Episode 36—Tribal Leadership in Higher Education

On today’s episode of the Enrollment Edge Jay, once again, talks to Dave Quick, executive coach, speaker, and corporate consultant to over 300 companies. Dave was a guest on the Edge more than a year ago (which we dropped as a repeat bonus episode earlier this week) about the topic of hiring and retaining the right team. We thought we should continue that theme and talk about ways higher ed leaders can successfully build a productive, effective, and innovative team. Dave brings the model of “Tribal Leadership” into his consulting with corporation executives. The New York Times Best Selling Book, “Tribal Leadership” is at the core of our conversation – you can find it on your favorite book selling sites. There has never been a more important moment in higher education to embrace new models of providing degree attainment that are affordable and meaningful. In other words, the most rigid and formatted industry in our society, higher education, must innovate to survive!

About Our Guest

David Quick is committed to “helping bulls thrive in china shops” by helping leaders transition their lives to becoming more significant. He is also an executive coach, speaker and change agent that can help your admissions department run more effectively. David also helps schools with VP and Dean of Enrollment placement services.

After receiving his BS in mathematics from the United States Naval Academy, David served eight years active duty as a Surface Warfare Officer, including a tour as an Instructor at the United States Naval Academy. Mike and David were shipmates as young Naval Officers on their first ship out of college.

With over 20 years of sales and marketing experience, he has broad experience in both small and large organizations. David also holds a MA in Education from Loyola University Maryland and attended the London Business School Executive Leadership Program.

He has volunteered as a Court Appointed Special Advocate for Abused and Neglected Children and as math/GED tutor, including work in the prison system.

Dave lives in Bloomington, IN with his wife and family.

Episode Transcript

Jay Fedje: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Enrollment Edge podcast for college enrollment and marketing leaders. I'm your host, Jay Fedje. The Enrollment Edge is sponsored by enrollmentFuel, a trusted full-service student search and marketing partner to colleges and universities across the country. If you'd like to learn more about enrollment tool services. Or you have questions about today's episode. We've included a link to our website in the show notes. You can also email us at edge@enrollmentFUEL.com. We'd love to hear what you think. If you can help us by subscribing to our podcast, sharing it with your friends and leaving a five-star review on apple podcasts. My name is Jay Fedje your host of the Enrollment Edge. And today I'm talking with Dave Quick founder of Helping Bulls, thrive and consultant on organizational culture and effective leadership. Our topic today is one that's close to my heart hiring and keeping the right people across industries, hiring great people is, or at least should be the goal of every manager yet finding the right people. Isn't easy and keeping them can be even harder. Hiring often comes down to who we like instead of who best fits the role. Dave is a seasoned expert that helps organizations across the country through a data-driven approach, make the right hiring decisions and offer strategies to motivate and keep those right fit people. I hope our conversation will provide you with valuable information to help you build the best team. Good morning, Dave. Welcome to the Enrollment Edge podcast. Great to have you today,

David Quick: [00:01:50] Jay. Thanks for having me so much. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Jay Fedje: [00:01:53] We are talking today the Enrollment Edge podcast with Dave Quick and I'm going to have him describe a little bit of what he does. He's got one of the most fascinating jobs. I think that I've ever come across. In fact, every time I get a chance to look behind him on his wall with that giant steer, I just am reminded you've got one of the coolest jobs that of anybody I know. So describe a little bit about what you do.

David Quick: [00:02:17] Jay our company is helping bulls thrive in china shops and it centers around most of my life. I was that proverbial bull in the China shop knocking down walls, not really focused on how do I elevate and bring teams together. And post third CEO stint, I said, I want to be a consultant slash coach and that led to the launch of this company. And it started primarily helping companies grow their market, but quickly it shifted to, and probably always at my heart coaching. And so it moved to executive coaching, what we call organizational or team coaching. And then lastly, about six, seven years ago, how do we help people get the right people in the right seats? And once we have them, how do we elevate team performance, individual leader performance. And most of my day is if you think of a golf coach watching people instead of their golf swing how they're leading, how they're driving teams, what's happening on the ground inside of organizations. And it's been awesome. Really love the work.

Jay Fedje: [00:03:18] And that's the conversation I'd like to have today is about that a right person in the role, I've sat in a number of seats with. Large teams, small teams under me hiring was always one of my greatest joys in the bane of my existence. Finding that right person. And when you capture that right person to hang on to them for, as long as you possibly can, and as we've talked about that right fit person, one of the things I think that struck me is we all know, maybe. Or we think we know what that right fit is. And yet I think that most of us folks that have been hiring over the years, maybe we just have created that. So as you have talked with organizations, companies, you've worked with colleges, universities talk about what right fit means.

