Hello, everyone. Welcome to Real Talk with Tia and Jill. Happy Monday. Yes. Welcome to kicking off another week. Another week. Here we come. We are ready. And we are deep into March. Which I was thinking about last week. I was telling someone, I'm like, so Tiana has spring pitchers this week. So on the twentieth or the nineteenth. And I'm like, OK, I have one more week. And I'm like, wait, no. March twentieth is like this week. We're almost out of March. We are like we are coming to the close of March already. Like scheduling things. I'm like, how about April? And people are like, what, April? And I'm like, yeah, really? Right. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And it's funny because even right before we jumped on, we were just talking about just our busy workloads and what we have going on and how we're trying to even lessen our load, bring on help, that kind of thing. And it makes me think about today's topic, actually. It makes me think about how organizations get stuck sort of like in reaction mode because they're not really thinking about really their leaders, right? And how do they help their leaders sort of push through this stuck period? So instead of investing in their leaders, right, or investing in their organization, they just become reaction, right? Let's keep, let's keep almost like we came from food safety. So being preventative is important to us. Um, but organizations kind of stick into this reaction mode because that investment is not there in their leaders. Yeah. You know, whether it's reaction or even like, you know, we often talk about, you know, leadership as a system developing, you know, investing in a system because, part of what we see and even some of the clients we work with, I bet there's people out there feeling this. Tell me if you are, but the way your system keeps moving forward is by pure people power. Yeah. Like I make things move forward. I don't have a system to help me move things easy or, or reduce my workload. It's like this down and dirty. I've got to move things forward. And that's exhausting with all the stuff we have. It is. Especially when your to-do list is never ending. Yeah. And because there's so many tools out there that are designed to help, that are easy to use, that have extremely good ROIs on them. Maybe it's not the ninety days people want on something, but it's the other parts that are the intangible parts around these things too, right? Telling people they're worthy by investing in a system to help them is going to help with your engagement and retention scores way more than why you might get that six or twelve months later. Yeah. And I don't think people, organizations, maybe leaders, I guess I should say, think about that, that mental load, right? Yeah. Sometimes when people are like, oh, my God, I've got so much work. Sometimes it's not that there's an actual like big task list, but the mental load of thinking through it is heavy. Yes. And yes, part of that's like, how do you self talk to get out of it? But part of it is as an organization. How do you create a system to keep people flowing so they don't get stuck there? Right. And this reminds me of the post that you made on LinkedIn. Hi, Michelle. Good morning. Good morning. Michelle, you commented on this post too, so I'm kind of curious of your thoughts. But the post that you made where you were listening to this leadership group and they kind of said that, oh, burnt out comes from people being bored. It almost made me be like, no, because really a lot of burnout comes from that mental load of I have so much to do and not enough time. And just that mental load just sort of sitting on them. burns them out. So, I mean, I can't imagine, and I've been in that spot before, right? I've been in that spot before where the mental load was just so high. And if my leaders were thinking, oh, she's just bored, that would have been wild. Well, not just mental load, but often the burnout is because like, I know what decision to make, but I'm not authorized. Right. I'm not invited to resources to do it. And so you feel stuck once again, kind of goes back to that. I'm feeling stuck. So I'm burning out and it's like, but yeah, boredom. I was like, I mean, like this is a big company, like people would know its name. And I was like, seriously, that's the direction. I don't know. Obviously they're, clients are in a much different industry than the food industry. Yes. Which is why we specialize here, right? I'm going to toot our little horn because we get that you're not burnt out because you're bored. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And it might be that you want to do something different or whatever it happens to be, but it's not because you are bored in your space. It just took me back to that time where it's like, being burnt out and I'm, and I just could not imagine someone thinking, oh yeah, you know, you're just bored. So I'm going to give you more, which kind of goes to Michelle's comment of like the stress. Right. Yeah. You know, there's no light at the end of the tunnel if people keep piling your plate full of to-dos. yeah and you know that really goes into like you said our show because when we think about this there are definitely patterns that keep food companies stuck in this mode that probably contributes to stress and burnout but it's the reaction cycle like obviously we've been talking about it so if you work in the food industry and you're you've been nodding your head like yes and that and that too then today's show is for you Yes, it is. And we want to hear from you. So please put in the chat your perspectives or comment on LinkedIn, send us a message, let us know. We love getting emails from you all on what you're working on and how the show related to the work that you're doing. So you can also do that. Yeah. And, you know, it all goes back to that whole thing that like when we're stuck in this reaction mode, like that's the culture we've tolerated. That's what's the norm. That's what people are used to. So everything's moving around us and we're just like, boom, boom, firing things at it. But we're not planning anything. Right. Yeah. We know. Everything might be moving fast, but it doesn't mean that there isn't space to actually pause and shift that culture. One moment at a time, one decision at a time, like two hours at a time. Yes. It's going to shift overnight, but there are moments you can do things. