Gurmeet Judge

What Separates Engaged Employees From Disengaged Ones?

• Gurmeet Judge

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Leadership significantly impacts employee turnover, directly affecting business growth. Strong leaders foster engagement and retention, reducing costly turnover. High turnover disrupts operations, increases recruitment expenses, and hampers innovation. Effective leadership builds loyalty, boosts productivity, and accelerates sustainable growth. Poor leadership drives talent loss, stalling progress.

In this episode, I had a discussion with Kon Apostolopoulos, award-winning executive coach and founder of Fresh Biz Solutions, helps leaders boost employee engagement, slash turnover, and drive sustainable growth. Author of “The Engagement Blueprint,” he delivers practical coaching and training to build cultures of commitment and performance.

https://www.freshbizsolutions.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachkon/

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Fresh Biz Solutions
03:02 The Importance of Employee Engagement
05:51 Understanding Engagement and Performance
09:01 The Impact of COVID on Employee Engagement
11:52 Measuring Performance in a Remote World
14:50 Creating a Culture of Engagement
17:54 The Four Drivers of Employee Engagement
25:41 Understanding Individual Contributions in Teams
28:14 The Importance of Growth and Learning in the Workplace
30:30 Feedback and Guidance for Younger Generations
32:39 The Role of Leaders in Developing Others
36:19 Delegation and Creating More Leaders
38:05 Passion for the Construction Industry
41:21 Connecting Leadership and Personal Development

Introduction to Fresh Biz Solutions

SPEAKER_01

A lot of these business owners have convinced themselves that they're not going to get anything more from their people. So they decide to just go to the lowest common denominator. How little can I get away with paying them? How little can I put into this thing? Because I'm not really going to get anything. That's a race to the bottom. When I talk to leaders about this, they think that engagement, resilience, these are nice buzz terms, but what do they really mean to me? Well, all the senior leaders, the business owners that I work with, there's a consistent theme, if you will, there. And one of those things is that they are, they they feel like they've given everything they can to the business to get things up and running, to move them. Every day they give their best. And a lot of times they realize I can't give anymore to move this whole thing forward by myself. I've spoken to world leaders from across the globe, people that have headed up in manufacturing, in hospitality, in a lot of production and a lot of consulting. And had some great insights from all those people that went into the book. What I discovered, Gurmit, is that there are essentially four, four drivers that drive engagement, four behaviors that drive engagement. And these are.

The Importance of Employee Engagement

SPEAKER_00

Hi there. Welcome to Business Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Gurmee Judge. In this episode, I had a discussion with Khan. He's based in Denver, Colorado, and degrees. Khan is a founder and a CEO of a Fresh Based Solutions, a human capital management consultancy delivering leadership development, executive coaching, performance improvement, and talent engagement strategy to boost organization results. He's the author of a best-selling book, The Engagement Blueprint, Building a Culture of Commitment and Performance, guides leaders in a transforming workplace for competitive advantage. He's also a co-author of Seven Keys to Navigating a Crisis. He ranks as a thinker's 360 Global Top 50 Thought Leader. He's an international keynote speaker and expert in resilience and performance. Conn has coached senior leaders across North America and Europe for two decades, driving transformational change and emerging leaders' readiness. He coaches used soccer to build confidence, teamwork, and life skills. This was a very interesting discussion. We discussed various topics around the business, leadership, and organization challenges and that Con Share has experienced over the years. He's been helping out business leaders over two decades in terms of leadership development. One of the challenges I see with the business leaders always is around change management. Whether it's early on in a state of planning state or whether it's an execution state, and a con share has experienced, you know, where where some of the challenges are and what works for change management and especially an execution side. So if you are in any leadership position, though midst of the discussion, watch to the very end. I learned so much from the discussion. I'm sure you're gonna deliver uh draw value from this discussion as well. And if you do find a value, you have very simple ask, please uh subscribe to this channel and share this with your friends and send us your feedback. Your feedbacks allow us to focus um on uh more discussion than what you're looking for and deliver more value for you every episode. So until next time, thank you for your time and please welcome Coach Khan. I guess welcome to Business Leadership Podcast. Today we're guessing you know, congrats on uh 14 years and uh fresh uh uh fresh based solutions, long time. You know, if you work as an audience through what do you do? And uh, you know, I looked at your LinkedIn uh profile before I started. So a couple of topics are very important. I'm looking to uh looking forward to learning from you about employee engagement and performance and all those kind of things. I think those things are very important to business, what we're going through at the moment. So thank you so much for time. Looking forward to learning from you. Let's start with the fresh business. So, uh what do you guys do if you just introduce and and uh what has been 14 years?