David Quick: [00:04:09] I'll start with kind of a weird metaphor. Most businesses, organizations, universities, colleges, Review data to make decisions on almost everything. So you're looking at your revenue, your profit, your enrollment numbers your retention. You're looking at numbers all the time when it comes to doing what many would consider the most important thing we do, which is hire team we tend to ignore data. We tend to go now I'm just going to make the decision based on gut. So that's the fundamental flaw for most leaders is they think somehow they do that well and everything else in their life, they look at data to inform their decisions. So we'll talk about that some today, but I think the first and foremost thing is, can I apply data? Can I make this more objective than subjective? And we tend to make this a subjective. And if you look at what it then falls to and. I spend a lot of time with business leaders and either speaking forums or other small audiences. And when you say how do you really make this decision? It usually boils down to an individual or a group of people in a room going well, who you liked best. So hiring becomes this likability scale. What this usually boils down to is we hire people like us. So if we are an aggressive friendly, Non-conformist which is press forward. We're going to like those people. Sure. Versus the anal retentive, perfectionist, we're going to go, oh man. That's like too stiff and a job as an accountant or somebody that needs the managed process. Then we need that anal retentive, stiff perfectionist going that's what we want. And so the data can help us one and then two, are they right for us? And that's a broader question that I talk about creating a magnet for your organization. And if we use a baseball metaphor, are they right in the clubhouse? Do we look across at them and go they're right. For this team, they fit our culture. They live and breathe and act and behave the way we all act and behave. So they're right there. And then. Furthering that baseball analogy. Can they play the position? So if they're playing first base, can they actually catch, can they dig a bad throw out of the dirt? And I joke about this on another level, which is, that also depends on the maturity of your organization and we're coaching. T-ball. If I go, Hey, Betty or Tim, you playing first base. And I got a bunch of four and five-year-olds. If they know where first base is, I'm doing like, so as we mature, however, we then expect a whole lot more of them, which is they need to catch everything. And as we approach we'll call it major league level. They can't drop a good throw ever, and they need to dig 40 or 50 balls out of the dirt or in the air and tag runners and do all those things that save the organization, the baseball team, right? Where do your 50 errors a year and oh, by the way, hit near 350 at plus RBI. As we move organizationally, we really change our expectation. But in all of those, are they right for us? In a good to great analogy, should they be on the bus? Are they oh, where we're going? And then do we have a right seat for them? And we can apply data to all of that, which most don't.

Jay Fedje: [00:07:25] That you you bring up such a good point finding the right person and finding the right spot are two different perspectives on this, right? So you can find the right person, but they may not have the right skill sets for that spot. One of the things that really struck me as we prepped for this is that I think there are a lot of folks in their positions, in their jobs. That have been been promoted beyond their DNA, so they got into the job that, the market, that, that career, and they loved that first job and they love that second job. They kept being promoted and maybe promoted right outside their strength and comfort zone. So when they get to that point where they're talking to you those last few jobs may not necessarily have been great jobs for them.

David Quick: [00:08:11] And Jay, there's a bunch that we could unpack there. I think the first and foremost is who we typically promote in advance are people that do the work really well. And if we use any example here, we could go to admissions counselors and go, oh, you are a fantastic admissions counselor. That doesn't mean they could lead a team. And so just because they can enroll people in the university and do a great job of bringing people on board doesn't mean they can lead a team and right. So that's the first and foremost that most organizations do, they advance based on performance and rightly we want people that can perform a history of performance, but you also can, again, look at data and go, is this person naturally driven to lead other humans or are they naturally led to connect with people and influence and persuade? And those are two different things. So that's that's one. And then. To we, we tend to look at people and go hey, they're doing the job well. And we don't consider all the other factors that would be required in leadership in terms of development. So they may have that skill set, but early leaders make a bunch of mistakes. And so if we can start to help leaders understand what really leadership is prior to moving into those roles, we have a higher likelihood. And then the last thing is sometimes. Organizational maturity just passes people by, right? So as your organization gets better and better, and you're on that evolution from T-ball to major league baseball, some people just can't make the leap much like major league baseball. There's a level of talent as we get better that we're looking for better people. And sometimes that's, and I've lived through that personally many times, Jay, when we grow organizations like I have from 50 to 550 million in four years. What workforce at 50 million and leadership and team and performance was much different than at five 50. And for many of us, even the leadership team, we were going we're in over our heads. This is a different ball game than where we were four years ago. I remember things like reviewing seatbelt policies as the EDP of sales and marketing and going, I wasn't doing this four years ago. It wasn't having to review and make sure that all my sales reps knew they need to wear a seatbelt. So organizational kind of focus, changes, risk changes, and the person that's right for. That 550 million or a billion dollar company is different than the person that's right for, less than a million dollars in revenue. So there's a bunch in that, but again, data can help us. Our awareness of the situation can help us and we can in general be more intentional. And more objectively, how do we place data to help us make that decision?

