of probably about 20% of people might be in a place in their life where they want to do the kind of work that we're talking about doing with the LifeLab curriculum and maybe LifeLab in general. I was like, “20%. Come on. Because if you would ask me, I would have said 80, right?”
Then I started thinking about it. I was like, well, when you read the statistics around engagement in the workplace, it's 82% of people are disengaged, or actively disengaged in the workplace. I'm like, oh, gosh. I guess, someone who's disengaged at work, and then you bring them the LifeLab Curriculum, they might look at that a little sideways, or be cynical, or not understand. Yeah, I don't know. It wasn't a very motivational conversation. I'll say that.
[0:24:48] Laura Eich: I don't think therapists are required to help motivate.
[0:24:50] Mike McFall: No. That's not his point. He is not there to motivate me. He's there to get me to contemplate, I think. But then I think, yeah. But, I mean, it's still worth working on, right? It's still a worthy cause.
[0:25:05] Laura Eich: Right.
[0:25:07] Mike McFall: If we can make some progress. All we said was improving workplace culture in America, right? We didn't say about how much. Anyway, that's where all that came from, and that led me to think, man, are we just forcing this thing? But then, you let go of it and then, I guess, I'm too much of a control freak to just think like, well, if we let go of it, it'll just naturally happen?
[0:25:27] Laura Eich: Yeah. I think the magic recently has been, at least within the Life You Love laboratory team. That was a couple of months ago.
[0:25:37] Mike McFall: Well, you got to explain that. What's happened? You can't just let that bomb drop.
[0:25:44] Laura Eich: Oh, that's part of the trip. We got to wait to talk about this until after our annual planning next week, because then I'll have a better answer. But okay. The LifeLab team for the last couple of years has grown. It started as two people, Bree and I. Grew into six people over the course of the last couple of years. Three of them, oh, see, I can't even remember what we called them, what their title was. Basically, they were our coaches, workshop leaders, and developers of programming. Then we have dear Ashley, who's actually our secret producer on this podcast that people don't see, but she's here. Hi, Ash.
Then we had Denise, our administrator, basically making sure that we stayed organized and things got where they needed to go. Over the last couple of months, one of the big changes of our company has been, there was almost this feeling that we were hoarding people. The resources of the people of life you love laboratory. There was other teams who were screaming for more resources. They were seeing this LifeLab work happen, great. They were seeing probably something 20% participation. I actually think our participation system-wide is about 10% of stores have people participating in things like LifeLab workshops. I don't think we've included vision stores. That's a whole other topic for a different day, but we recognized that the company needed this.
And so, we've been on this mission for the last couple of months to essentially, reintegrate LifeLab people, not keep it separate, but reintegrate it using the skills and talents that the individuals on the LifeLab team have, putting them in the right place in the company, where they take their LifeLab cape and go participate in whatever the thing is. The cleanest example, I think, is Jeremy. He's been on the podcast before. He has always had this love for learning and development. He wrote the first iterations of so many of the BIGGBY COFFEE training manuals. Then he joined the LifeLab a couple of years ago. Now, he's actually returned to the learning and development world. But now with all of these the LifeLab perspective, this cultural human-centric perspective, bringing that back into the much more practical training, learning and development processes ,and that kind of thing. He's brought all those back in there. That's when I say, that's the new LifeLab is that pretty much everybody on the team is doing some other things, while holding the LifeLab mantle, or cape or whatever on their backs as well.
It's doing really good things. It's the thing where we've all looked at each other a couple times and been like, “Maybe this is how it always should have been.” Maybe we always should have had, I don't know what we would have called it, but this team within the broader team, because there's really cool things happening now, like Jeremy, who very recently shared that he feels he's doing his best work, bringing his original skills and talents from BIGGBY COFFEE to his more recent skills and talents from BIGGBY COFFEE, mashing them together and going and just doing beautiful work in the learning and development team. That's been a major change. I think you asked a question within that, before that and I lost it. This is why I ask the questions, Mike.
[0:28:57] Mike McFall: Oh, I didn't know that was the way this was supposed to go.
[0:28:59] Laura Eich: No, it's not. Not on our solo episode. I usually drive the bus when we have a guest, because –
[0:29:05] Mike McFall: Okay, fair enough.
[0:29:06] Laura Eich: I can keep us on the road.