Understanding Engagement and Performance

SPEAKER_01

14 very, very good and impactful years, Guru. Thank you for having me, first of all. So it's a wonderful opportunity since it is the anniversary today. And you know, you know, and I know most companies don't make it this far, especially when they're they're smaller companies, to get to 14 years is pretty big milestone. When come people ask me what we do, I explain to them that our clients, typically, you know, 50 to a billion dollar construction companies, they're mostly our kind our clients. They all have wonderful strategic plans that they've spent a lot of time, a lot of money investing in building those. So they have their strategic plans. The one thing they forget is that those plans are not really worth the paper they're written on if they don't have the right people in place to execute them. And that's where Fresh Biz Solutions comes in. So I help my clients essentially create the people plan that supports their business plan. And what does that mean? It means that we work with them uh on training and developing their staff, especially the leaders at all levels of their organization to build the competence. We work with them on executive coaching and one-on-one for their emerging and senior leaders to build the commitment and reinforce that clarity that they need in order to move forward. Then we speak at their events, we speak at their associations to be able to create a consistent message, an alignment, if you will, to build the teamwork that's essential for us to be able to operate as a cohesive unit. And then ultimately we consult on their people systems to make sure that every dollar that they spend towards their people, every dollar that they invest is a dollar well invested because all of their systems line up and they know that where they are investing those limited resources, they get a good return on that. So that's ultimately what we've been doing. And it's an evolution, if you will, because Fresh Biz Solutions was founded on the simple principle that good ideas from one industry can apply to another one. And since I have had the opportunity to work in a number of industries across continents and across cultures, it's given me the opportunity to have a very broad experience and an understanding because the one unifying factor is that people are people. Yeah and so working with them across industries, we can bring those good ideas and really implement something different for our clients and create, if you will, a more human-centered management style and workplace where people are at the heart of it, and that becomes their competitive advantage.

SPEAKER_00

That's that's a complex subject, uh you know, business owners that definitely have their strategy, what they're trying to do, but execution and and they're trying to get it done, that's a totally different uh ball game. You know, I think so. Let's talk start from from from there. What do you see some of the misconception about executing the strategy? You know, we build a strategy, you know, going to execute. What are some of the misconception people think that, okay, you know, this this is gonna be, you know, we can execute it. You know, what were some of the mis what do you find from working with the business leaders?

SPEAKER_01

Well, all the senior leaders, the business owners that I work with, there is a consistent theme, if you will, there. And one of those things is that they are, they they feel like they've given everything they can to the business to get things up and running, to move them. Every day they give their best. And a lot of times they realize I can't give anymore to move this whole thing forward by myself. They get frustrated a lot of times because they look around and their perception, the way they feel, is that their people are not as committed as they are. They don't feel like their people care about the business the same way that they do. Now, whether that's real or not, that's a different story. But that's the impression a lot of times that they have, and they struggle with how do I engage them? And a lot of times what they'll do is they'll try to throw money at a problem and try to fix it with that. But because it's a shotgun approach, it's kind of there's no method or my reason behind it. They're just throwing good money away and they're not getting the results they want because there is a model, there's a methodology, there's a proven way to increase performance. And you do that by really igniting engagement in your people so you can get their commitment and their buy-in. And when they are committed, when they are bought in, they feel better about what they're doing, they care a lot more, and that allows them to build resilience through the difficult times, through the unexpected things. And ultimately, those two things lead to fueling performance at the higher level. It's no coincidence with me. The top performing companies in any category all have high engagement levels, all have built that strength and that resilience in their teams to be able to make it through the tough times because they're bought in and they're committed.

The Impact of COVID on Employee Engagement

SPEAKER_00

And the problem is big. If you uh I think uh I'm not sure if I'm quoting the recent study, but one of the studies I saw a few months back was 73% of people not engaged at a workplace. I think across uh it doesn't have to be US or Canada, I think it's just a globally, that you know, high number of people just not engage in a workplace, you know, they think in something else.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and when you talk to them about it, you and why and I when I talk to leaders about this, they think that engagement and resilience, these are nice buzz terms, but what do they really mean to me? And what I explained to them is that those same numbers that you were just quoting right now that we're talking about from lost productivity across the globe, it's essentially$8.9 trillion last year in lost productivity, lost opportunity. Now, for a lot of the business owners that perhaps you and I might be working with, or even some of the smaller business owners, that might seem like a crazy number. And they're looking at that going, I don't know if that's relevant to me. Well, I would invite them to do a simple back of a napkin exercise. Okay, just pull out a piece of paper and and a pencil and just do the math. Even in under the best circumstances, right now here in the US, it's only one in three people that are actually engaged. One in six are double are actively disengaged. They're cancer in your in your business. And when you talk about people that are not engaged, so outside of the one in three, the other two and three, for example, you look at that and you say, Okay, what is that really costing me? Well, for every$10,000 you pay a disengaged employee, you're losing$3,400 in in lost productivity, 34% of their annual salary. The average person on your team is making 60, 60,000 a year. Let's call it that a rough number, a conservative number. That's a little over 20,000 a year. Now, multiply how many disengaged people you have on your team. That's a big problem. Not engaged, isn't it? And if you're trying to make payroll on a Friday and you look at those numbers, you're pulling your hair out because you're going, what am I doing? I'm losing so much here. Yeah, that's the power of engagement and resilience and performance.

SPEAKER_00

And competitive advantage to your point, uh, if I can run a business with the 20 people and I can produce so much, and then if I'm hurting a 35, 40 people, I'm still producing the same amount of work or even less. I I got an issue, I got an issue with the competition and and the other company in the same space. I can't compete with them because I'm paying a double the payroll to achieve uh less than what I what I should be achieving.