Jay Fedje: [00:10:54] Talk about that a minute. You mentioned strategies, the data strategies the awareness of your situation, your organization, where they are, not only where you are, but where you're heading that think is critically important. Talk about some strategies defined and assess those right fit people.

David Quick: [00:11:11] So I think there's a bunch in assessment and I always liken it to, we need to do interviews to find if they're right for our culture. So in that it's important that your organization has a robust set of core values that we can understand and ask. And Jay, you guys had enrollmentFuel have one that's, deliver plus one and. We can ask people. When you look at the work, are you driven to deliver not only awesome work, but something extra, and how have you done that in the past and ask questions and say things like everyone here does that. So those are things that we can use the typical interview question, but give examples. And then I like to take it a step further and ask the interview, IE, the person you're interviewing. If your last three bosses were here, Jay, if your last three bosses were here and I asked them about deliver plus one and I explained what it is, what would they tell me? What would they say that they admire about your ability to do that? And what would they cautioned me on? I follow up and do reference checks that way that's one. The second is we can now measure and there are many assessment tools to look at personality and personalities like your thumbprint. It says, how is the person hardwired? There are many that are super strong statistically and predictive of behavior. Jay, you've gone through culture index, one that, that we use and I've liked. And the reason I like it is it's the strongest I've seen statistically, and you can complete the assessment mustard in 10 minutes, super easy online. You click the words and what's remarkable is I can use it to hire. And I can also use another data set to coach. And so hiring is what are the ideal traits for a position? If we talk admissions counselor, again, we want someone that's persuasive, influential that can build relationships yet can drive results. That has a sense of impatience that wants to deliver results in a remarkable way, but also is flexible enough that can find the path. If we're looking for an accountant. That's the opposite of that person. More accommodating, more introspective. They gain energy from the work versus people that are more patient and super buttoned up detailed. And we look at those two and those are the best for me. I go, one has all right-handed traits and one has all left-handed traits. And if you're right-handed, you're going to like people that are more right-handed. If you're high social, you're going to like people that are high social. If you're introspective, you're going to like people that are more introspective and what's great about this tool is it's remarkable, easy. And if your listeners want to assess it, we can give the link and it's just, you can go out and take the assessment yourself. We set up 30 day demos and you literally can try it on and go. How does this help me understand the people that I know what's awesome. If you go, oh, it just described Jay perfectly. I can also describe Betty who you've never met perfectly and. Help you understand? What questions do I need to ask her based on the work I expect, and then how do I ask those of references? So from a hiring standpoint, we can add that first layer, which says if we can, let's filter in people that are hardwired to do the work, our hiring success and out of the gate performance, then skyrocket because we get people. That are highly influential and persuasive to be admissions counselors. And we get people that are deliberate and perfect to be accountants, not the opposite. That's the first. And then I'm also a firm believer in skill assessment. So before we bring people into the work, can we create a set of skill assessments and people always look at this and go what do you mean? And I'll give the example that is easiest to understand, and also remarkable at home delivery company that I ran. One of the things we were routinely doing is hiring the next warehouse worker. Our monthly shipments were going up and they were hiring higher. And so we needed an entry level. Pick pack and ship, which sounds really simple. And you go how do you assess that skill? When we got to final candidates, we would say, can you come work Saturday or Sunday and pick pack? And we wouldn't ship on Sunday, but we would pick and pack it and put a shipping label on it. And what we would do is we would pay them four hours at 10 99 rates. We're going to pay you. You're going to come in for an hour. We're going to train you. You're going to spend two hours doing the work. And then we're going to have both a written exam and a example exam. Can you go pick, pack and ship without errors? And what we knew is we had data. So the average warehouse worker can pick pack and ship 40 shipments per hour with less than 10% error. And so we started to have a benchmark of. In this four hour assessment, what do we want to see? We started doing that for our Medicare billers. So there's a bunch of ways to think about. Can I assess skill on top of personality? So for me, it's always personality gets you in the door, meaning you're a fit. We then do culture questions to go, are you right for us? And then as we're moving toward final, we go, we want to watch them do the work. And those three things, give us now data that we can assess we can look at and we can say. They were only a 62% match on personality and they weren't a good culture fit. Do we need to bring them and do skill assessment? No. Now conversely, they were a 95% personality fit. They aced. They are us. They already understand our culture. We believe they walk it and do it. Great. Let's have them come in and do the work. And the reason is that person, particularly we go. Maybe this isn't the right job, but we know they have it and we want them on our team. Can we find a role for them? Sure. Use your talent. And so those are the things, and most of us are more haphazard about it. Most of us go, I bring people in, I interview, I think I do a great job and instead we're going, do I like Jay? That's all we're doing versus are we matching them against a set of robust data and. Saying are they right for us? The job for me? And the organization. And you go, if you say yes. Then you're gonna increase your hiring effectiveness a whole bunch.