[0:29:08] Mike McFall: Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. Yeah. In fairness, I just want to say that the problem we had organizationally was that we had teams that had expectations they had to perform in certain ways, and they felt like they didn't have the resources to do it. Then there's all of these resources over here of talented people and money going to this group and people didn't really understand what the heck the group necessarily was. I see that in many ways as I think the changes have been great. Let me just say that. But the fact that people didn't understand and see what LifeLab was, to me, that is a knock on my own leadership ability, right? To not be able to communicate it in a way where people were like, “Oh, I'm all in. This is awesome.”
In this transition, there's been a lot of reflection around, how could we have done it differently? What should we have done differently in terms of the creation of that team? I mean, it was a massive investment. It was a massive investment.
We are where we are and it's great. I hope that one day we'll look back and say, that was all for a very great reason. We did it the way we did it. It happened the way it happened, and so on. In this reorganization, it's been pretty intense over the last three months. I think you've been talking about everything about it for longer than that. Really, publicly, it's been a couple months, right? Two months, three months. There's a reorganization.
The reality of that reorganization was it was determined that there were certain roles that weren't needed, certain people that didn't really fit here. I believe it was six people were laid off, which is a BFD in our world, right?
[0:31:01] Laura Eich: That's a big deal in our organization. Yeah.
[0:31:03] Mike McFall: Coming to that reality, that realization is hard. What's your take on, is that okay? Is it okay to have six people lose their jobs?
[0:31:15] Laura Eich: I don't know. It's for sure what the company has needed, and so that all makes sense. For the most part, it was roles that either had grown out of necessity because of things like automation or whatever, or extra roles and we just didn't need that many people doing that job anymore and that sort of thing. On paper, that all makes sense. I do think the part that's okay is how we conducted that process. We've done layoffs in the past and I'm not sure that we did it to the best of our ability, and in the way that took the best care of the individuals involved. That's actually the part I'm talking about.
As far as I can tell, Jodi and the HR team has just done a very human-centric, like honoring the humans involved job of handling these. I think that part's right. We want to utilize the people in our company to the best of their ability and the company's ability, because it's also not respectful to leave people in a role where they're not doing something great.
If someone feels they're not doing something great, they're not going to do great work. It's just like, that doesn't feel good for the person either. All at the same time, we really like these people. They're important people to us and, I don't know, is it okay? What do you think?
[0:32:53] Mike McFall: Well, based on where we started the podcast about change is inevitable. I mean, as hard as those transitions are, I think that organizations should always be thinking about building the environment where people are thriving. You know as a leader, you know I think when people aren't thriving in a certain role. Hopefully, you're having that conversation, right? Hopefully, that's on the forefront of what's going on between you and the person you work with that they're not thriving in the role, so what are we doing here? It does sound cold in a way that companies are always evolving and changing and improving. To think as well that you're going to bat 100% when you hire someone every single time and that person's going to be the right fit for the culture of the organization.
By the way, people grow and change, too. It's like this amorphous beast rolling forward, right? You've got the companies improving and changing and evolving. People are growing and improving. At the end of the day, that change is, I think the hard part is that we did six people at one time. I think that's the hard part.
[0:34:06] Laura Eich: Yeah, that's challenging.
[0:34:07] Mike McFall: I don't like that piece. I think people should move on. I think people should graduate into new and different roles at different companies. I do think that there are times when people aren't a fit. It's not about people, but it's just hard. It's so much harder when it's this moment, this group thing where you let the six people go. That has been, I mean, in the last however, a month, it's almost a month.
[0:34:33] Laura Eich: I mean, it was almost a month now. Yeah.
[0:34:35] Mike McFall: Man, is that crazy that it's been a month? I mean, I don't know how many meetings I was in where that's what we were talking about.
[0:34:41] Laura Eich: Right. I think, you touched on something that I wish we could figure out exactly how to do it better than the world does it right now. Because I think we did this process to the best of our ability. But that thing you just described — where people change too. It's the same as like a marriage, right? Where you have to choose each other continuously throughout the course of your life through the changes for that marriage to last. The same thing happens with an organization, where I chose BIGGBY COFFEE in 2011 as a barista. I actually walked away from BIGGBY COFFEE. I broke up with BIGGBY COFFEE for a little while. Then I came back to the home office in 2012. I thought about walking away again. I did a couple of auditions at Disney.
I tried to do some other things and it's like, I was ready to walk away. Then we went through our cultural shift and I chose us again. It's like, I wish we could have that conversation more authentically with people. Because I think most employees, at least to a certain level, until they complete – I understand completely where my roots are right now and how healthy my roots are in this company. Not everyone feels that way. Not everyone feels that type of security, or safety, or understanding of where they're at and what they would need to do to stay here long term. They're going to be really reluctant to bring forward like, “Hey, boss. I'm not really thriving here. What could we do about that?” Because they don't want to get fired. They don't want their boss looking any closer at what they're doing and what their work output is necessarily if they don't feel they're thriving.
