Hello, hello, and welcome to this week's Real Talk. Hello, everyone. Welcome. Yeah, we're happy to have you. Here we are in December already. The last month of the year. yes is upon us it is right and here we are fully embracing it going we have what thirty more days to uh to do whatever we intended to do for twenty twenty five and it's never too late right it's never too late what what is that one thing you could do to take the step forward it is never too late I heard someone quote recently, when I was at the Food Safety Consortium, there was a guy that was given a presentation and he said, if you don't do it today, you'll have to do it tomorrow. So why not do it today? Yeah. Why not? Embrace today. You don't have to wait to January first, get started now. Just like whoever is joining us is embracing today and saying, yes, I'm going to be here for real talk. Or perhaps they're watching us on our YouTube channel or even our podcast. So we are grateful that you said yes to today to be here with us in whatever form that is. Yeah. Yeah. And we're talking about a really important topic, which I'm excited about. We are. We are. So, you know, before we even dive in, there's some people who this might be their first time. So welcome to Real Talk by Catalyst Food Leaders. This is where we have honest conversations to lead people forward in food. So I'm Jill. This is Tia. I always forget which way to go. And today's episode is what daily standups are really teaching your team. You know, and I think this is really important because this everyday habit really reveals what your culture is about and what you value and whether your, you know, leadership rhythm and cadence, you know, whether you're building trust and connection and clarity, or you're just doing busy work. What are you talking about? Right. Right. Yeah. These standups can be really valuable or they can just pull people away. So we're going to talk all about that today. Yes. Yes. But before we do, we want to talk about our what's trending segment, right? Yes. Yes. Which is always a fun segment on like, what are people talking about? Right. What are we, what are we currently doing? Yeah, and I think this is the time, right, where we know that with the holidays and the end of the year upon us, that there are a lot of things coming in to people, you know, whether it's end of the year projects, end of the year performance reviews, planning and budgeting for twenty twenty six. There's here in the US, there's Thanksgiving, there's Hanukkah, there's Kwanzaa, there's Christmas, there's a whole lot of and I know I missed some holidays. coming up that are really near and dear to people and they are figuring out how to do all the normal life things plus all these other things. And so I think what we hear trending and seeing already is like, how do people kind of, I'm going to say embrace this time, make space for this time because there can be a heavy load to carry. Yeah. It can be. And as leaders, we should be thinking about that, right? We're already thinking about that for ourselves, but we should be thinking about that for our team and for our organization. It's always interesting to me when we pile up a lot of work around the holidays, when we know people want time with their family or there's time off happening, there's vacation happening, and we feel like that, oh, let's ramp up work a little bit. Yeah, or I think it also comes with the whole still like mandatory Saturdays or weekends. Oh, thanks. Especially when, you know, I've been in companies where you do get the federal holiday off because it's by law. But then what they do is they're like, well, since you had Thursday off, you get to work Saturday now. Right. Right. And, you know, just thinking about as leaders, like how well does that really serve our team members? And is that really giving them the break in the holiday that was intended? Right. Yeah. Yeah, which is a really good question. And I think people don't realize it's like these little things around culture that people don't realize that shifts culture or sustains culture is that people remember how organizations treat them around the holidays. And what is senior leadership doing? And then what are other people in the organization doing? And people see that and they feel it. And we all work in food. We understand that just because it's the holidays doesn't necessarily mean manufacturing stops. But how are you how are you working with your people? How are you? You know, I really like the way that you said is around the holidays, you know, leaders. It's a really good time for leaders to really be in tune with their people, you know, best support them and what they have going on with their families. You know, holidays are a stressful time for some people. So how are you in tune with them and how are you not missing this opportunity to strengthen your culture or ensure that it doesn't go astray? Yeah, I think it's a really great time for companies and leaders to really think about when they say, we value family first, we value people first. How are you truly demonstrating that during this time? When someone's like, gosh, I would like to take a long lunch so I can go see my kids recital or they have a Christmas or a holiday pageant or something. And can I come in a little bit late? How are we flexing to be able to show that we are family first, people first culture? That's what we say we are. Right. Exactly. You know, it's also a good time to just be grateful. Right. And thank your team and show appreciation. for the work, right, that they've done over the year and, you know, just it does take a lot. It's been a tough year, right? So it takes a lot. So how are you showing that? appreciation even from an organization standpoint but even just within your you know we always talk about like your circle of influence right your circle of control even if your organization is not like oh we you know we celebrate we say thank you we appreciate you think they should be doing more just you as a leader what can you do for your team right start