Jay Fedje: [00:17:12] It gets passed. One of the stumbling blocks that I've always felt like I ran into and that was people that have. Found their way into roles, where they have created maybe a high pain tolerance. They've just been willing to do it. They've just figured out ways to get things done, even though they haven't really liked it. They it's not a job that they are wired for, but they've figured out how to do it. And these measures get. Beyond that and begin to look at how people are built, how they're wired, the right fit for the job, the right fit for the culture, the right fit for, the company and the future of the company. I like how that gets past some of those employee or candidate disguises in some ways is a disguise where they've figured out a way to say what you want to hear.

David Quick: [00:18:01] And beautiful again, if you use this data, now I can pull it out and say, Hey Jay, I have this. Little assessment that you completed for us, it says you're not the most conforming person on the planet. It says details and minutia, aren't your forte. However, it tells me that your ability to solve problems press forward lead are remarkably strong. So how have you overcome that? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You answer it. And then I go great. If your last three bosses were here, would they agree with some of that? How would they say you've matured in the role to do that? So not only does it a forum inform our selection, it informs our questions and our reference checking. And, we can spend some time there most now today. Don't do awesome reference checking. The standard response we get is, Hey, sorry. I only can confirm employment. I do that differently. If I'm dealing with you Jay, who were the last three people you work with, and I ask you to schedule those reference calls. So I asked you to reach out to Tim and go contingent on my calendar different than calling in to XYZ university and getting HR. And they go, I only can confirm Jay Fedje worked here from these dates to these, I'm talking to a person and then still I will get, I only can confirm employment and my go-to there and I'll share it with the audience because I think it's powerful. And most people don't think about it is. If it's, I'm calling Tim and I go, Tim, thanks for taking the call. I'm glad that you're willing to talk to me about Jay and I start to ask questions and he says, I only can confirm employment. I go, Tim, I don't know about you, but have you ever heard of anyone being sued for giving a positive reference? And then I don't say another word. I make Tim answer that question and he eventually goes, I haven't either. I go great. So if this is a positive reference, he can answer the questions. He still may go. This is only, and then I go, great. I understand. You're leery your HR department. Only one question then, and you don't even have to respond with a yes. You can just cough. You can tap the phone on the table noise. That indicates yes. Knowing what you know about Jay I'm looking for him in this role. What would you say about his ability to do this role? Would you hiring him, hire him, knowing what you know, and if I get dead silence again, I only can con con assume that this is a negative reference then and you have your audience think about that. Reference checking is huge. It gives us the opportunity to confirm again what the data's showing us. On this little tool, it's going to point to, these are the potential weaknesses of Jay and how has he overcome them? And what I want to hear is self-awareness now we all have strength and weakness, and then the second is what and how have I intentionally hired? On my team to shore that up. So for you, you go, I hire anal retentive. People manage the process perfectly, and I don't have to worry about it. And that's a great combination for you. Your administrative assistant should run your schedule and drive you to it. And then the world works, and that's, as we move toward teams, we can start to go well, How do we intentionally focus and structure on teams? How do we give people feedback? We don't allow you to ignore your gap, but we go, I'm going to have you focus on how I share that work or delegate that work to others that are hardwired to do it perfectly.

Jay Fedje: [00:21:17] I've always had a mantra as I've looked at folks on my team we're to shift gears here to team event but, I had this this mantra that said do I want to manage the dysfunction of a team or an individual, or do I want to manage the vacancy of that person not being there. And we talked a bit about the cost of poor fit employees and the numbers you gave me. They really are startling. And tell me a little bit about what is the cost for finding somebody just to fit a role and not really a good fit.