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I think always being in this reaction mode gives this false sense of we're doing something, we're doing something, we're moving forward. And when in reality you're running in a circle, you're on a hamster wheel, right? You're on a hamster wheel where it seems like you're moving or what's the other one we talk about? The rocking chair. Oh yeah. The rocking chair. Have you ever felt like that? Like, can you remember a time in your career where you're like, I was totally like on that hamster wheel or rocking chair? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. You know, it's those times where just like you're talking about, we can't get the systems that we need to kind of lighten our load or to fix a huge gap that we see. So this gap just exists. And we continue to fight fires around it because we haven't quite said enough. let's just get the system to close the gap or let's just onboard this team member that we need. A lot of times I've seen it that way too, is that we're missing a critical member of the team because someone left the organization or someone got promoted and they just haven't backfilled. And so because this critical role is missing, we're on the hamster wheel of doing fires, right? And that can last for, you know, I've been in situations where that lasted for a year or a year and a half before it's filled. Like, that's a long time to be in this reaction mode. It is. I love, Michelle's like, I was on the hamster wheel, so we moved to Mexico for a heart reset. Yeah, sometimes a hard reset is actually needed. And, you know, when I think about being on the hamster wheel, I remember at an organization I worked at, there were like three of us, I'm going to say on the corporate food safety team. We had like some different roles, but we ended up showing up to a lot of the same meetings, which is really weird, right? Because one person was supposed to be kind of like the food safety manager. One person was the supplier quality manager. And then I was kind of like the manager over the facilities. But we all we started looking around and we're like, how is it like, I mean, we like each other, but we're always seem to be showing up at the same meetings. So our schedule is full. We're not able to get work done. And yes, we feel like we're connected with things. But yet the root cause of that was there was lack of clarity in everybody's role. So we were all showing up because it was like I was like, well, you all might not know what people in the facility need. So I'm going to be there to represent that. And the supplier person used to do food safety and all the HACCP plans. So they were like, well, I'm going to show up because I'm here for supplier. But this other person might need my support. And the other person was like, well, I don't know. Somebody else. But it's this thing like this. It is common. And, you know, even with that, we had to be like, we need to stop. And know that all of us are experienced enough, thoughtful enough, and knowledgeable enough that we're not going to royally screw it up. I think that was the concern. Like, what if we miss one of the finite, you know, one of the details. But that kept us stuck in this reaction mode because none of us could get work done. Right. Exactly. So we had to like go, you know what? I'm going to trust that Tia is going to show up on behalf of our team. Not just in her role. And she knows where to find me, right? If she has questions or if they bring something up from a supplier standpoint, whatever it happens to be, she knows where to find me. She knows we have our team meetings. She can send me an email. She can stop by my desk. She can pick up her phone. You know, like there's a way to contact the person on your team or off of your team if you need additional information. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of it came down to being able to just let go. Like not having to be in control all the time, trusting other people had it, but knowing enough. And so it's like all these little pieces that come together, but we move way too fast as an industry to have duplication of efforts. That too keeps us stuck in this reaction mode. And I know I'm kind of going off the rails on this right now. No, I think that's a really good example. Because even as we were talking about it, in my experience, I'm thinking about that missing role. Someone's missing. In your case, everyone's showing up. So it's like the two extremes on people listening and saying, wow, why am I stuck in this sort of reaction mode? Or do you have missing gaps in people and resources? Or are you just not clear on your expectations and everyone's sort of doing the same work versus actually spreading out the work and managing the workload together? Yeah. It's like this balance, right? But it's possible. Yeah. And that's the whole thing, right? In this mode, you rarely get space to be able to build the systems that you need. So whether it's filling that role, whether it's saying, I'm out on that meeting. I know you can handle it. And if something comes up, I'm a phone call away. Right. Like I need time to work on some things. I need to block out my calendar. No fire is too big. I mean, unless we're in the middle of a recall or there's literally a fire, like, do you need to call me? Right. Right. Those are the things sometimes that we have to be able to communicate out to people. And if we, you know, just as leaders looking at our team on the hamster wheel, you know, if we can't stop the hamster wheel or we stay in this reaction mode, people are going to be like Michelle and be like, I need a hard reset. I need to exit the organization. I need to exit this group. I need to remove myself from the situation, which obviously happens. Um, retention issues, right? Engagement issues, all of that follows. And I love the question too, that Michelle brings up. Like if people don't feel comfortable reaching out, the question is why? Like if I'm, if I have to have my whole team there, or, you know, I feel like my whole team needs to be there. You know, ask your question, ask yourself that question. Why don't you feel comfortable letting one person sit in on the meeting or reaching out to other people? If you, um, if you have questions. Yeah, that's like, we all know that's part of like a whole nother show diving into all of that. But, but I mean, that does, that is part of that starting part. I mean, that's also like, why don't I feel comfortable stepping back from this meeting when I might, you know, it's, it's kind of that whole going through a racy, like, am I responsible for what's happening? Am