Measuring Performance in a Remote World

SPEAKER_01

Correct. And a lot of these, a lot of these business owners have have convinced themselves that they're not gonna get anything more from their people. So they decide to just go to the lowest common denominator. How little can I get away with paying them? How little can I put into this thing? Because I'm not really gonna get anything. That's a race to the bottom. To me, there are ways, and they don't even include money most of the time. It's how you treat your people, it's how you work with them, how you bring them into the mix to win their hearts, their minds. These are human needs for me, they're not just employing needs. And when we start treating people as human beings, as partners in this process, and they can invest in their effort in with us, that's huge. When we can show them they can be successful, they can achieve their goals by helping the team and the company succeed, that's a win-win.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, but that so let me uh ask you a question that I'm gonna unpack. That's what you just mentioned. That that's a because that's a complex, a lot of work required there, right? So we'll we'll get but did some of that change during the COVID, you know, the way we engage with the people before COVID was a different approach the way we engage now, because uh we are in a disconnected environment. You and I talking over the over the over the Zoom call, and a lot of people talking very differently. So, did that create a challenge or or is a different way of engaging people than we we did before COVID?

SPEAKER_01

Well, take a look at it this way. So between 2010 and 2020, when COVID hit, yeah, engagement was on a steady incline. So it was going up, increasing, inching up and up and up and up.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

Creating a Culture of Engagement

SPEAKER_01

By the time we hit the COVID years, a lot of employees, it was already under the surface, it was starting to turn. But a lot of employees looked at the way that big companies treated them, massive layoffs, just leaving them to their to the to their to defend for themselves at a time when the whole world was shut down just because they wanted to make sure that they protected their P ⁇ L sheets. So the pendulum swung one way, and the companies had all the control, and they were firing people and they were letting go. Now, when we got out of that, companies thought that, hey, I'm just gonna open my doors, I'm gonna invite everybody back, and they're all gonna march back to me. Yeah, that's not how it works. It might work that way on an accounting sheet, it doesn't work that way in management and leadership in real life. Because people said, you know what, forget you. And so we had the largest boom of new companies springing up at the in 2021. It was a record year for them. Now, many of those companies didn't last more than a year or two because a lot of the employees realized that, you know what, hey, this is not that easy. This is not that easy running my own business. But a lot of them survived, a lot of them went out and became independent. Now, looking beyond that, we found ourselves in a difficult situation where unemployment rates were low, but at the same time, you couldn't find good people. I mean, companies were struggling to find talent. That war for talent still continued. Now we find ourselves five years past COVID, and now the pendulum has swung back to the employers. Where the employees before could walk out of this afternoon from your operation and find a job by tomorrow morning because everybody was hiring. Now it's not the same. The market is tight. So the pendulum swings once again back and forth. The problem with that is that the companies that are abusing that power are gonna find themselves in a difficult situation again after this. The pendulum always swings back and forth. The secret to getting out of this war for talent is to do it right the first time, create the right environment. You have to realize, Gourmit, that there is a secret, and I call it now, it's part of my new thinking and the way that I'm approaching my business. Okay, I want people to understand that your body doesn't lie when you think when you're sitting there on a weekend thinking about going into work on Monday. How do you feel? Are you excited? Are you looking forward to working on the projects with your team and everything else? Or are you stressed? Are you anxious? Are you angry? Are you afraid?

SPEAKER_00

Tells you everything, tells you everything you need to know.

SPEAKER_01

And you you can you can really figure out what a culture is, how your culture is functioning by the way your people feel about coming in on Monday. And guess who guess who makes Monday special? Guess who controls how people feel about Mondays? Leadership. Leaders at all levels of your organization are the ones that create the climate, the environment, and the culture. And they are the ones that really set the tone and the pace for making Mondays work. And when your leaders are able to execute your vision, to embrace a culture that's human-centered but yet performs well, you've got a magic thing going on because you don't have to worry about people leaving. People are going to be lining up to work for you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that that is so true. Uh, Ken, that's a great point you mentioned. Monday morning, eight o'clock meeting is the most critical meeting we have in our team. So, and that meeting is a responsibility for business leaders to fire up everybody, get them excited, say, listen, there's a week ahead of us, let's get to work. But yeah, that meeting sets a tone, as you mentioned, that for the rest of the week. Uh we go through a bunch of hooves, but that Monday morning with the meetings, those are critical.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And if you get Monday right, the rest will fall into place. It's all about how your feet people feel coming into work.

SPEAKER_00

Got it. So uh IW mentioned we were talking about performance. Did we measure the, you know, how there's so many different ways of measuring the performances? You know, there's a traditional way of doing that, you know, uh every three months. So, did that also change during the what we just talked about in a COVID, how we measure performance? You know, before COVID, we were saying, yeah, somebody comes in an office at eight o'clock in the morning, they clock uh five o'clock at home. So we were measuring, hey, let's the person in the office every day. So must be good. So did that change also how we measure performance for people?