David Quick: [00:21:53] So there's the proverbial. Can they fog a mirror? And we bring them on board and we're desperate to hire. And most sources show three or four times annual salary. My research and spending time with people in the spaces it's as high as eight or nine times annual salary. So if you're fully burdened cost is a hundred thousand, then you know, this is a million dollar potential hiring mistake. And most of us don't think about it that way. Most of us rush to hire. And there's the proverbial, slow to hire quick to fire most don't take that advice. And then the other side of this is that the ongoing, she said manage the dysfunction, the world, Lord, we give our best performers and almost every organization is more work. So as we look at top performers we promote them and we give them more money. But the real reward we give them all the time is. We trust them more so we give them the most important work and we pile on and, the metaphor I use is we walk by bottom performers to hand more work to our top performers. And when you talked about, can we, look at managing the vacancy. If we went to our top performers today and said, Hey, on our team of 10, I know I have two or three bottom performers that. Aren't pulling their weight. And we went to the other seven and said, if I just made those vacant and you guys had to work really hard for a period of time, and I commit to finding people more like you seven, what would those seven people say? They'd go, I'm all about it because I'm already doing it. Most of them are already recognizing it and they go.  . And if you actually find that person, then I don't have to do more and I don't have to be resentful of Betty or Tim that aren't pulling their weight. And in almost every organization where we finally get around to making the tough decision of removal, dismissal, reassignment, there's a clap that goes through the organization, and I talk about it as the golf clap. It's not a loud, boisterous, cheer in most places, but there's all the talk in the hallway of. Jay finally made the decision. Why didn't he see this a year ago? And most of us knew it a year ago, just aren't willing to pull the trigger. And if you look at it that way and say, how do I elevate the performance of the team? And I urge organizations to do what I call the empty bus exercise, Jay, that gets to this. And what it says is if I have any team and enrollment manager or a Dean of a university, literally. I talk about it metaphorically. As we March everyone off the bus, we take our organization and we mark them off the bus and we have them all lined up on the curb. And the first thing we do is we go, who should be on the bus based on. Cultural fit. We haven't talked a lot about that. Cultural fit for me is they live our vision. They understand where we're going, and that takes leaders, giving that clear, compelling, repelling vision of future. And that's the placard on the front of the bus. It says this bus, our university is going to this destination and much like Chicago or San Francisco. Everyone knows where the bus is going. People that want to do what you do. And are dying to go do that work then are lined up to get on the bus and more and more people will, as you feel that magnet will hear about this is what. This university does. And I want to be part of that and you'll get this groundswell. Google has that Google has 7,000 unsolicited applications per day, or a lot of people that want to work at Google. And then you have another challenge, which is how do I weight through 7,000 unsolicited applications to find out who's good but if I get that placard people are clamoring to get on the bus. And I can answer that first question, which is, are they part of our future vision? Are they compelled to do the work? We do. I talked about it on Sunday. Are they excited to come to work on Monday? Are they going? I want to come do this work. And you sense that passion and desire from them. The second is a robust set of core values that we go. This is how everyone acts and behave. You guys have celebrate high five goose honk. And enrollmentFuel, whatever they are for your university. I have helped organizations set these and they should be meaningful, alive and well. And I joke Sesame street, one of us is not like the other and nor that, not like the other, that means you're not adhering to our core values and we all have lapses, but if you can't, then those are the first two things that say they're not right for our bus. They can't sact and behave the way we want people to act and behave and they can't live the vision. They don't get on the bus. It just doesn't make sense to go. We're going to keep these people in the clubhouse of our baseball team that are cancerous or destructive. Why would we. So that's the first step. And so we go, oh, they're definitely right for the bus. And then do we have a seat for them in baseball? Do we have a position on the field that they can play? In a baseball team, we have nine positions and