starting there and saying how do how do i start to shift my behaviors and how i show up for people Yeah. And I think even in these moments where there is kind of this higher stress, higher workload going on, people are willing to carry more when they know that the work they do matters. Yeah. That it's being appreciated. Yes. Yes. And I think there's no better place to kind of touch base with everybody than a standup meeting. And that's why they're also popular, right? Where, um, where, okay, we can bring everyone together. I also think people love the idea of let's come together and talk as quickly as possible and then go for it. Yes. You do the work. And that kind of like brings on this, like, Ooh, let's do, let's do standups. Let's do standups. Um, but you also have to think about, right? Like just around the holidays, what messages you're sending, what messages are you sending everyone with standups? Are they good? Right. Yeah. And I'm curious, you know, I would love if people would comment, like, do you currently do stand up meetings? And I ask that because years ago when we when I first started with our team, the only teams doing them were actually like shift change, like production floor, like between shifts. That was kind of the stand up meeting that was happening or, you know, in other parts of the business where they had kind of this crossover between shifts. But like the next layer of people, they weren't necessarily having stand up meetings with their teams. Right. Yeah. And so when we actually said we should do a daily stand up meeting first, our team was like, what? We can't make that happen. We have so much happening. How are we going to do that? You know, because it was like, you know, I'm missing more corporate support asking the facilities and the lab to all call in to a daily stand up. And they were like, I don't understand. So I think it really goes to part of this, like, how do you design, how do you intentionally design your standup to make it valuable? Right. And you know, here's my spoiler alert that we said, we're going to try it for just two weeks and then we'll reevaluate to see if we're getting value before we decide this is like the forever thing or at least foreseeable future. And this was a daily standup. This was a daily standup. Yep. How long was the meeting, the stand up? It was only scheduled for ten to fifteen minutes. That was our target. So it was a very short amount of time. We did leave it open to say, hey, if there is something that really needs to have conversation, if people are available, we can stay on longer, but it is not required. So we did position it that way or we'll schedule a meeting just specifically about that topic. know my spoiler alert part is after those two weeks uh we kept going ah yeah but i think that goes to kind of what we have here as one of our first areas to cover which is kind of this myth about stand-ups yeah because even like i just described the first thing was like oh i don't have time for something where i have to be there every day right yeah my schedule's already packed I'm already doing these things. I already have so many fires going on. Do I really have this time? Yes. It's really interesting because what we had required was that our quality manager be present for it. And if they aren't, they have to assign a representative from their team to represent the facility. So it wasn't just, oh, I can't make it. Like somebody from your facility needs to be there. On the stand up call. Yeah. And it seemed to, it seemed to work well. You know, I think one of the myths too around it is that, you know, leaders treat it like a check out checklist, right. In a report out. And I'm curious, you know, I want to keep running with your example because it was successful in the way that you all managed to stand out. Did y'all treat it like a checklist? Yeah. We had a couple items that we wanted to keep our finger on the pulse every day about. So for example, we had, there were two things that we always talked about. One, do we have any foreign material? And two, do we have any NRs? I was in a USDA facility. Yes. We just wanted to stay on top of what was happening. And then it was, is there anything else from your facility that you want to report? So it was a little bit of report out, but it all started with, hey, we're here. I mean, cheesy as it is, you all expect this from me, like a little cheer, a little good morning. It started happening a lot more. But I think the other part was because we increased the frequency of touch points across our facilities, inherently it created more, you know, the team just got more comfortable with each other. Right. So instead of plant a calling me to ask something about what we do on our slaughter line, you know, cause I'm so well versed in that, um, they started being like, oh, I'm going to call my sister plant. Right. I feel more comfortable with them to ask that question. Right. Yeah. And I think that's another myth around stand ups. Right. Are are the leaders trying to control the situation where really you it could have been like, well, I want to actually give the answers to all the plants. So I want to have the stand up meeting so I can then answer first is like your focus was really around connection. It was connection and support. and support right because if they're like oh my gosh we have this going on it was also a time for someone to be like oh hey i have something related or i can or i can help or let me share what i did or it was a time they could be like hey can we talk to you later about this yeah yeah so it was also this place where instead of like firing off a text or an email or whatever like we knew gosh at our morning stand-up i know i can get so-and-so and ask them for help that day Yeah. So even as, you know, people who's listening and trying to figure out, should we do daily standups or maybe they are, you know, is it coming from this viewpoint of control? Like I want to micromanage control or is it really coming from, I want my team to be connected. And sometimes as a