linkedin live episode 7 - importance of workplace culture

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

Alright cool we're gonna start, we're gonna start it sweet. Awesome we got some people watching. I love it. Elliot, good morning. Good morning my friend. What's going on y'all? Thanks for tuning into guidance counselor 2.0, the live edition. Monday morning. I'm only through a half a cup of coffee. Cathy was going on Alabama. Love it. Lots of familiar faces. Echo, everyone's saying I got an echo. What's going on, Maco? What's going on, Echo? What's going on real quick? Let's try this. Let's try this. How about now? Can someone confirm that I'm not echoing now? Let me know. Let me know before I start getting rolling.

No Echo. Elliot, calling the out brother. Can you hear it? Can you hear that go? No Echo? Alright cool. We'll go ahead and get started again. Oh, rewinds. Thanks again for tuning to guidance counselor 2.0 live edition. Again, my name is Taylor Dessen. For those of you who do not know me, I'm a recruiter advocate, recruiting manager at Beiko here at Nashville. I also only recruit software devs. If you are tuning into this, I have met now our 4,000 software developers at this point in my career. I like to say I've made a lot of new friends. I want to go ahead and dive in to this.

Basically, Elliot thanks for that. I think it's a LinkedIn thing when you comment. I dropped out and jumped again. What's about workplace culture? This is something that I've been thinking a lot about. A lot of conversation with people at Beiko. And I think workplace culture is incredibly important. But I also think it's being redefined right now. If you're watching, please comment to me and kind of what you see as value of workplace culture. Because for me, I think I tweeted something this morning and how workplace culture used to be beers on tap and ping pong tables. And pizza lunches on Fridays. That was the sale.

And now, you take away all that. When I say you take away all that, everyone's at home for the most part. I know some people are back in the office a little bit. But everybody for the most part is at home. And so you take away the ping pong tables. You take away the beer on tap. And so then what is left? And we talk about leadership remotely. And that's another thing we can get into as well. Something that I struggle with as a leader for this year. What does leadership look like? Is it doing a bunch of Zoom calls? Is leadership maybe not even doing the video calls?

Maybe leadership is allowing people to be themselves and not having to follow up with them so much. And so for me, I just truly think when it comes to workplace culture, you're starting to see this level of vulnerability and trust as you're starting to come out. And because, and the reason is because you're having to do life together a little bit more with people. Right? I almost say, and I'm interested in, again, if you have any thoughts and have any comments, please comment at me, tweet me. This is on Facebook, Instagram, or not Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube. Like comment, let me know your thoughts. But I really feel like the more virtual we have gotten, we have become, I don't know, gotten is not a great word.

The more I've known people and have walked through life with them. Right? I have walked through individuals' lives on my team more on a personal, deep personal perspective this year than ever before. Right? And I don't know if that's because, you know, that's the culture we developed here in Nashville, where we completely opened and listened. When I came into Vaco, we had a lot of work to do. Right? We still have a lot of work to do. But one thing that I really wanted is for everybody to be vulnerable and open with each other. And I think that maybe it's come to kind of a tight during this COVID time.

Because I've really walked through life with people. There are people that I know on my team that it's been a hard year. And I really, truly think that because of culture and vulnerability that we've established before COVID, it has allowed people to feel comfortable during this time. So curious, like let me know, comment chat at me. Like do you feel like your company does have good culture and why? I'm really genuinely curious on what your company does at you think does good culture. I think another thing that popped into that popped into my head was we do reviews. Right? We haven't done a lot of them this year, but we try to do them.

Right? We try to do them. And I was thinking, I was like, what is company culture? How do you think your company culture is reviews? In my perspective, if your company is not giving you like some sort of barometer where you're at year over year, like that's not good culture. Like, you know, I've talked to people that are like, I haven't had a review in three years. Like, where do you think you're supposed to be? Like, are you just completely just wandering around aimlessly? Like, I think culture is reviews. I think reviews are scary. Right? I think that's something that I've talked to my team about a lot.

Oh my gosh, am I getting fired? Am I getting fired? Am I getting fired? And it's like, and I think breaking down the walls and having an organic conversation with individuals is something that I've really tried to do. Hey, listen, it's a review. I get that, but it's a conversation. It's an intentional conversation. Reviews are not reviews. Reviews are intentional conversations you need to have them. If you're not having them with your team, you're doing it wrong. That's why, yes, group calls, one-on-one calls, buying team, group calls, buying team members, buying teams, any more coffee. And one-on-one calls, buying team members to the leadership. Yeah, listen, I get it.

You said any of you are just too late. Mother reviews keep on track. I love it. Yeah, absolutely. I love it. My thing is, it's like, I'm really trying. I like to have a 15 minute one-on-one check-in with my team, with individuals on my team, every other week that we do a group meeting every other week. So every single Friday, I'm meeting with my team in one way, shape, or form. And that's came out of to the fact of, and I talked about this my LinkedIn live. I did with Kyle out a few weeks ago. We were trying to over-inch near the video call when COVID hit.

It's like, how many video calls we're going to have all the video calls. We're going to have all the meetings. And I think the one-on-ones that I've established, and again, I mean, it's self-emittingly I've gotten away from because it's gotten really busy. And I'm getting back on him here during the holidays. Is that, I don't even talk about business. Right? I think a lot of times leaders try to force it. Like, hey, let's talk X's and those all the time. People get tired of X's and those. Right? Sometimes people just want to hang with you. Talk fantasy football. By the way, fantasy football things they do for the record.