I accountable? Am I consulted or am I informed? Even when you're consulted, doesn't mean you have to show up. That means people reach out typically and say, Hey, with like some input from you. So, I find it fascinating and I'm certainly guilty of this, right? But sometimes it's not only just pausing to create the system, but then having the discipline to work within the system. It reminds me of what drives me crazy about AI. Like I put something in as I'm doing some work and I'm like, cool, love that version. Oh, by the way, just change this one thing. It changes the whole thing. Oh, yes. Stop. Like, stop. I had what I liked. I want to work within that. And they're like, oh, no, we're always in continuous improvement. I think as humans, we tend to take that on, which is probably why AI is doing it. Yes. Because even as we create a system, our mind is still like, oh, I want this part to be better. And that part can be shifting. So then before we know it, we're working outside our system. Right. I'm like, we got to work in the system and we have to create the discipline because that's what helps us go fast. That's what helps navigate change better. And have the backups. If I work outside the system, how is Tia supposed to know what I'm currently doing? Right, exactly. Exactly. She doesn't, and then she can't fill in. And so then we feel like we all have to be there. Mm-hmm. Obviously, this has been on my mind lately. But it's so relevant to what we've been hearing from clients, what we've been seeing from our clients. What we see in the industry, especially because there's so many external factors happening to the industry right now, it's like we are in reaction mode. And we see that organizations maybe we say organizations, but really organizations are just filled with people. People are normalizing this reaction mode, this firefighting mode, when in reality, fire shouldn't exist there, right? Like sometimes we hear people say all the time, oh, you need to be in these firefighting situations. You need to be in these fire modes. That's where you learn. We can learn. Right. Right. You'll be resilient. When in reality, we learn actually, you know, data. I mean, I need to find the documentation, but like we actually learn better when we're not in trauma mode. Yes, we pick up things right when we go through dramatic things. But when we have actual time to learn things. practice, right? Learn, practice, refine, pivot, reflect. When that happens, we actually retain a lot more information. So we don't want our people to always be in this reaction mode, always be in this firefighting mode, because actually you don't retain as much information as we want our people to. No. And that, I mean, just from like a brain standpoint, right? We're shutting down parts of our brain because we are in fight, flight, freeze mode. Right. So when we have people always in this, like, it sounds horrible, but limited brain capacity. I mean, that's really what we're doing. We're creating this limited brain functioning system where when we create space where people can be curious and can be learning, like the reason kids play is because that puts their brain in a state for learning. Yes. And for doing. And so those are the things that when we think about what, companies want for innovation and for improved profits and being creative, all those things. We have to create spaces where people aren't in this limited brain functioning state so that we can have this opening of all the other portions of our brain. And I'm not saying I'm any neuro expert, obviously. But those are the things that help us move from this reaction only state to like we can think broader and create these systems that are much more creative and allow us to do our best work. Yeah, agreed. Agreed. Yeah, I love Michelle's comment. Remember when we used to brag about having a sense of urgency? I feel like, OK, so the episode hasn't dropped yet, but Jill and I were on the Food Safety Exchange on Michelle's podcast for the first episode. So check it out. But one of the questions Michelle asked was, what leadership behavior needs to change? I should have actually said this one, which I didn't. But you'll have to listen to find out what I said. Move the anticipation. But this whole sense of urgency thing, we need to do it right. We need to do it right the first time so we're not wasteful. We're not spending. but really ultimately wasting our time and resources on going back, going back, fighting, fighting, reacting, right? If we did it right the first time, we save so much money, right? We save so much money. We save so much time. We save so much product waste, all the above. So I would love for the sense of urgency to really change more into how do we do it right the first time? Oh, the episode is live. The episode is live. Check it out. We'll put it in our show notes. We will link to it. Well, yeah. So I think all of this leads into like today's show really is about the three things that we see over and over and over that keep companies stuck in reaction. So we've touched on some of these, but let's dive into them a little bit more in a structured format so that people can follow along and get, you know, a little bit more out of them. But, you know, this, this is the thing, and we were just talking about this sense of urgency, which really goes into this first pattern that we see all the time, that we have a hero culture instead of a citizen culture. Mm-hmm mm-hmm. Yeah, like where you're looking for the people who fix the crisis. Yes. You know, like the leader that's going to handle the recall, the manager that always works the night before the audit, right? The one that pulls a team together in an emergency, the person that's going to save to save us. Right. And many times it's typically the same person or the same handful of people that the organization sort of positions to be that hero in the culture is leaning on them. Right. And, you know, I think what it does is it just shows us this like individualism that we are rewarding in this culture. And so why would somebody want to step away from a place where they're like, wow, we always celebrate Tia because she's solving all the problems to, oh, we actually have a process for that. Just follow the process. Right. That doesn't sound nearly as exciting. Right. I mean, it sounds like cool to be able to have this huge fire and you put it out and everyone's like, whoa, we stopped. We solved that one. versus, no, we don't have those fires anymore. We take away. And actually, I