The Four Drivers of Employee Engagement

SPEAKER_01

Well, think about what happened during those times. If we think about the COVID period, during that time, we were in a situation where we had most of our workforce, two-thirds of the workforce that could was actually working remotely. Maybe one third that couldn't really do that. I mean, when you're in construction, like a lot of the people that I work with in the field, you can't really build from your home. You can't really serve in a hospital from remotely, you can't do all those things. The people that need to drive the trucks, store, you know, stack our shelves, all of those things. We had a lot of people that were there by default. However, two-thirds of the population, the working, the workforce that could work from home did. And here's the interesting thing. I mean, I've been monitoring remote work for almost 25 years. Back in the day, long time ago, I was supporting a call center company that had a lot of call centers throughout the US and North America and beyond. And at the time, we were looking at things and saying, okay, the numbers made sense for us to send people out, not to have these big cube farms and everything else. There was a lot of efficiency work on that. But the two factors that made it impossible for companies to accept it the first one was technology. The technology wasn't ready back in the late 90s. The second one was management trust. How much management trusted their people to work? Now, fast forward to 2020, more than two decades later, and I'm seeing the same things, but now technology is there. Technology, like you and I, are in very different parts of the world, right now. Yep. Yet we're speaking as if we're in the same room. So that's improved. But the second thing, trust from management, was never really resolved. And where you see that is that the only reason management trusted people to work with Molly's because they didn't have a choice. What employees proved during that time is that they could be even more engaged. Engagement numbers during that first period of COVID, all the way April, May, shot up to 38%, one of the highest numbers we've ever seen tracked. Now, fast forward that again a few months, and you went into November, and by that time it dropped down to 31%, down to the low where it's starting to be today. What happened? What happened is management never figured out how to manage a remote workforce. They never got over the lack of trust. And what they started, what they tried to do is manage white-collar knowledge workers the same way that in the 1900s we managed factory workers by how many hours you were on the line and how many widgets you produced. You can't do that with knowledge workers nowadays because what are you going to measure? How many emails they read or how many hours they sat at the computer? Who knows what they were doing there?

SPEAKER_02

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

And so what ended up happening is you have to measure performance not by outputs, how many widgets, but by outcomes. Did you get the job done? That now became a bigger emphasis. It's a paradox almost where you have to look at things differently. Yes, I expect you to give me a certain amount of hours, but if you can get your job done in four hours instead of eight, then by all means do it. The rest is on me to manage you and your output as a person and your the outcomes that you have. If I'm not maximizing what I can do from you as a leader of what I can get out of my team, that's on me. That's not on them.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And so it puts the emphasis back on the leader.

SPEAKER_00

That's a great point. You know, it's um, you know, I talk to a lot of business owners as well, the business leaders, that that measuring output, that is a key. I think that is a way to go. But a lot of business not set up to measure even their output uh that way. They they're so traditionally set up to measure the activities and tasks that an email sent out, all that stuff that does not make sense anymore. If you're going to measure the output, you may have to set up the way you, your system separately. You may have to set up your whole company in infrastructure separately. So a lot of business just even though we've gone through a last three, four years, they still haven't set up in a way that they can measure even the output or what they want to focus on.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, there's a lot of benefits to being able to manage a workforce that's hybrid, for example. Yes. There's definitely benefits to having your team together face to face. There is no substitute for that. No matter what technology you have, it's not the same. It's a lot harder of a lift to try to do a free technology. You have to be very purposeful. You can't capture those impromptu moments where you and I are walking out of the meeting room, and by the time we grab a cup of coffee from the break room, you and I have exchanged five, ten minutes of personal contact or information that you and I need to be successful. Or my ability to look over my boss's shoulder or see him or her in a meeting and how their body language translates. And I'm learning, I'm learning through watching and observing how my senior leadership is reacting in a client meeting. And now I learn how to do that. And so these are moments you can't capture. But if you can find the best of both worlds, there's an opportunity for workers to be able to give you their best and not waste time through distractions, through commute, through other things. Plus, you can expand your reach and you can find good talent that might not be available in your immediate area. And you can expand your pool of candidates and your talent pool from that piece. So depending on the company, there's no one right answer, but depending on the company, the organization, the culture, and how people function, you're able to perform at best when you find the right balance between those two things.

SPEAKER_00

Very interesting. Great point. So let's talk about engagement site on a people site. You know, we we started from a discussion from there. So what are some of the you know, you know, uh initials, uh, you know, business leaders take on, you know, well, how does it look like? Even people work in a decentralized, some of my home, some in office. So, what are some of the items that you see the business leaders are approaching, how they can engage their people a little bit more and and uh you know work with them and and have that the trust built?