leader, you're out, you're, you're listening, right? Because people are connecting with each other versus you being in this control. Yeah. Very much so. And I know we've been having a lot of conversations around moving from like even compliance to commitment. You know, this is another great way if you step outside of that control and really think about connection, you can start moving your culture from compliance to this commitment from each other. Yeah. You know, and I think the part that was really telling was that, you know, we would have a day where, I don't know, maybe it was like a non-production day. That didn't happen very often. you know, or something would come up and people would be like, well, we're still having the call. Right. Right. So we knew not only did it become part of the habit, but it was something that they found valuable enough to be like, well, even if, even if we don't have production that day, like we're all still like coming to work, you know, at least in the roles that we were, so we're still all gonna connect and, and just touch base. Yeah. Yeah. And one thing, too, that I like about what you said, and we'll get into this a little bit more, is that, like, you all had, like, even as you talk about, like, of course, there was some report out, but the priorities were clear, right? Like, it wasn't necessarily, like, a report out of everything. You need to know everything that's happening. It's more around, like, obviously, foreign material is really important, right, to the organization, and NRs are really important to the organization. So no matter what, that's what you come with. And then if there's some other things that's kind of bubbling up, right, that other people need to know, then bring. But this is one thing, like when you think about, and even people listening on the call, when you think about your last few standups, what are you really communicating about culture, about priorities in your organization, about what you care about as leaders, right? Like just hearing that, I know you all care about foreign material. because you talk about it every single day in your organization and you cannot be you know you cannot be surprised if senior leadership is talking about foreign material or people are asking questions about foreign material or it's a part of your scorecards because that's obviously a high priority for the organization and you if you handle stand-ups right in an appropriate way that's clear right that becomes clear to people who are part of the stand-ups but also to the broader organization Yeah. And we, you know, definitely tied in, you know, the things that were important to us. So, you know, even if it's make it a safe day or, you know, we would always have something at the end that would kind of once again reinforce like who we are, what we stand for. Yes. So that way it wasn't one of those things that you're like, well, I assume they know. Mm hmm. that wasn't something that initially we had right away but it was like gosh as a leader what is the message that we want people to walk away with today and so it was also a little bit of like a place to have you know to be grateful appreciation but also those reminders of like you know whether it was safety whether it was food safety it's like how we're collaborating how we're showing up yeah and I like what you're saying because even as you think about some of the most successful stand-ups that I have, it's the same thing where you're reporting out on those top priorities. And when we think about even safety culture, making sure in the stand-ups that I've been in where safety is top priority or in food safety is top priority, there's always some type of safety call-out. There's always some type of food safety call-out. And really, the way that I've seen it and looked at priorities, that's the things that we start with, right? Because it reinforces that safety and food safety are not just top priority, but they are actually first on our list before we talk about what's happening with production, before we talk about some other things that's going on. And it's one of those things where you can really communicate to your team on what's important. What are the priorities at the organization? Yeah. And so I think even as you think about standups, for me, thinking about the team that we had and kind of where we were at, that was one of the most pivotal things that we did to build better cohesion, better alignment, better focus. because otherwise everybody was really kind of operating independent and we would have our, you know, maybe weekly staff meeting. But those got to be kind of big monsters because these things that were happening daily were kind of take over. And then we didn't feel like those were as effective as they could be because we didn't get to get into the details of some of the things we needed. So we really separated these things out to say, This meeting, here's what it's intended for. This meeting is for this. This meeting is for that. And even though they included the same people, we didn't just lump it all together and make it some marathon meeting. Yeah. Yeah. It's clear and intentional, right? Like the word intentional popped up in my mind as you were saying this. And it's important. I feel like a lot of times when people bring people together, they're not really intentional about the conversation they're going to have. And if you're thinking about doing a daily stand up or weekly stand up or any type of stand up, like, how are you being clear about what's going to be covered? And how are you being intentional about the information you bring versus like, I mean, we've seen it where, like you said, it's the same group of people. And then it's like, oh, I know we're not supposed to talk about this here, but I brought it. Right. Kind of have a conversation around it. Right. When in reality, this is not the appropriate place to have that conversation because this meeting is fifteen minutes. Right. Or we're trying to keep this really targeted on what we want to focus on. And I think the