mean, to me, it sounds better to be able to be more creative, to think about continuous improvement, to think about, you know, those things. That's more exciting to me. But that what's happening in our brain, like we talked about earlier, like what's happening in our brain when we're in reaction mode. There's a lot of like even feel good chemicals that release when we are in this hero culture. The dopamine and like the adrenaline, all of those things are pumping like drugs through our vein because really they are. They're just great chemicals. Making us feel good and the people around us feeling good because somebody's doing stuff. Yes. well and it makes me think about right like Netflix Hulu HBO they all make series about like firefighters and doing the thing that no one can do and people tune in but nobody's writing shows about like let's follow this Six Sigma black belts or this continuous improvement nerd as they like make changes like That just isn't quite as flashy and exciting. Right. That's like the firefighting. This is funny because it reminds me of the last episode of Abbott, which I'm not going to spoil it. If anyone watches Abbott out there. But one piece of it is that Melissa, one of the teachers, she dates a fireman. And he gets promoted. And she's like, you're not going to be like... chasing fires and have on the outfit and like disappointed that this man is not going to be in danger for his job because he's been promoted. And it reminds me of the conversation we're having around firefighting where it's like, man, we're not going to be able to put on the cool gear, show up at three AM, do, and like in the moment, right? We know that's not good for us, but just thinking back that adrenaline, like you said, it brings something out of us where we're just like, ah, this hero culture, but ultimately it's not serving us. It's not serving who we want to be. It's not serving how we want to show up as leaders. And ultimately it's not serving our people. But once again, you kind of tap into something where when somebody's caught, usually I'm going to, I'm going to stereotype a little bit here or kind of generalize, I should say, when I've been a frontline leader, like if I'm an ops manager, like I'm managing these, this area, this line, this department, right. Firefighting is part of what I do. Now I get promoted to be like a director or a regional somebody where I'm supposed to be in a support role, but guess what I know and what I've been rewarded for. Firefighting all the time. So where does this person typically get gravitate towards or what type of work do they do or where are they called in? So we have to think about this with our leaders and with our culture, because if we're not clear on like how this transitions and what this role is, you can see that as we promote people and they move, we just keep carrying this all around because firefighters as high performers, they get things solved. Yes, yes. You know, that's one of the signs that we see when we go in and take a look at organizational culture is that if your top leaders are really doing the jobs of what their team should be doing and there's this imbalance, right, something's off about the culture. You know, I think we maybe even talked about this last week or at some point where It's like if the VP is doing the in the weeds work, they're not doing what a VP needs to do. And they're the only ones that can do that work, right? All the executional work, you have people for that. You're just doing that work. But no one can actually step up and do the VP role because they're not in the same meetings, they're not privy to the same information, all of those things. So if you're not doing that role, who is doing that role? No one. Right. So right, the best way to move from this hero culture is to a system culture, you know, and there is a reason why back in like the twenties, thirties, forties, that I'm at quality management systems are actually business management systems here in the U S we confuse the word quality, meaning product quality versus quality of running a business. Right. That is why QMS. when used correctly is so powerful because we have systems to go through our business, not just systems to build quality. So moving from hero to system, it's from these one off these in the moment things to we have an SOP. I remember our team always being like, I don't know, what does the SOP say? I don't know, I need to go find the SOP. I don't know, go find that binder with the SOPs. When that was embedded in what we did, our team flowed. And I've been in other teams where they're like, well, I don't know. I think we should do this or that or go ask that person. Like right away, that's a sign that we are stuck in this human powered having to do things. Absolutely. And it feels like, so if you're at this spot and you're like, man, I'm on the hamster wheel and we need to move from this like hero culture to this system culture. You know, one piece of advice I'll give you is that it's going to feel slow in the beginning. Building your foundation, it's going to feel slow. Take the time to do it because once it's built, Right. You are going to be off. You're going to be off. You're going to be, you're going to be able to move so much faster than you do today because you took the time to build your foundation. And you know, when I, when just in my career, talking with my teams where we're building foundational system for, um, you know, autonomous maintenance and PM programs, I'm saying I literally had this conversation with my team on, we are at the time at the point in time where we're building the foundation. We have to put the time in to do this because once we do, we are all aligned. There are no questions on where our center line should be, how it should run. I was in operations at this time. So center lines, equipment performance, where people were staffed, what skills they had, all of that was super important. We were building the foundation around it so we could run smoothly every day. And once we did, our shift ran so much smoother because we had those systems in place. But it was a hill to get over. Stick with it. Stick with it. It's worth it. Yeah. And I think this plays perfectly into the second thing that we see that happens. Because when you're building systems, the best thing to do is to define ownership and helping our soul. otherwise one of the things that keeps people stuck in reaction mode is always escalating that's like my biggest pet peeve when they're like i don't know we have to stop