Understanding Individual Contributions in Teams

SPEAKER_01

It's a great question. So, in my research, I researched the book, my best-selling book, The Engagement Blueprint, for almost 18 months, writing it and everything else. It's full of three decades of experience. I've spoken to world leaders from across the globe, people that have headed up in manufacturing, in hospitality, in a lot of production and a lot of consulting, and had some great insights from all those people that went into the book. What I discovered, Umi, is that there are essentially four, four drivers that drive engagement, four behaviors that drive engagement. And these are reflect needs that we have, again, not just as employees, but as human beings. The first one is the need that we have to feel valued. We all have that need. We all want to be valued and appreciated. When we are appreciated, we'll always keep more than what's expected of us. If you make this transactional, I give you a paycheck, don't I? I pay you for that, don't I? It becomes very transactional. You're only gonna get what you pay for. Whereas if you engage people and you show that they you value them, you are gonna get a lot more than that. And those things are simple. It doesn't take a lot of money, for example, to show respect to people. When you most companies have respect as part of their values, but as core values, right? They don't always show respect. We owe respect to each other as as co-workers, as human beings, but I can also give you respect for the extra work that you do. I can recognize that effort. It's about building safety in construction. The DNA of the companies is all about physical safety. They are everybody wants to go home in one piece at the end of the day. But part of where we've had to focus a lot more of is the psychological safety. It's moving the industry away from all of the image of the knuckle drag or the people that are spitting and cussing and calling people out and just yelling at people, and make it a lot more human, a lot more respectful and safe to be able to express your opinion. If that worker over there can't say, hey, boss, there's something that's unsafe there, you're gonna be in trouble if you just yell at them. So safety, respect, belonging, show people that they belong, make space at your business for people, because when you welcome them there, when you allow them to bring their whole self to work, they're gonna bring their best self to work. And when you say thank you and you express gratitude, thank you costs you nothing. When you acknowledge people for the good things that they do, and then ultimately time and attention. If you and I are sitting down, put the phone away, remove the distractions, focus. I'm here with you. If I make that eye contact, if my body language says I'm here, I hear you, I see you, that tells people you value them. Now, what costs money out of all those things?

SPEAKER_00

None of it. So none of it, very, very basic human, human in you know, but but so many people drop a ball on that, correct.

The Importance of Growth and Learning in the Workplace

SPEAKER_01

And that's the problem right now. It takes purposeful effort to create that culture, and once you do it as a leader, your people will follow. If they don't follow, get rid of them, bring somebody else who will, because that's the culture that you want. And so making sure that people feel valued at all levels. The next thing is make sure that people feel connected. We are tribal creatures, we want to belong. You see that, you walk into a stadium. What's your favorite sports thing, Burma? Football. Which one? Which team? Oh, Steelers. There you go. If you walk into a stadium and you see the black and gold, and you see most of the stadium with that, don't you feel like you belong? You meet somebody from the same town as you, and all of a sudden you feel a kinship. We want to feel connected, we want to feel like we belong. So create that connection between you as a leader and your people, but also between each other. Create your own team where you understand what it is that we're trying to do. Are we playing football? Are we playing basketball? Let them know what are the rules of the game, how are we going to win? How are we going to score? And all of those things, how are we going to play this game? And you can set that forward as a leader to create that connection and buy. Now, the third one is the power of productivity. We need to feel productive. When you and I go into work and we're going to spend all of these hours, you want to show something for that effort. So it's important to understand that we all want to feel productive, like we're making a contribution. I'll give you an example. If I was to take a picture of a group of us together, and we went and we spent a wonderful meeting, and we had an offsite, and then we had that team photo, you know which ones I'm talking about. And I give you that photo. One of the first things you're going to do is what? What is it? The first thing that you want to do as soon as you take that photo into your hands, what are you going to do? What are you going to look for?

SPEAKER_00

Sorry, you I missed the point. What are you going to look for in the picture?

SPEAKER_01

If you give me a picture, what if what am I going to look for? If I give you a picture of all of us, what's the first thing that you're going to do?

SPEAKER_00

I'm going to see who I'm connected with or or working with who we have a better chemistry to work with and produce something.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so you're going to look for you, and then you're going to look at everybody else that was there, right?

SPEAKER_00

Okay, I got it.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. But you're going to look for yourself. You want to know where am I in this picture? It's the same thing at work. People want to know. You asked me to do this job, boss. How does that fit into everything else? When you are able to explain that to people and they can see how their contribution is making a difference, they will give you something a lot more good. That's that's that extra because they can see the bigger picture and they understand that what they're doing makes a difference.

SPEAKER_00

And they want to be part of that. They want to be contributed to that and be part of that success.

SPEAKER_01

Correct. Especially these younger generations. They're not just going to sit there and just work because you told them to work. They need to understand why we are doing this. And so they want to figure out where they fit, where they fit in, how they contribute. Think about volunteers. Volunteers don't get paid to do what they do, but they work twice as hard as everybody else because they're passionate, because they believe in the power of contribution. And so they give you their best, even though they're making they're getting paid nothing for it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

If you can capture that that passion of somebody who wants to give you what they have because they see the power of their contribution, you'd be a fool not to tap into that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, there are usually causes attached to the identity as well, who they are, the volunteers there, the cause is attached to their personality.

Feedback and Guidance for Younger Generations

SPEAKER_01

Correct. Correct. And you make that connection to people and you explain to them how that makes a difference. And then the fourth one, just as important, Bhunit. I tell people that water, water is a life source. But there's a big difference between a swamp and a river. One is stagnant and it almost feels like a smells like a bog, like something. It's not clean. Whereas a river, a stream, the water is clear, it moves, there's movement there. That's how you want to see your career. You want to see your growth in a company, not like a swamp, but you want to see it like a raging river, moving appropriately. And sometimes it's going to meander, it's going to slow down, but you want to see movement. That's what people want. We want to come to you in your company and know that they have a future. If they feel that they can grow with you, with your company, and they will give you something more than just a paycheck that they're getting.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So before we move, though, you mentioned four items. One was uh a belonging, another one was uh one was valued, feeling valued.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, the second one is feeling connected, the belonging part. Okay, the third one is feeling productive, and the fourth one is feeling supported to learn and grow.