other part that was really cool about it was that, you know, while we started initially with kind of like the manager group, having them come. Because we required that somebody always represented you, what happened was then maybe a supervisor would come or a lead would come or a technician would come. And so it did a few things. Once again, it expanded this network of who we knew within the company. It also was almost this exposure for them to be like, ooh, what goes on? What happens? It's a development and growth type of thing as well when they're like, ooh, I have to step in and represent the plant today. Right. So in this really short amount of time, we were able to, once again, we go back to the things we're talking about, like show our culture, show what we value, really make some connections and all in fifteen minutes a day. And we had times where people would call and they'd be like, nothing, nothing, nothing to report. And they'd be like, cool. Anybody got a joke for the day? So they were playful as well because, right, we had these things going on. And I love that you talk about like people joining. Well, two things you talk about, like other people joining, not just the managers. Right. And growing those connections. But that is practicing leadership for other people that might not be in the manager role right now. But they're practicing communicating and influencing other facilities. Right. Because you're saying this is what we're doing. Right. You're building relationships. You're building those safe spaces. You're building that trust. Right. And if you if you do it right. Right. And as you're thinking about, you know, do you want to do you want a daily stand up? That's fifteen minutes of practicing leadership every single day that you that that's going to make you a stronger leader. So I love that you said that. And then just like even the joke. Right. Like. Even the joke and making it fun, that is building trust. We talk about, we use a trust model when we talk about building trust and building relationships within our leadership program. And a piece of that is around these shared stories, right? So being able to share jokes, have inside jokes on like, oh my goodness, were you on the stand up call this week, right? This thing happened, or someone said this, or this was funny, right? Or this is what we all related around. You are creating those shared stories, again, every single day. that's driving the relationships that's happening in your, you know, in your facility. And that's driving your culture, right? Yeah. You know, we really love that. It was this place where once again, it wasn't like, oh, my gosh, what are they all talking about over here? Like people like they're welcome to come. You know, it wasn't like somebody necessarily had to be invited. I mean, it wasn't a closed invite. It was kind of more like who's available and you need to have at least someone there. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But then I think the other part was that it was really this shared accountability with each other. So instead of, well, Hey, like what happened or did you get to that? Like there was a whole group here waiting to be like, what's happening and do you need support to get that done? Right. Yes. Yeah. So it really helps versus, you know, especially as a leader, because it's helping create this, you know, the, these group standards, team standards on, on what we do. Yes. Yeah. These team standards, right? Because we're all, you're all sort of in this situation where you're talking about something and even if you see it across facilities, I'm like, well, this is what we did. Oh, this is what we did. Ooh, I like that. Right. Or, huh? Which way is the right way here? And do we need to have a broader conversation outside of this stand-up to think about who we are and how does this fit within our overall policies? And is our policy appropriate? Bringing up those things. I mean, if done right, stand-ups can be so impactful to even how you how you close gaps and how you streamline and share best practices. Right. I feel like that's one of the things we talk about all the time. How do I share best practices across my thirteen plants? And you may wonder, like, how do I do that in fifteen minutes? Believe me, it's possible. And it might not be like the whole thing, but it might be like, oh, you guys are doing that. Can we talk later? Right. Exactly. So it's even starting that conversation to make that possible. And you're right about this peer accountability, because once you said it, say it on the call, right? Like we, we do it all the time in our, in our leadership courses where, and even in our workshops where we're like, what's your one action, say it to your neighbor, because once you put it out in the universe, right. Just that just from a human behavior in a way that humans think, right. And is that once we put it out there, we know someone knows. There's a level of accountability there, just at the very basic level. And so that already raises accountability, just being able to talk about it for a minute on what's going on. Yeah. So I know we've been talking a lot about kind of this. I mean, I think ours is a good case scenario about how standups can be successful in supporting people. Yeah, I'm sure there were times where it wasn't always perfect or great. But I also want to think about some of the times where standups are not so successful. Because I have certainly heard stories, I haven't experienced it myself, but where everybody calls in, And you only come off mute or speak when you are asked and you say no other words and there is no other commenting. Like, I mean, I've even heard where people are like, I can't believe you came off mute to ask a question. That new person, we need to tell them that that's not where you do that stuff. Wow. Yes. Now, when I heard stuff like that, I was like, whoa, what does that tell me about the culture and the person who's leading that meeting and what they think of everybody on that team? Oh, right. And would you would you say