and we have to call we have to call the manager we got to call this person like gosh yes once in a while that is absolutely the appropriate thing to do that is your whole system is well i don't know this came in and i have to call someone to know what to do i have to call over here i need to write like that is a sign that you are so stuck in reaction mode. And many times, Jill, we see that people know what to do, right? This is, again, going to why people feel burnt out is that people know what to do, but your culture tells your team to escalate instead of own it. Yep, I've seen broken belts. Fifty-seven times in the past six months, I know what we do with them. I don't need to call someone to be like, All right, we're gonna stop the line. We're gonna clear off product. We're gonna look for the broken thing. We all have a process. There's no need to escalate it up. Right, exactly, exactly. Right, exactly. And sometimes leaders, you know, they get into this spot where, oh man, I'm so busy. I need to know what's going on. So I want these decisions escalated. But in reality, you're taking away ownership where ownership should lie. and you're taking away the time that people need to do the next step because they're concerned that they have to communicate it to you asap yes i don't want to take away from there are times right when the building's on fire when we're like we are two two steps away from a recall we need to be having the right people involved but if it's like gosh we had another one of these today how what communication is important and how often is something that the team should be talking about that's what we used huddles for you know what morning huddle i just want to know did you have zero incidents yesterday or did you have thirty seven right just give me that way when someone comes to me and goes what's going on i'm like i have a sense i don't know the details Exactly. Exactly. You know, one of my managers used to say, you know, really the way that she gave ownership was that, you know, you own your area, you move with your area. I just don't want to be surprised. So there's something that I feel like it might be bubbling a little bit. Maybe my counterparts are starting to escalate, but I feel like I still have things under control or I don't need I just don't need support. um i might shoot off a text and say hey this is what's going on you might hear it from these sources this is what i'm this is what i'm doing but call me if you have any questions now she's not surprised that something's happening even if she doesn't have all the details she's not surprised that something is happening so that if her counterpart mentions it she's able to say yes i've talked to tia about it tia is Tia is on it or go talk to Tia about it or have them continue to walk, whatever it happens to be. But just even that quick text to say, hey, I got it. I'm not escalating it. I'm letting you know so you're not surprised just in case you hear it from someone else. That's true ownership versus I'm escalating it to someone that probably have, again, other things they need to be doing other than the work that I'm responsible for. Yeah, that's so important because I think what happens is people have this moment of like, well, I want to be helpful and supportive. And sometimes helpful and supportive means stay out of the way. And I mean that the nicest way, because I too, once again, these things that we talk about, I have been guilty of. I've been guilty of this too. But I've also seen the other side when you're like, do your thing because I trust in you and what you're doing and that we have a process. Yes. It's different if I'm the owner and I call you and I'm like, oh my gosh, this feels a little bit different. Can you be a consult for me? That's different than an escalation. And I think as a leader, one of the best things you can do is make sure people know that you believe in them. and walk through when they call you to do that be like you've got this the next time this comes up you've got this yes yes because otherwise what we do is we create this this process where they feel like they have to call us just for a consult it's not an escalation per se but it kind of is so we have to recognize these behaviors and kind of redirect yes you know i like the way you said that too around consulting with you, you know, with your manager or with someone that you need, that you might need to consult with and how you brought in how the leadership respond, right? Because many times someone's coming to you, coming to you and next thing you know, you're like dragged into this conflict or you're trying to be helpful, right? But as a leader, being able to recognize and saying, you know, I'm consulting with you on this, but next time go forward and, and, I want to see you in this space or even being able to provide the feedback on, hey, Jill, this is your growth opportunity right here. I want to see how you handle these situations. You know what to do. I support you one hundred percent. I want to see how you handle these situations on your own, because one day you're going to be in my spot. Right. You're going to have to handle the situations here. I want to see you do that. So for the next one, go and do and then let's talk about it afterwards. Right. Like being able to manage and understand which situations to do that on, which situations you don't want that to happen on. Right. Those are the skills. Those really are the leadership skills we should be developing so that as leaders, we're able to coach our team through those things. Yeah. Yeah. So I think about, you know, if you're like a director, a senior manager, somebody in one of those upper mid-level manager roles or even mid-level manager where you're like, I feel like I'm always getting drawn into You know, there's a percentage of your role that probably will be a reactive or supportive type role until the systems in place. But if you're like, how do I move out of that? That's where, I mean, that's like, like you said to you, those are the learning moments for me. That was where working with the coach for them to be like, I'll go flag what you just said there. Right. No, I didn't even notice I was in that spot doing that. It's such a pattern of how I was as a leader. So having someone call it out for me and be that third set of eyes so that I could pause and go, Oh, that was really powerful. Yes. I don't know about you, but like, I hear these things. I'm like, yep, yep. And yeah, but implementing it and noticing it in your own work, that's the part that takes once again, kind of the discipline, like at the end of the day, can you stop and reflect and be like, where did I step in? And I could have just stayed out. Right. Exactly. That that's that pause and reflection. Right. And one of the reasons why we incorporate coaching and what we do is because coaching provides that space to pause and reflect. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm looking at some of the comments Michelle's putting in here. Yeah. Leadership versus toxic leadership. Yeah. Yeah. You know, controlling is exhausting for everybody. Yeah. And you can frame it like, well, I just need to know. I just want to be supportive. I just want to take all that out. That's control. To you, it might feel like you just need to know, but that's micromanaging. Exactly. Telling everybody around you that you don't trust in what they're doing. I know that's hard to let go of when we're used to having to be the answer machines, but you gotta. Yes. I like to ask my leaders, what do you need in order to be successful in your role? Like, what do you need to know to go into your meetings, to have some conversation? That's the information I want to make sure you have. You know, and sometimes when my leader is like trying to find everything, I'm like, are you micromanaging? Or are there certain things that you actually need that I can provide to you so you can go and do your job? You know, how you need to do. Yes. Yep. And let's see, Michelle, your question. Do you see the control mentality in leadership dissolve with the newer generations? That's a great question. And I think that depends on culture. Yeah, I agree. When you're in a culture where they believe you should know everything right away all the time. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. That they're going to frame it up as like, well, we just have good communication everywhere and everybody needs to know. But to me, that's just a control thing. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think the newer generation see the crazy stuff that their parents or caretakers and others have been doing and they're like, we want none of that. So they do not want control. But then they get into these moments where people call it accountability, but really it's like they misunderstand that accountability is not the same as control. Yeah, I agree with you. I definitely feel like it has to do with culture, because as new people come into organizations, the culture is teaching them something. And when you talk about what do you need to be successful, how am I going to hold you accountable, if a culture is a part of this control and command or micromanaging culture, in order for you to be successful there, people pick up those bad habits in order to ultimately survive there. I do think that over time we're moving closer to this closer. Well, let's say we're moving away from the controlling command situation and more into this ownership piece, or at least that's what we want in the industry is the reason why we, we do more leadership training on ownership. We do more leadership training on, um, You know, coaching, like coaching and awareness. Exactly. They're becoming more popular. And I think it's because the industry definitely see it as a necessity to do only because it's getting more complicated. It's getting you know, we have we truly have a lot to do. And so we don't actually flow into everyone actually can own what they own. We just have we just have so much to do. So I think it's becoming more popular. But I agree. I think the culture really drives what happens to people when they go in yeah yeah it um i don't think people recognize that when you are shifting how you lead and how you show up that actually oh great that still takes activation energy and so it can get that's this is why when we set goals and we start new habits it's so hard because that new energy right it's exhausting and so if we have people constantly battling against that we start having these moments of going, is it really worth my energy to do that? Right. Right. Right. We all have moments where, yep, sometimes it is worth it to push through. And other times we're like, so true. So true. So that brings us to our third pattern of compliance thinking instead of learning systems. Ooh, we see this a lot in food safety, right? Where we're really trying to become more compliant versus really understanding our systems, understanding how that worked within how we do work here, how each person handles each part of the system, because we're trying to pass audits, we're trying to firefight and fix those incidents, right? We're trying to do all this documentation, but in reality, we're doing it for an auditor somewhere versus doing it for ourselves versus ensuring that our systems are working. Yeah. And, you know, even as we've worked with so many different companies on like GFSI certifications, One of the things that we see or we certainly guide them away from this is being like, oh, well, that's our SQF system or that's our BRC system. Like this is how we do business here. This is how we show up. Food safety is a business process. It is a business operation. It's not something that we. just comply with right and that's really honestly the intent of the different schemes right it's not really even there to say this is your sqf system this is your f is a seek system it really is guidance on how you are supposed to do work at your facility or within your operations. You know, it's not really meant to be this check the box. Unfortunately, it is, right? Which we can have a whole story about, a whole show about that. So it is that way. But as an organization, as a leader in food, you have to be able to think about your programs and systems as like actual systems, not just for your audit. Otherwise, you're going to continue to be in reaction mode because that's not how those schemes are designed to function, right? And honestly, that's not how work can get done effectively, efficiently, I guess I should say. No, because we all know in food safety quality, in food manufacturing, we'd love to be like, there's black and there's white, there's right and there's wrong. There's not. No. Right? On one day, my belt breaking may mean I'm doing... Like this part of my SOP and one day I might be doing this part of the SOP because of some other factor involved. It kind of reminds me of, you know, at the start of the year when everybody was like, I'm going to get healthy. And some people were doing, you know, keto and