The boss is probably like, “What's going on with this person?” I wish we could figure out that conversation. Because sometimes it is a conversation, like Jeremy would be another wonderful example. I know he would be willing to come on and talk about this, but one where I think we could have had a slightly different conversation when he left the marketing world, where it was like, this is not working. What can work? It's actually what we did. I think we actually handled that pretty well, but it was abnormal that we handled that so well, and had a conversation about like, where do you think you would thrive? Let's make that change. I think we could do that with people more and better, but it's not a normal system in a company right now.
[0:36:57] Mike McFall: Yeah. I think what we're talking about there is having a degree of safety in our relationships where we can talk about the real thing. You referenced marriage, right? You really better be in a spot with your spouse where you can have that kind of a conversation. I do think people are terrified, because what if you open that box up and things are not good? I do think people hold it tight and just hope that it's not going to be exposed, right? That whole concept of change, evolution, improving, and then this thing around culture. Because to me, I want to have a culture, I want to build a safe culture. I mean, I want people to come to work and feel extraordinarily safe. But we just went through that.
[0:37:50] Laura Eich: We just talked about how some people aren't right for the job. You might get fired.
[0:37:55] Mike McFall: Yeah. Right. Anyway, it's so complicated. I mean, I think you've mentioned that we didn't used to do this thing very well, and I would agree with you. We have improved. We have gotten better. Maybe in five years, we'll be looking back and we will be having more authentic engagements in the organization about how people thrive, what role people want to have. I certainly hope that's true.
[0:38:21] Laura Eich: Yeah. One thing I'm always encouraged by is it wouldn't be hard if we didn't care. It always reinforces the care and love that our company has towards people. Because if we didn't care, it would be an email and a see you later on the day that it's decided.
[0:38:41] Mike McFall: Yeah, we wouldn't be talking about it a month later.
[0:38:43] Laura Eich: Yeah, we wouldn't even be talking about it. We wouldn't care.
[0:38:44] Mike McFall: I suppose.
[0:38:45] Laura Eich: Yeah, that's encouraging to me. Speaking of encouragement, because I feel like, this has been a very, almost a downer conversation, because we've got a lot going on right now. This episode will be coming out just after Thanksgiving. I think it'd be fun if we talked a little bit about things that we are grateful and thankful for. I didn't warn you about this, sorry. I didn't warn me about this either, so. I just think, I'd love to hear a little bit about what's good, what's beautiful in your life right now. What are you thankful for?
[0:39:17] Mike McFall: Well, I'm certainly thankful that my parents are taking the kids for Friday through Sunday this coming weekend. I'm just really thankful that they're – maybe not daily, but close to a daily part of my life. My kids are getting to know them more and more. They're really good people. I want my kids to have that, right? I'm very thankful that they're here, that they're willing to do this, that they love up on our kids so much. My kids like it. I'm really thankful about that.
[0:39:56] Laura Eich: If they would like something to do on Sunday, your parents are always invited to Charlie's birthday party. Because I love your parents.
[0:40:03] Mike McFall: I'm glad to know my parents got the invite and I didn't.
[0:40:06] Laura Eich: I mean, you can come too, if you want.
[0:40:08] Mike McFall: Yeah. You can come too, if you want, Mike. Sure.
[0:40:11] Laura Eich: Joanne McFall always is a very good participant on the social medias for liking her photos and her videos.
[0:40:17] Mike McFall: Is she?
[0:40:18] Laura Eich: Yeah, I appreciate it.
[0:40:19] Mike McFall: Yeah. Cool. It doesn't surprise me. My mom's a very social human being. But another thing I'm thankful for, I had a conversation with Bob last week and it's pretty remarkable to just have somebody like that in your corner. That it never wavers. I'm never wondered. That's pretty extraordinary. I'm thankful for the life that Vetta is putting. What's the right word? Making available to my children. That's really a beautiful thing. I mean, she's a unique and extraordinary person and she is bringing that to my kids. At times, I'm like, “Whoo, hoo-hoo.” I know that they're going to be really interesting human beings because of that.
[0:41:09] Laura Eich: It’s great. Yeah.