if you're in American league, it'd be eight. So you have 10. And so you go, I have 10 positions and if you look at Tina or Tim and go, I don't have a position. They can play on the field. You then have to go. I love them. Is there something meaningful that we can do not some made up. There are hot dog bench warmer that boy you're like, no, we don't have that position. It's not a position on the field. Sure. But if they can learn to play right field, you go great. I'm going to train them as well as I can to play right field, because I love them on the team and they can contribute. If over time you go, they can't contribute. You need to start saying. Then that's hurting my overall team performance, much like baseball. And first baseman is the easiest one to understand you have a great shortstop. He dives makes a play, comes up, throws and throws a ball right to the first basement's chest. And the first baseman drops the ball. Everyone's you didn't do your job and one time we go, okay. But if that happens next game and the following game, we start going, I know I could find a better first basement, and that's been my mantra throughout my career. And I share with leaders all the time. Do you know, you could find a better first basis and if you could in the open market, If it was your baseball team, you would make that change. And I get, and so I'll talk even about baseball. You also have the pride of ownership and coaching and the relationship that you go, but I took Tina from nothing to. Semi-pro baseball. She's a baseball player but she's not capable of making the leap to major league baseball and you owe it to yourself, to her and the organization to find someone that can actually play in the major leagues, if that's the equivalent of where your performances and that, that collection of everyone matching our vision, everyone doing what we do act and behaving the way we want. And now I have both. Skill personality, assessment and performance demonstrating that she can play the position. Great. If not, and that comes from, can I really focus on setting high expectations? Can I measure things, set goals and many organizations throw darts at the wall and circle them. Oh, we hit the target. That's not what we're talking about. We're instead saying we set a really high expectation. We put the target on the wall and we intentionally throw darts at it and go, oh, we're getting closer. And we can do that for our people in the same way. And there are plenty of models to do that. One of my favorites is radical candor. We give people feedback all the time on how they're performing positive and negative, and we do it in a spirit of care and love that we truly care about them. And any of the listeners that have kids will understand that for our children. Do we demonstrate that we love and care about them all the time? Yes. Do we also correct and give them feedback positive and negative all the time. Yes. If we applied that same care and love and feedback with our employees, they would get better. And many of us are like, ah, I want to avoid that. And the author, Kim Scott, radical candor talks about that when we demonstrate we care. That's without feedback, it's ruinous empathy, which I love that title. It says we're being caring, empathetic, but we're ruining. Our people. And she instead says, give feedback all the time and the opposite side of that. And she says, most of us need to aim. There is obnoxious aggression. She calls it, which is, we don't demonstrate, we care, but we give feedback all the time. And she also calls that the a-hole quadrant, we can aim there and she says 90 plus percent of the population when they aim at that quadrant land at radical candor, because we actually, along the way aren't going to be. Of noxious really aggressive. We're going to be kind and caring. And so when we get feedback and we do it in kind and caring, we move toward this radical candor. And so that's the elevation of team. Once we go, they're dying to be a part of what we do act and behave the way we act and behave. I've set really high expectations. I now give them feedback and all of that in my model is in the spirit of engagement. So what does our team environment feel like? How do we interact as team? How do we give one-to-one feedback? What is our team. Clubhouse feel like when you walk in and you have that enrollmentFuel where there's a definite feeling and core values are alive and well, and they're there. And you can feel it an organization's everywhere you go. If you walk on different campuses and you spend time in J you have the ability to do that, you can feel the difference there is that the impact of culture. Is truly visible. When you do it enough and you walk across organizations and you can pretty quickly go, oh, that's why they're successful, or, oh, that's why they're struggling. And that's the, Lencioni's five dysfunctions, a team. There's a bunch that we could look to that says they're just not healthy. They're not a high-performing team.