they're in the control bucket or the connection bucket? Right. I'm going to control what people are saying on the call. I'm going to control when they I'm going to control how they speak. I'm going to control. Right. There is there was fear, like people actually were fearful for that person, knowing that this is the other side, that they were probably going to get a snarky question, comment or text back from the person to kind of put them in their place. Right. See, so how are you communicating? Right. What are you communicating to your team? And the fact that you're doing this every day, like we talked about, fifteen minutes of practice of leadership skills. This is fifteen minutes of time every single day that you're communicating to your teams that it's about control. Yeah. And I would say, I mean, just to be clear, this one was a stand up meeting, but it was a weekly stand up. OK, so the cadence is a little bit differently, but either way, this moment in time where you get to have you get to like you said, are you creating connection or are you creating not connection? And just think about if you're part of that stand up and you have this fear, right, you feel like you have to be silent. You feel like only certain people can speak. How are you believing the other messages around people first and we- Our values of- Exactly, all the many values that- Collaboration. Integrity, openness, insert all the values and organization. How are people believing that when they literally see this happening in real time? Yeah, so that's a good question to you, right? So really, when I think about that meeting, it was really just this leader. Being like, I want you all to just report into me and I want to hear the right things. Right. So how, because sometimes as leaders, the standup meeting is where we get to hear what's happening. So what would you tell a leader when they're like, gosh, I really do need it to be somewhat reported, but I also want it to, to do this. Like, how do I blend those? Because I'm, I'm stuck on like just having people like go through the list. Yeah, you know, I would say, you know, shift ownership from you to someone else and set the boundaries, right? Like in your example, okay. What I need to know my top two. For material and non-conformances. Those are the NRs in this case, right? These are the top two things I want to know. Everything else, you all have a conversation around it. And I don't need to own, I don't need to communicate, I don't need to say anything around these top priorities. You still own that. This is the information I know I want to get from this stand-up. What do you want to get from it? right what other conversations do you want to have and shift that ownership away from you because what's happening is that you're trying to control it like sometimes we are like and like i'm trying to control it if you feel that you need to take a step back and you need to give it to someone else because you can't control it if someone else owns it that's what i would recommend on like you're not the right person if you're trying to jump in and control it so you have to shift it and sometimes it might be Well, I don't want to control it, but people feel like I need to control it because I'm the senior person on the call. Okay. Again, how do you take a step back and assign someone, hey, I really need you to step in. As a matter of fact, I'm not even going to talk for the first two weeks that we start this up. I want you to do all the talking so people will know this is not my meeting. This is not the one where I'm going to come and give direction. I'm not the one running it. Right. So I need you or I need these you five managers or whatever it happens to be, whoever you're shifting ownership to. I need you to talk. And as a matter of fact, first two weeks, I'm not saying a word. I'm just here to listen. That helps put it in perspective for people. Right. Like the example you were giving where the leader is trying to control. I'm sure they talked a lot versus in situations where you're really looking for connection. You're not talking that much. Yeah, that's that's really great advice because this is, this goes back to the whole, like the purpose and, and what you are trying to communicate in your standup. And this connects really well, even to our catalyst method. Yeah. As you think about how to get started. So if you're not doing a standup, like we're going to go through, like, how can you get started? And if you are doing standups, here are some things to think about to say, can I, Am I communicating the right things? Am I getting out of this what I need? But more importantly, are people getting value and getting what they need out of it? Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And before we move to that, I want to call it one another example where stand up, stand up, kind of go off the rail is when you try to really offer is when you try to exclude other groups, when you try to exclude and say, no, you can't come. can't come to this. I was actually in this situation where an organization was trialing this new way of connecting, new way of getting work done, but food safety and quality was not invited. What? So, of course, when these stand-ups happen and things are happening, they got to come find us, right, to have the same conversation that they were having at the stand-up. If we had just been there, we'd just be there, right, and understand what's going on. Or they go and do, and food safety and quality is like, what's happening here? Oh, yeah, we decided this. know like well now we got to go down and do sanitation now we got it now we have to do something that's disrupts operations because we weren't a part of the conversation so again the control versus connection i feel like that's like the theme right like if you feel like you're trying to control then you need to take a step back. And actually what we found was that we just broke protocol, right? We broke protocol and we started inviting, we started showing up, right? We started showing up because we