[0:41:10] Mike McFall: Then, I think that I am really thankful for this company and just the extraordinary amount of commitment that people bring to it every single day. They show up and they do it. People are showing up. In hockey, there's a thing. You might not win the fight, but there's this concept in hockey called, but you showed up. All that means is, I mean, it's probably not a great analogy, but you showed up and you gave it your best. And you might have gotten whooped, but like, hey. The fact that we have so many people showing up, giving it their best, really committed and willing to take time with us as we learn and grow. There's patience there and that I do think that most people in the organization know that we're trying. We're not getting it right, but we're trying. I would say, that's the other major thing. I'm obviously thankful for my children's health and those very obvious things. Okay, so how about you?
[0:42:14] Laura Eich: I'm going to double down on your keep showing up idea. Des Linden is an extraordinary marathoner. She was the 2018 Boston Marathon winner. She holds a couple records for things. She's fabulous. She also happens to be from Michigan. I'm a very big fan of hers, and her motto is keep showing up, because it is about the consistency and the running in particular is a cumulative sport. The more you do it, the better you automatically will be. The concept is just keep showing up. I do so appreciate that.
I was getting almost a little misty when you're talking about our company, which I don't know. It's probably the holidays. I'm going to blame it on that. I am so proud of the people who show up every day. Our home office staff, our franchise owners, our baristas, the people hitting the open sign. It's so hard. It's so hard to be a business owner. It's so hard to care so much about your work. We are a company full of people who care so freaking much. Sometimes it makes things volatile, because we all care so freaking much. It also makes it beautiful and fun and full of love. I love the amount of hugs I get whenever I walk in a room full of BIGGBY COFFEE people. I love the amount of times that I end a meeting with an ‘I love you’ and that kind of thing.
I love the people we're surrounded with, from the newest people to the people who have been around for 20 some years. I'm really thankful for my family. I know this one's cheesy and obvious, but particularly, my husband and my little baby girl. Becoming parents is the trippiest thing in life. I can't imagine a tripier thing. So, if there's another thing coming, someone needs to warm me about it. It's the biggest identity shift. My husband retired from his career to be a stay-at-home dad. It's been a year, man, of incredible change for us as a family. I'm just so proud. I'm so thankful for this life that we've built and for the safety and security that I feel here at home and with my family and my baby girl's the cutest and she's so sweet and she's so funny and she's getting funnier, because she's getting more personality. I'm basking in all the joy of the one-year reflection stuff right now. Of course, I'm very, very thankful and thankful for you.
[0:44:30] Mike McFall: Oh, my gosh, Laura.
[0:44:32] Laura Eich: I didn't set this up just to tell you that, but you're one of my safe places and one of the people that I really trust with me and with my future. I'm really thankful that we get to do this and have these types of conversations that are obviously totally private. No one will ever hear and it'll be fine. Yeah. I'm really thankful for you.
[0:44:52] Mike McFall: Yeah, you're the best. Got a little misty there.
[0:44:54] Laura Eich: Yup, it happens.
[0:44:57] Mike McFall: I rebut. Or not rebut.
[0:44:59] Laura Eich: You can rebut. That's fine.
[0:45:01] Mike McFall: Well, I'm thankful. I love building this and having this relationship with you, doing all these things together. I mean, it's the conversations and work I love to do. I get to do them with you, which fires me up. I appreciate that.
[0:45:18] Laura Eich: Clawed up on. Yeah.
[0:45:20] Mike McFall: I don't know. I did this stakeholder business society event and Jeremy came to dinner. I'll forward you the picture. He was talking about his experience and BIGGBY and so on. I was flat crying. Flat out. I was. Meghan French Dunbar snapped, got a picture of it.
[0:45:39] Laura Eich: Yeah. I’ve heard about this photo. I got to see it.
[0:45:42] Mike McFall: Okay, I'll forward it to you. But just to have the relationships in a company and an organization that make you feel that much is, I guess, I'm really thankful for that.
[0:45:54] Laura Eich: That's really cool. It's really special. All right, anything else you want to share for today? I feel like we've – I don't even know how long we've been going.
[0:46:01] Mike McFall: No, I don't either. We were so jacked up in the first 20 minutes or half hour. Who knows how long that took? All right. Well, this is cool. I look forward to doing this again and having a guest. I think this is a cool little tradition. You and I just riff it.
[0:46:15] Laura Eich: I like it. All right, dear listener, to make sure 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 for our guest 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, please check out biggby.com. Love you, Mike.
[0:46:47] Mike McFall: Love you too, Laura.
[0:46:48] Laura Eich: We love you listener for who you are. We'll see you next time.
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