some are doing, you know, all these different things. And you try to comply with these different dietary things. And it works for some. It kind of gets you there. And then you get to a spot where you have to decide like, is this my life? Like, am I just going to comply or like what fits for me? Right. Yeah. And it's this discerning and the synthesizing of like, how, what does this mean to me? And what are the parts that I'm taking so that I can be successful? It's the same thing when we think about compliance versus a business system. If we let it sit always in out here externally, It's easy to pick on that and think, how are we going to do that? Because it's external. It is internal to us. Yes. And that's what helps us have the ownership and not just a compliance mindset. Like we internalize that this is part of what we do. Yes, and this is the same thing for culture, right? For culture, for food safety culture, for safety culture, for all the different subsects of culture, that is so important. And we know that the more that these compliance systems kind of roll out things, especially in the food safety culture space, organizations are going to be looking for ways on how to check the box. How do we check the box for compliance? But we want to challenge you. How do you actually think about how you are going to learn it? How are you going to internalize exactly what you were talking about, Jill? How do you make it yours? What does culture mean to you and your organization? And how do you want people to show up? How do you want people to show up when it comes to food safety or safety or people culture? Like that's what's most important. And then compliance comes with it, right? Like they just want to know what are you doing to protect food safety, right? Like how do you ingrain that into the work that you do? How you do that is up to you and up to the type of culture that you want to see and have. Yeah. Yeah. That learning part, once again, that requires us to slow down for a moment. And that feels that can feel unproductive, especially if we have times where we're like, we're going to carve out an hour or two to learn from this. And yet the individuals that are showing up are still texting for emails and on their and doing all these things. And what I see is people leave those and they're like, yeah, it wasn't really that great. Right. And the reason is because they're still focused on this task driven compliance versus, really disconnecting for a moment to be able to like, once again, open all the parts of our brain to be curious and learn. Yes. And so when we, when we're in these spaces, I mean, you'll probably see it like, yes, once again, I've been in webinars and I'm like, I'm going to be checking emails while I'm listening. I'm not truly learning. And I do know this. I understand that when I'm in meetings and I look around and I see people checking their emails and doing stuff, or I don't know, I guess I should pause and say, I don't know what they're doing, but the story I'm creating in my head, is they're not engaged in what we're doing as a collective group. Right. Yes. Yes. And you're right. Like if you're not engaged, right. If you are checking your email or your phone or, you know, whatever it happens to be, like you're, you're not learning, but you're also telling your team that this is not a moment to learn, right. This is not a moment that we should be learning that this is important to our culture. You know, even as you talk, you know, I think about these like in-depth problem solving sessions, you know, I used to have with my teams. And, yeah, sure, I documented it as this is part of our corrective action and this is what we found as a part of doing formal problem solving. But in reality, we're in that room using formal problem solving tools because we want to drive to root cause and we want to solve this issue, regardless of what our compliance system says or, you know, whatever I have to document or audit. Like, that is outside of what we're doing. we're driving to root cause, right? We want to learn about our system. We want to ensure this doesn't show up again. And as you were talking, it made me think about those times because we're in learn mode. We're not in compliance mode. Right. Yeah. Right. So it's, you know, some of it's these, these shifts that we just need to make in our mindset or in the behaviors that we're doing. Cause I think inherently, like we've talked about, like, I wasn't I wasn't a crappy leader. I just wasn't always the best leader. Yeah. And I had I had room to improve just like everyone. And I think those are the things we see here, because each of these, as you all can tell, I've had I've been in them personally. I've worked with teams in them and I've worked with companies in them. These are not signs of bad people or bad leaders. No, no. These are symptoms of these leadership systems that know we're built you know they're not built for the complexity of our systems that we have today yeah and we see that people are missing these key leadership skills that's needed right to run these systems to be able to step up and make sure that there's clear ownership and accountability and alignment you know that you really step into this prevention where it becomes possible right that you're not stuck on the hamster wheel but you have strong leaders that have the right skills to ensure they put things into place that you're not in reaction mode all the time yes you know and just to be clear it doesn't mean that once you start it's all right right away correct and when you're in our programs you're going to hear us talk about like leaders need to help provide clarity that's absolutely true But I also want to clarify a little bit because you also don't want leaders telling you all the details and the exact things of micromanaging that you have to do. So there is this balance. And I want to be clear about that because I've had somebody the other day that was like, you didn't tell me I needed to do X, Y, and Z. And I'm like, that's because I believe you are an experienced professional that brings technical knowledge and you have the ability to work through that level of one, two, three. That is my trust in you. Right. Exactly. And if you can't, I clearly can help you with that. But I also think as you are learning and improving your own skill sets, that's part of here's the macro part of where we're at. And like, now here's where you get to do the next step. Yes. We don't want leaders telling all the details all the time. Right. Part