Jay Fedje: [00:31:36] You mentioned a couple of phrases, it's the encouragement and the motivation, the care of individuals. I always found that was really challenging for me for a couple of different reasons. One, people don't accept encouragement the same way. Some like it very publicly let's give award ceremonies and, measures, but everybody's going to know I did well. Others want it privately, that, that. At a boy at a girl mentality, but very quiet. But there's also differences in generations. In, in higher education, you, we have significant bandwidth generations of older individuals in an office and younger individuals in an office across multiple generations. And they really are motivated by different things. Aren't they.

David Quick: [00:32:17] And I think Jay, you bring up something great. So clearly, you have the impact of 22 to we'll call it 72 then, and we have people outside those spectrums. Yes. We may have high school interns and we may have even beyond 72, but I look at that and go, each of them. Generationally has a different experience and it's worth us understanding that. But it's also, I think sometimes that overshadows the individual and we have the same data that I talked about hiring and coaching. You can use to give feedback. You can look at this culture index or personality assessment, and quickly understand. How does J want feedback different than my question or your CEO wants feedback? And you can do that across the organization and add a quick glance, remind yourself. And the two of you would be a perfect example. Mike wants more loving, caring, puff, emotional love, then you do and when I know that I can go well, great. I'm going to give Mike A. Little pump up energy. I'm going to make him feel better before I give them feedback, or I can go to you and go. Jay, usually this is awesome. And today I wasn't sure what happened. And can we look at doing this better? Can we understand it? And you're gonna, you're gonna respond to that feedback better than me beating around the Bush and trying to schmooze you and make you feel better. Cause you hurt the whole time. I'm schmoozing. You're going, where's this leak and someone that wants that emotional feedback. Isn't asking that question. They're going, this feels good. Thanks. You're giving the energy. And understanding all of that, which is sometimes we allow the generational stuff. Cause I get this all the time, millennials just aren't good workers. And I'm like, there are a ton of millennials that are awesome. We're absolutely. There are also a ton of millennials that are yes. Entitled like other millennials. They want this constant feedback. They're a little naive to the world and have been given the praise for doing everything. But if you look to their personality, you can go, oh, how do I crack the code to give this person meaningful feedback and change their performance? Which is, again, we go back to that baseball analogy. We want to coach people to field ground balls better. And if we can understand how to get them to do that. And I quickly use this example all the time as well. If I'm a screamer and yeller. And that's how I've been motivated my whole life. And that's what I respond to. That's good for people that want screaming and yelling. Most people don't right quickly. You can go with that work for a tee-ball team. I go screaming and yelling at four, four, and five-year-olds is that going to motivate four and five-year-olds and you go maybe one. Maybe and as you move though, you can start to understand that.  Hey, as I elevate to high school, there are some kids, male and female that will respond to that tougher feedback that says, Hey, push me challenging. And there will be others that you need to put your arm around them and set aside for a minute and go, Hey. It's not a big deal. We got to focus on the next play. So whatever the personality is matters, I believe a ton more. And once again, that's in the data that we already have. If we've hired the team and assessed and much like kind of the keys to the castle, we can look at that and go, oh, I know how to treat Jay and motivate and elevate his performance. I know what he needs from me. Most of your listeners will understand golden rule, treat others how you want to be treated, treat others how we want to be treated. The platinum rule, which culture index we push all the time, which is treat people the way they want to be treated. And that requires our adaptability and flexibility and understanding and the data to look and say, Jay is hardwired this way. Now most of us, if we've known people a long time, can step back and go. Oh, I have this, but this gives you concrete data and reminders for more introspective, high detailed people. Cut to the chase and give them all the details. You can fill up their information bucket, show them what you want and also point to, Hey, you didn't make a mistake because they're trying to do perfect work. There must be something in our process. Can you help me understand what went wrong in the process? Because for those people, they're going to be blame avoidance. You and I aren't going to work. We're going to be like, oh, I'm sure I missed something. No problem. What w what was the detail or process that we both missed and where we're happy to take the feedback protectively when it's direct, then. Hey, we're looking for a different result. Okay. And all of that comes through in each of our personality assessments and how we're hardwired, but we also look and say, How does J want to act and behave? We have another thing in culture and next that helps them. If your audience wants that I can give everyone access and we can talk about that at my website, helpingbulls.com/fuel. If they go out there and they can find a bunch of free tools, including how to do cultural index for their whole team. There's a bunch there that Can unpack. If people want to have a further conversation, I'm happy to do that as well individually.

Jay Fedje: [00:37:18] David, it's been incredibly helpful. We're we've been talking to Dave Quick consultants, culture and organizations and hiring the right people. David, as we wrap up here the culture of offices right now has been shaken. Folks are behind screens now more do you know as managers, hiring managers and department managers are listened to this. Can you give a couple of examples, a couple of things that they need to do to keep that team together. When you don't have a backroom, you don't have the water cooler and you don't have the coffee maker in the backroom. You don't have the birthday parties in person. You don't, it's that the team approach and everybody's getting together and rubbing elbows. But in this case, they may not be able to, or there are a couple of things that people need to keep in mind.