SPEAKER_00

Perfect. Okay. Want to make sure that people forget. You know, to your point, younger people, I hire a lot of younger people in my business as well. You know, and you know, one of the I item I noticed then uh with the younger people is if you tell them what needs to be done, they they they're not following as much, but they're expecting you to be lead and show them that this is how it's done. So they want to see as an example more than they're simply just telling them what needs to be done. So if you can't set that example, you know nobody's following you, right? So so they're expecting that from people to uh be an example for them so they can follow you and they can achieve the same results.

The Role of Leaders in Developing Others

SPEAKER_01

And think about it differently. How many times do those young people? And I'm gonna ask you a simple question. How many times do those old people come to you wanting to know how am I doing? Am I doing this right constantly? Very often they want very often. This generation wants feedback, it's almost like a built-in GPS. They want to know, am I going the right way? Am I doing you and you have to constantly keep correcting. Now, the problem a lot of times, Gourmit, is that older workers don't always have the patience for that. And because they've been doing it for so long, they forget what it's like to be new to a job and to a task. And so they have a hard time articulating and explaining what they really want and what good looks like. If you cannot explain and clearly explain it to people what it is that you expect of them, how do you expect them to hit the target? It's like you put a blindfold on them and you spin them around and you say, Okay, hit the target. It's only out of luck that they would do it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Very interesting. Yeah, I know definitely. Uh they are the younger people, they're so used to getting information when they need it, whether it's some social media or any media, when they need information, they know how to go get it. And they get that instant information. And when you don't get the feedback at work, I can see the frustration for them that listen, I'm looking for feedback, I'm not getting it. So, and and you see that the frustration going up.

SPEAKER_01

Correct. And that's where we have to be more cognizant. A lot of times we we forget that that is the job. Guiding your team is the job as a leader. It's not to offset labor. You're not just there to fill the production quota with your effort. If you are the best producer on your team, you've got a problem. You've got a big problem. Because as a leader, your job is to accomplish more through your team. Not through your work. You got to leave that behind. You're no longer an individual contributor. You're a leader now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I want to give a benefit to uh people watching business owners or or CEO of the company. I would give up, you know, they definitely have a lot on their plate. They try to scale a business of what we've gone through with the COVID. They got to grow the companies, they gotta do pail. There's the financial stress, there's uh stress for uh you know competition, they gotta innovate new products, they gotta scale companies. There's a lot going on in their mindset. Same time you gotta be you know very, you know, engage in uh you know in your staff side for staff development. How do you think they find a balance or or they you know, do you see that being used as a skill sometime that listen, I was just too busy, I forgot to pay attention.

SPEAKER_01

Developing others doesn't come easy to everybody. Some people have it instinctively, they're they're they're teachers, they're coaches, they they they they enjoy it. But a lot of the entrepreneurs that are out there, the business owners, got into this because they love what they do, they're operators, they love solving problems, they love it.

SPEAKER_00

They were good at something in a trade.

Delegation and Creating More Leaders

SPEAKER_01

Correct. And so for many of them, it's a struggle, it's it's out of their comfort zone. So wherever possible, you want to make sure that someone, if not you, someone is taking care of that. For example, one of the clients that I work with, the CEO has since retired, but I started coaching his team more than 10 years ago. And at the time he came to me and he says, Look, I know how to build things. My people know that I care for them, I would go to bat for them, I would, I would fight for them. They'll know I care about them, but I can't do what you do. I need you to come in and be me, be an extension of me, and I want you to be the coach for my people. And so now I have 24 of the senior executives of this billion-dollar company that I coach every month. And we've continued down this path because he acknowledged that that wasn't his strength, but he made sure that somebody was taking care of that. And so we were able to accomplish the great results that we were with this team. It's the same within your organization. Maybe you don't have me as somebody to help you. Find somebody, even internally. There's going to be some people in your leadership team or even some more experienced workers that will enjoy doing that. Maybe they don't want to get a promotion and move up.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But maybe they enjoy being mentors to some of the younger people that are coming in.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, the reason I mentioned uh, Khan was that you know, you know, business owners they have so many areas to split their time in, and there's so many blind spots. You know, you're gonna miss here and there the blind spot. And that's where you need experts like you. Um, somebody can see those blind spots. Somebody, you know, there to showing you if they can do it, that'd be great. But at least they're they're paying attention to those blind spots that you're not paying attention to and bringing that to your attention that you can deal with it. But you know, as business owners, we you push hard and deal, you're not gonna see every everything around you. You just focus on, hey, this is my goal for this month. Let me let me let me get to this point.