needed to do our jobs and our team started saying, hey, can you come? Can you come to the standup? Can you come here? This is what we're talking about. You know, they started asking us to be a part of it, even though technically it wasn't the right way to do this standup. Right. But it was needed because you need all players there. And when you start to exclude for reasons, right, you run into issues where your standups are not effective. Yeah. And, you know, Tia, that story actually really goes well with, you know, as we think about the catalyst method applied to standups for Spark, which is define the purpose. Yeah. Yes. Because in that situation you just talked about, like this group over here wants to like, make some decisions and do some things, but yet they're excluding a partner that's really critical in there. Right. Yes. So, you know, as you think about doing standups and the cadence of them, ours was for our team to be really connected and to know what's happening. So we did it every day, but there were other times where like we would have a meeting. We probably didn't call it a standup, but where it would be expanded to include others because the purpose was something different. You know, like the one where we're reporting, like, you know, the production stand up where it's like, you know, we all jump on the Thursday morning company call and kind of do the thing. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Purpose is very different. And that's important. You know, we talked about it even through the examples that we've already given. But just to have intention. Right. Like we we. We talk about intention all the time. I feel like that's like one of our golden words because as leaders, we must be intentional. Yeah. Don't just have another meeting because you can have another meeting like, Ooh, let's do this. Like, well, what's the purpose? Be intentional about what you're doing and what you're asking people to do. And I love your example too, where it's like, Hey, we're going to do this daily standup and people are like, Oh, I don't know. But once they started doing it, they saw that purpose. right because planning we're going to do this daily stand-up there was purpose behind it yes and in that example i think the important part is is you know i as a leader i didn't like strong arm like you shall but i did say we are having and but i think the other part that made it actually um softer and work is that it was just for a trial yeah like if it was not going to work like great let's stop regroup revisit whatever it is because that means we probably didn't get this first step right the spark of what is our purpose and so if we need to come back and review what that is and what the cadence is so that we can be as intentional as we can be we will but sometimes you have to start with something so that you know what parts are working and what's not Yeah, it makes me think about even people readiness. You all wanted to make sure that your people were ready. And you felt like they were. You had your purpose defined. You wanted to check in. And I feel like for change management, when we roll out new processes, we miss the people part. And the fact that you said, hey, we're going to do this for two weeks, and then we're going to reassess, you're thinking about people. Right. Yeah. And, you know, I think that also goes into the whole part we've talked about, which for us is kind of our shift part of the catalyst method, which is the shared leadership and bringing everybody with you because it's, you know, if meetings are just a status check and there's a time and place for that, like do that. But it's really this opportunity when you have humans together to do something more than just report in. Yes. It's such a wasted opportunity, right? When you have this group together, you know, every day, every week for fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, and you don't take this as an opportunity to show your culture, to show who you are. Well, let's just say this, too. You're going to show who you are regardless. I used to have a coach who was like, don't show them your ass. I know that's really kind of crude, but I was like, that's so great. It's true. Right. Show them things. Don't show them that. Right. And like, and people, this is why being an intentional leader is so important to have these leadership skills because you're able to use this time more effectively to show, like you said, shared leadership. And one of the reasons if you're thinking about it's a control thing, you need to step back and share it, right? You need to step back and empower and shift that power to other people. Yeah, and I think this is where we also move into that final stage with sustain, because If I would have listened to my team and been like, ah, we'll just give up after a week. You know, we would have had the same culture we had before, which was people felt disconnected. They didn't feel like they were, that they knew what was going on. Like, like that was a space that we didn't love. So when we think about the model that we use, sustain is the part where culture grows. Yeah. And so by continuing on the path, that's where we really got to say, we're going to shape culture. what we want it to be right and you all thought about like what happens if someone is out on vacation right what happens You know, if we don't have anything, then we say a joke or we make some type of connection. Like that is intentional. And that's something that you have to stay consistent in. And you have to be mindful of it. You know, like that's what sustain is all about. And I mean, because at the end of the two weeks, it's like, yes, keep going. What happens at the end of the four weeks or after six months of doing it? Right. Or after, you know, Jill gets promoted on. Who else is taking, how do we continue to sustain this? And I feel like we talked about this over the last like two or three real talks on like, is your culture based on a personality or a person? Are you building these systems in place that work even