But people just want to hang out. And I think leaders within organizations try to force reviews and try to force one-on-ones and try to talk strategy. And, and self-emittingly, I've done it. Right? I feel like every single meeting I have with somebody on my team needs to be, hey, let's talk strategy. Let's talk strategy and listen. Some people don't want to talk and charge you all the time. They don't. They just want to hang. They want to know you. Right? I think a lot of times within leaders within an organization, you know, we always look up to other leaders. I think I said this in one of my podcasts.

You look up to other leaders, right? I look up to other leaders within Becca. Like, man, I would love. I would love to get one-on-one time with that leader. Right? I love to get one-on-one time with that leader. Right? And I think a lot of times us as leaders, and we're like, oh man, like, I bet people probably feel the same way about me. Right? And I think, I think tending to your flock. Right? I think I think we're going to get a little, like, a little, a little testament here. Right? tending to your sheep, tending to your flock. I think a lot of times as leaders, we're always looking at other leaders to be mentoring.

I think you need a mentor, your team. Right? Hey, LA, absolutely. Jamie's example within leadership was goal. Y'all checked out that podcast. The Unicorn Finers just dropped in this week. I think that's incredibly important. Um, hostway says I enjoy when leaders include me in their decision-making process. I learned I feel respected. Yeah, absolutely. I love that. I mean, for me, it's like I want to sit down with individuals and go, hey, let's talk about this. Right? You're doing this. Why are you doing this? Let's uncover the why. Right? I think a lot of times leaders are just like, hey, you need to do this. You need this.

You need this. And you're like, okay. Right? I think going back to being a day. I'm a dad now. And I've been thinking a lot about how, I've been thinking a lot about how it's like, like my daughter's going to get older. And I'm going to get, you know, hey, you need to do this. Why? Because I told you so. Right? And I think that notion of parenting is terrible. In my opinion, for the most part, I told you so. Or it's because I said so. I think a lot of people struggle with understanding decisions within organizations because it's a lot of I told you so mentality.

Or just do what I say. And there's not a lot of uncovering the wine situations. And I think as a leader, and I think a company culture, I think to promote good culture, I think you need to tell people why you do this. Right? A lot of times within companies, especially at Vaco, we roll out a lot of things, right? A lot of new initiatives. And a lot of times we don't say why. Right? Hey, we're growing up this piece of software to track this. Well, why? I don't know. Just do it. Right? And you don't develop buy and you don't develop culture. Then you develop people questioning why you're doing things.

You're trying to look over my shoulder. Right? And I think for me, that's what I try to bring to my team. Hey, we're going to draw this piece of software. You know, why are we doing it? Here's why we're doing it. Here are some pitfalls. Right here are some things I'm going to have mistakes of. Right? I think it's constantly checking in. But I think it's being completely vulnerable and completely true self. Right? I think it's admitting that you're burnt out. Right? I'm burnt out right now. Right? If you're watching this 12 minutes through, still, I'm burnt out. This job has gotten to me. It is November 16th and I am tired.

I am very, very tired talking to people. Right? I almost did not want to do this this morning. Right? I am tired. But the thing is, though, is that as leaders, you have to be vulnerable. Open, but you have to continue moving forward. Are you have to continue to nurture your team, nurture your community? Right? Elliot, Danny, Hoseway, Cathy, Emmet, like you all in my community. Right? Like it's incredibly important to continue to foster those relationships as a leader, both externally and internally. And so those are my thoughts on culture. I think for me, I think if you're a leader with an organization, you need to have a vision.

Right? When I came into Vaco, I had a vision of what I wanted Vaco to be. I wanted a place where we can share our feelings. I wanted a place where we can have fun, work incredibly hard being incredibly competitive, but also be a team. Right? We're almost there within our team. We have some ways to go, but we're getting close. And I think within organizations, especially there's an organization you need to have a vision with what your team looks like. And then you need to constantly communicate that and foster that. Not only do you have to have a vision, I think a lot of times leaders just don't execute.

Right? There's a lot of great idea leaders out there. Right? We should do this. That's great. We should do that. That's great. But who's going to implement it? I don't want to implement it. Right? And so I really truly think that you as a leader, if you are watching this, and at the end of the day, you're a leader, period. You're a leader in your household. You're a leader in your relationship. Right? If we're really going to talk about that, you know, developing culture within a marriage, develop culture in a relationship, developing culture at work. Right? I really, really truly think that you need to be mindful of the things you bring to the table and the vision you have in executing it as a leader within any organization.

So that's my thoughts on culture. Hopefully you got something out of it. Thank y'all for tuning in to guidance counselor 2.0 this morning. And again, we're going to play out on a little beach bobs right now. Y'all enjoy it. Oh, Ellie, we got one big interview tomorrow. The culture looks and feels great. Culture is hard to assess in our end of the career. How do you find out culture outside looking in? Honestly, I've invested some people on LinkedIn and asked to speak with them about their time working there because not only does it do the networking. side. It also shows you care. Right? And honestly, during the interview tomorrow, if you don't get a sense of culture, I would ask for another interview.

I would ask for another interview. Hey, listen, I don't feel, you know, I want to have another conversation with some team members to talk about culture. Is that okay? I will tell you this, every manager will be, will respect you greatly. If you take the time to have another interview to vet their company. So that's the way I do it. And Ellie, thanks for the question buddy. All right, man, you all have a great day. Again, thank you to the guys at the councilor. Check out my website. Thankyou.com. Backslash Taylor got some resume templates and whatnot. Shoot me an email at tailoredbacos.com. And you all have a great rest of your Monday.

Peace.