SPEAKER_01

I go back to the same place when we started Good Meet. It doesn't matter if you have the best strict strategy or best business plan in the world. If your people can't execute it, it's a paper exercise. It doesn't mean anything. So understand that your people, how they behave, how they are, how ready they are. And that's what when we talk about performance, I mean, let's go back to that for a second. Your people side of the performance equation is about can they do the job? Will they do the job? It's competence and it's commitment to do the job. Can they do it because they have the skills, the things we can teach that, but do they have the desire? And that's the coaching and the alignment and making sure you make that connection for them. Beyond that, your systems are your systems operating to help or do they hinder? Do they create more friction or do they allow flow? And you put a good worker, a good leader in a bad system, the system is gonna win every single time.

Passion for the Construction Industry

SPEAKER_00

It's gonna frustrate it, it's gonna frustrate people because they keep hitting that brick wall. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And the last thing is, as a senior leader, the business owners that you're talking about, their biggest responsibility when it comes to the people side of things, to the performance, is getting the right people on the right seat on the bus. That's their job. Do you have the right people on the right seat on the bus and point it in the right direction? So that bus is driving where you want to go. That's the biggest thing. That's what senior leaders should be worried about. The rest, develop leaders at all levels and let them now cascade that down. Because everybody wants to hear it from their boss. They don't care about the big boss at the end of the day. You know who they trust? The person that signs their paycheck and their PTO every week. Ours. That's who they trust.

SPEAKER_00

Very interesting. You know, it looks like business leaders got to brush up some of their skill set or or they got to build some of some of this, you know, the the you know, the process or or strategies or engagement side of things into their skill set. Where you see some of the struggles are there? Is it on a personal development, professional development? You know, where business leaders struggle. Do you see people jump on it and simply say, listen, uh, I'm gonna take whatever skill required for me to uh get to you know engage with the people and you know where do you see some of the struggles with the business leaders in that area?

SPEAKER_01

You know, one of the things that that I think that I've had to do, I work on the hardest with business leaders that I work with, many of them that I coach and train, is giving up what no longer belongs to them, delegating. I wrote an article a while back for a magazine. It was titled, If you are irreplaceable, you are unpromotable. Yeah. And it's important to understand that any company that has to hire three people to do your job is not going to do it. You may feel like you have job security and a certain fake sense of satisfaction that look how much I'm doing, but you're never going to get promoted because the company can't afford to promote you. What you need to be doing, the biggest thing that good or great leaders do is they create more leaders. They don't create followers, Groomy. So every leader's responsibility is to create more leaders below them, people that can think for themselves, that are self-directed, that can perform, that can take stuff off your plate, so now you can focus on elevating your game. That's how you move up. Otherwise, if everybody, if the big boss is doing their their direct reports work and they're doing their direct reports, and everybody's going down to the lowest common denominator, everybody's doing the frontline work and nobody's driving this bus. Learn how to delegate by creating strong leaders below you and then have them work with you to be able to do more to really multiply your abilities.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, interesting. So you you look at Khan, you work with the a lot of uh construction industry. Is there something specific that you spend time on this industry, or is the problem as much bigger in this area? Like, you know, what's what's the reason behind that you spend a lot of time with this industry?

Connecting Leadership and Personal Development

SPEAKER_01

Well, it's funny because I I joke about it. I was speaking at a convention last week on this particular topic, and I explained to them that part of my love and my passion for the construction industry goes back many, many years, let's put it that way. I was a young pre-teenage boy, so 12, 13 years old, and I was living in Greece, and being the oldest son of a Greek family, there was an expectation of me to help wherever I could. And so I was sent off at the time to go work with an uncle of mine who was working with a commercial painting crew on big buildings, on big apartment buildings. And so I learned firsthand what it looks like to be able to do that and to build something and to to see something. A few years ago, I was back in Greece, so it was more than 40 years since I'd been to this particular spot in town, and I saw this building. And granted, it had lost a lot of its youth and its shine, probably like me. But I still remembered, I still remembered how I felt working on that building. The construction industry is one of the few industries that leaves a real legacy. You can you you're you're building the school that your kid's gonna go to, you're building a hospital that may care for a loved one, you're building an office building that may hire your spouse to go work there. You're doing all these things, maybe the the the multifamily home unit, the home that that the house that's gonna become your home. These are things that make a difference in our communities and our lives. And the industry is a ballbit. Like I said, it's no longer our grandparents' construction industry. Now it's much more dynamic, it's robust, it's much more diverse. You've got a lot of diversity, you've got a lot of young people coming in. The trades are starting to come back because people are realizing that that's an art and a skill that's important. You don't realize the value of a plumber until you you're you're club the middle of the night in the winter.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And then you really are willing to pay a lot of money for that person command. Yeah, so there's opportunities there. And to me, it's it's an industry, like I said, I've come full circle and I'm happy to serve because it helped me, it gave me an opportunity at difficult times in my life. Now, granted, I went away and did a lot of different things, but I've come back full circle, and I'm so glad to be able to serve the industry and help general contractors, civil companies, big trade companies, a lot of the plumbing, electrical, and mechanical companies that I work with. I mean, it gives me joy because the people that are attracted to these kind of organizations are also very authentic. They're people that love to build with their hands, that take tremendous pride in what they do, they see a problem. Try to fix a problem. It's a very different attitude. And so I really enjoy the people, I enjoy the industry, and I enjoy making a difference. I don't build buildings, I build talent, I build organizations up from the people's side.