David Quick: [00:38:04] So again if we understand our people, we understand where and how we need to sprinkle that energy. I call it. And so all of your people and an improv comedian that I know he and I have done about 60 sessions during this kind of a pandemic and we called it the art and science of. Engagement in uncertain times. And what's interesting is we did a survey of about a hundred business leaders early during the pandemic and asked those questions like what's happening to engagement. What are you seeing? And human spirit came through in that w we, we had people that were saying they were giving the most creative person of the day award every day. And that the person who won it was a guy that showed up on their team calls and hadn't shaven had a hoodie on and there were plates and everything all around. And as I read the survey results, I looked up at my computer and I'm like, I have four plates, two coffees, I'm in my sweats and I'm going, I'm that guy and what he did next day, which I think is just awesome. Is he on all the team calls? Was clean shaven and he was wearing a tuxedo. And so once they gave him the, the Slav unlike slob award, he's like I'll show them. And the next day he did all his calls in a tuxedo. And so it's challenging your team to do those things and understanding that what was also missing was what you alluded to. It's the water cooler conversation. Sure. Miss the human connection. There's a bunch of ways to do that, even on zoom. So we've taken the opportunity to find fun ways to engage and just have fun, but also to understand each other better and understand that, if we look at just the early days of the pandemic, where we all left the office environment and went home, there were people that were. We'll call them less patient more social that are change people that said no big deal. And they went home and they were able to react and they're like, oh, I can use this zoom thing. And the world's fine. They weren't thrown for a loop by the change, more introspective, deliberate people were like I don't have a home office. And where's my favorite stapler in my home office. And all of those things that were just thrown for a loop change. Were hurdles for one side and not the other quickly. Those where's my favorite stapler people said, wow, working from home is pretty good. My productivity is going up. I'm getting more work done than ever because they don't have the interruptions, distractions, people walking into my office and all those things. And they're now at the point where they're like, this is cool. I like working from home. The inpatient social people are going, my God, if this doesn't change, I'm gonna, they're starving for the face to face, Jay, you and I have even talked about that and you go, I need to find a way to, to then connect. And as leaders we have to understand, we have that whole range of people and culture index, seven dynamics that we need to understand and help people through. And so for our high social people, I recommend for high social leaders. And, or those social leaders to reach out to those people multiple times a day at the top of the hour and sprinkle some energy, get them jazzed and energized to do the work connect, share a smile via zoom leave them a joke, send them a video clip use technology like BombBomb, where you can record an embed video to, to pump them up. And understand that some people on my team need that we all need human connection. We're all human. That's a human condition. We all need to be part of something. And we need varying degrees of how much autonomy, how much direction, how much clarity, some of your team right now is going just point to the target. I'll go figure it out. And others are going, I'm lost. I don't know what to do next, help me. And if we go back to the early days of the pandemic, we saw that. And then we got people that are high conforming going. Why aren't you, every single piece of detailed information I can find on COVID before I do anything. And then you and I are going, we just gotta press forward. We'll figure it out give me the best information you got. I'll read it. And we got to live, we're willing to accept risk. And there's not an easy answer for that. It's understanding your team. And what you'll find is you'll do zoom calls and. Some people on zoom calls will love it. And others were like, I'm having zoom fatigue. And then in your challenges, what can I use the technology zoom in a different way? Can I engage? Can I get everyone on zoom and see all their faces and do fun little exercises. And then we've taken to, in some of the things we do go great. Share your whiteboard. Have instead of sharing your screen, now allow people to draw pictures. Doodle, have a different interaction on zoom than just looking at someone else's face. You have people for periods of time, go everyone. Turn off your cameras. Let's intentionally focus on voices and see if we can determine how people are feeling based on their voice. So there's a bunch of different ways to use technology, which sometimes we forget. And then there's some things that are awesome about zoom. One of the things I love is the whole breakout rooms feature, which you can put people in and out of a breakout room so much easier than you could in person sharing. I need groups of three boom and groups of three. I want to shuffle the groups of three boom. They're shuffled. I'm not moving chairs. I'm not doing this. I can bring them back from a breakout room. I can have them interface. I can have them. Go away and create a skit and share it with everyone. So challenge your creativity make sure you're using what technology you have. And hopefully we're on the last final stages of all this. Anyway. I have my vaccine scheduled for me Monday. Nice. Which gives away my age, but that's fine. I'm fine with that. Go and get the vaccine and we all press on.

Jay Fedje: [00:43:50] Dave, this has been an absolute joy talking to you about culture, about hiring the right people about encouraging the right way. I have so appreciated that I'm so appreciative of the time and the insights that you have. We've been talking to Dave Quick, a guru on culture and organizations. Dave, thank you for your time today.

David Quick: [00:44:11] Jay thanks so much.

Jay Fedje: [00:44:15] You've been listening to the Enrollment Edge podcast. Enrollment edge is sponsored by enrollmentFuel, a full-service student search and marketing partner to colleges and universities. If you're listening on apple podcasts, please give us a five-star rating and review. Your feedback will help us remain relevant and on the edge. The Enrollment Edge is produced by Alison Walls. I'm your host, Jay Fedje. Thanks for listening.