when you're not there? Yes. Yes. Right. Because the systems are the underlying foundation of your culture. Your personalities help bring that alive and help highlight it more. Yeah. Yeah. And then if the foundation is broke, it's already broke. Right. Right. It's already gone. You're holding it up with band-aids, right? That's eventually going to fall. Yeah. Yes. We also haven't used the word habits a lot today, but in reality, you are developing these habits, right? And eventually you are developing these habits on How are we when we are together? You know, I don't know if you've noticed this, like when you think about from your standups, and especially when you, you know, when I think about my standups, they had already been sort of part of culture, except for this time where there was exclusion, that was new. But they've been sort of a part of the culture on how we do standups. Um, but it, they become like these habits on how we show up together in spaces. So even the way that we showed up in our daily standup shift standup is how we show up even in like other meetings, right? Like that's when we. okay, who's going to do the safety contact and the food safety contact in this meeting? Start to flow into other meetings to be more purposeful, to be more intentional, because you're developing these ways of working together. And I think that's also a part of sustain. on how do you sustain this culture of shared leadership of connecting with others and building relationships even outside of this daily stand-up because you're building those habits and you just don't forget about them when you leave that fifteen minutes you're still interacting that way when you're together in different in different meetings right in different purposed meetings yeah Absolutely. You know, I think that's a really important part because it is part of the habits because those, once again, go into the foundation of your culture and who we are and how we are together. Yeah. And so the more we can reinforce that, the more we strengthen our culture. And when we think about this whole movement going from compliance to commitment, you know, insights about stand ups that we've talked about today aren't just nice to have. These are the things that make the difference between the fragile cultures that fall apart when things or people leave versus the ones that sustain. And all of these things, you're probably like, yes, I can do those. I can do that. I can do that. And you probably can. We also know that sometimes it takes a little bit of stepping outside our comfort zone and navigating that can be a challenge. So one of the things we have for you, I'm going to put it up quick, is making the case for development. Because even as a leader, like those things were things that I actually, I was fortunate. I had a coach to ask me questions about what are you noticing in your standups? What are you taking away? Who's been quiet? Who's been seeing, who seems like they're talking more? Like all these questions so that I could be the most intentional leader I could be. Yeah. But that was part of me also learning and having a partner to do it with. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So this download is fantastic. It's the guy that I wish I had had so that instead of just asking for development, like, Hey, can you approve this? that I made the business case. And that's what we've put in here. So scan it with the QR code if you're watching us, or it'll be in the show notes if you are listening to us on the podcast. Yeah, and this download is just so important because like you said, it feels easy to do this, but when you are not intentional and you don't have the skills to be able to bring a group together or be able to stop with the control, Typically, if someone's trying to control a situation, you really don't have the skills to be able to back away. And so you need those skills. It's not just something, I like to talk about the Nike billboard where people are like, well, just go do it. Just go start your stand up. Just go do it. But we're not Nike billboards. We just can't go and do. We really need to build those skills and be intentional about it. Otherwise, you might actually cause an issue within your culture. Yeah. Yep. I always say if it was so easy, you'd already be doing it. Right. Exactly. Exactly. The other event that you won't want to miss if you are thinking about, gosh, how am I growing in my leadership, is our Catalyst Leadership Summit on February. Yes. It is all about reimagining leadership because the companies and the people that can do that as we go forward are the ones that are going to win when it comes to And we have a special early bird for our email subscribers, fifty dollars off if you register by December thirty first. And so to get this early bird, become an email subscriber by visiting our website, CatalystFoodLeaders.com. Join us and you will get your fifty dollars off. Yeah. And if you're not getting an email, at least an email from us a week, that means we're either going to your spam or you never confirmed your email to be able to have our system send it to you. Yes. So if you're not getting them, go and resubscribe and reconfirm. Yes. Yes. That is real. That's really important. That is important. We can't wait to see you there and really think about how as a food industry, we can reimagine how we're showing up right for ourselves, for our teams and for our organization. Yeah. Because what we know is leadership is not a one person show. You know, culture doesn't grow better on its own. It takes intention and it takes the systems that we've been talking about. Yes, it does. It's about being intentional, right? Right. Yeah. So that is today's real talk. And if this sparked something for you, share it, like it, subscribe to our channel. You know, there's somebody probably close to you who is also looking to lead with heart and to look to leading with values. So share it with them. And remember that when leaders grow, cultures change. See you next week. Thanks for joining us. Bye everyone.