SPEAKER_00

So, how did you guys interested in in and uh understanding people and getting so good at that the helping people to get engaged? So how that got your interest?

SPEAKER_01

Well, a lot of the opportunities, I mean, I look back and I connect the dots looking backwards, because that's the only way you can connect them. But I've realized that, you know, in all my life, I've always been in roles that involved leadership, that involved training and development, that involved overall organizational development, building teams. So more than three decades now, I've been I've been developing high-performing leaders and high-performing teams. Even from the days of the military, I wasn't I was an instructor in the military. So even in those days, I was attracted to that kind of role. But there's also a saying, an expression. You know, the two most important days in your life are the day you come into this world and the day you realize why.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And for me, I realize that I love being a trainer, I love being a coach. And I do that even when I'm not getting paid. I've been coaching young kids, especially young girls, for 12, 14 years now uh in soccer. My daughter started playing, and I went back and I fell in love with the game. And I and I love the game, I love working with the kids, and I love doing what I do. So I've been working with them for many years, and to me, that's part of what fills me up. That's why they call me Coach Khan. That's not because the executives call me, that's the kids that call me Coach Khan. And so from there, I've stuck, it's the name is stuck, and I love it because to me it it expresses who I am in my heart, in my authentic self. I am a coach and I am a teacher at heart because I love to learn.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and you're making a difference in so many people's life, you know, whether on an executive side or whether it's in a teaching kids, you know, you you're making a difference in people's life, you know, it's rewarding.

SPEAKER_01

Yep, and that's where I get my satisfaction from. And like I said, I'm blessed because I've been able to build a business now, like I said, 14 years today, this is its founding, where I get to do the best parts of what I used to do for big corporations, and now I keep that best part for myself, and I'm able to offer that and support the companies that I work with. And it's such a joy for me. I love Mondays. Monday would matter to me. I get up and I think about it. I start planning my week on Saturday and Sunday about what I have to look forward to again. So to me, every day is a fun day, and I love that. And I've been able to build my business around my lifestyle. I spend a third of my time back home in Greece. My wife and I had recently bought our dream home overlooking the Mediterranean, and I am able to work from there. Why? Because I have the trust and the ability to help my clients no matter where I am in the world, and I have clients all over the world. The only thing I have to take into account is the time zones. That's the only thing we have to worry about.

SPEAKER_00

So, do you still work with the business leaders who are looking for a little bit of help or they have some blind spot or they they they can have you know struggling with this area with the engagement or performance? Do you do you still help with them or is it most of us speaking?

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. And if I can help them, I will point them in the right direction to who will. Because sometimes people come to me and they think that my skill set or the training is something that they need, but it's not always that. I can help them in a lot of different ways. It's training, it's coaching, it's consulting, it's speaking and facilitating all these different areas. And like I said, I had around me a team of people of very capable professionals that I partner with whenever they need additional help. So I'm always available. People reach out. If I can't help you, like I said, I'll point you in the direction of who can.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I know it's a business leader watching, you know. Uh people are listening. You know, just for a very quick conversation, I gained so much perspective. You mentioned those four things important. I just already down. I want to review that again. There's so much to learn from you, and you know, leaders are watching. I'll definitely, you know, encourage them to reach out to you for conversation. Who knows where the conversation is gonna uh go, but but at least you learn something and and gain a different perspective. So I strongly recommend people to uh reach out to you for connection. Where can people find you, Con?

SPEAKER_01

Well, they can follow me on LinkedIn, and on LinkedIn I actually have that name, CoachCon. So they can find me on CoachCon with a link below this video. So so LinkedIn go to my website, Fresh Biz Solutions.

SPEAKER_00

There is a newsletter on uh LinkedIn as well. I will recommend it. There's a great newsletter, you know, people to subscribe to that. And uh it looks like you've been you re issue that newsletter like once a week, or is it once a month? How often do you do you?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, once a month. So I have a letter that I put out through LinkedIn, and I have another one that I do for my VIP group.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and there's a lot of podcast uh discussions as well. I think with the with the other other, you know, uh uh followers. There's tons of discussions. I will recommend people to go check out your information and connect with and listen to other podcasts as well and reach out to you for conversation. Who knows where the discussion is going to take you?

SPEAKER_01

You never know.

SPEAKER_00

And any message you want to leave for business leaders who are looking to uh start their process to to get better in this area, Akon.

SPEAKER_01

Pick up my book. That's one thing I would say. Pick up the latest book because it's got a lot of great.

SPEAKER_00

So on Amazon, where can they find it?

SPEAKER_01

It's on Amazon available, they can get it on Kindle, they can get it on print. It's out there. Um, but I will leave them with the same expression that I have. I have this in the book, and it's something that I want them to understand. The grass is not greener on the other side. Don't don't keep looking over the fence. The grass isn't greener over there, the grass is greener where you water it. Take care of your part, do your part with your people, and you will never have to worry about that.

SPEAKER_00

That's a great quote. You know, instead of worrying about the competition, is it but telling just take care of people? You don't have to worry about any other stuff.

SPEAKER_01

You take them out of the mix, you don't have to worry about the competition because every they should be worried about you.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you, my friend.

SPEAKER_00

Alright, thank you.