of that is us accepting some of that responsibility that I can look and learn how to get clarity. Mm hmm. And that's that's what this world is about. Right. Nothing is just served. on a platter to us right and nor do we want that to be right because we want them to completely own it and it's really hard to own something that belongs to someone else right that someone else has kind of said do this this that's why command and control doesn't really work if you want strong ownership it's because you cannot tell people what to do and expect they're going to own it that if i'm telling someone do it this this this they're thinking well this is tia's way This is how Tia wants it done. So it's not theirs, it's mine. I like to tell leaders that our responsibility is to provide clear boundaries. Where do we want to stay within? Where do we want to play? That's my job as a leader. Your job as the owner is to fill in anywhere within those boundaries that you think we should go based on your experience, your expertise, talking with your peers, collaboration, all of the above. Based on all of that, It's your job to come up with that solution. It's my job to just provide the boundaries so that your solution is within scope, right? Your solution is something we can do. Your solution is something that we can plan for, whatever it happens to be. And that everyone's not gonna be like, love the solution, but we can't afford it. Or love the solution, but that only works for this type of product, right? I'm here to help provide those boundaries so you're working within a boundary that your solutions will make sense in. Yeah, and that completely transfers over to culture as well. When we think about, and I'm going to use, since a lot of our listeners do come from the food safety world, and whether you're in that functionally or just in the industry, you'll probably relate. Even when we think about our food safety system, where we've defined expectations that may or may not include SQF or GFSI type standards, right? We don't typically need to write out specifically how ops starts the line. We want them to use these boundaries and these standards we have as an organization to define how are they running, to define how they're doing different things, for supply chain to define how they're doing things, for receiving. These are the boundaries. And so if it seems like a concept where you're like, well, I don't even know how that would work. That's also how it works when we think about the rest of our organization and moving from this state of reacting to the state of helping with systems. And that's why, I mean, to your point, that's why compliance thinking doesn't work compared to learning systems, because compliance is really there to help provide boundaries. There's like a hundred ways you can accomplish what's written in your Right. You can do it a hundred different ways. You can clean this multiple different ways. Pick the one that works for you and do that as long as it meets that it's clean. Exactly. Exactly. And I feel like that's the difference when people think about, like, how do I be compliant versus how do I learn about my system or learn my product or learn, right, learn what's happening in my organization, learn about my people. You know, even when you think about people and you think about your engagement scores and surveys and this, like if you're only thinking about your engagement scores you're thinking about compliance you're not actually learning who your people are what they'd like to do how they like to be recognized you know what burns them out right what's tripping them up what like if you're not thinking about that and only thinking about your surveys your scores your assessments again people in reaction mode around culture most of the time they're stuck in doing assessments because they're thinking about compliance versus learning their people learning so they can put systems in place to keep their culture on the right track yeah wow we've caught a lot in what we talked about today and i think we have a lot of good gems in here right yeah and i think okay if you're if you're listening to this podcast you know here's one of the questions for you like where in your organization are you rewarding this like reaction more than prevention. Like, look for that. Like, where do you see that? And even as you hear, as we went through these three different areas, like which of these patterns feels most familiar in your own leadership environment and think about what you notice and perhaps what you would want to do about that. Yes. Thanks, Michelle. And thank you, Chris, as well. Because conversations are relatable beyond food safety. Yes. Yes, it does. We're fortunate. We don't work just in food safety. So if you're like, oh, Jill and Tia are the food safety people. Yes, food safety. We do a lot of that. We do a lot of ops. We do supply. We do sales. We do you name it across the board. Which we're really fortunate with. about, you know, I think it's something, I think that's key when we think about culture, because we all impact culture, right? Even food safety culture, right? Which we do, we have a lot of conversations around food safety culture. And anyone that's in food safety know that we touch every single function, every single function we touch. And so it's important that even as we think about leadership, as we think about culture, that each of these functions are part of that conversation. So I appreciate your comment, Michelle, and your husband as well. Yeah. And it's actually a great lead. And I'm going to put up if you're watching us through our web page or through YouTube, I just put up the QR code for our leadership summit, because at the summit we do have leaders from different areas within organizations, all companies, though, talking and share, talking, sharing, like helping us better understand these different aspects of how we can reimagine leadership. That's the theme for this year. So if anything, if things from this conversation resonated with you or you think, gosh, that would be great for someone on my team to hear more about, our upcoming leadership summit is designed exactly for that. It is all about helping strengthen systems that move organizations forward. really from this reaction to prevention from like where we're thinking today to re-imagining where we can be. Yes. So join us April eighth. We would love to have you with us. Yes. We are so excited about it. And if you're listening to the podcast, you can find it on our website, catalystfoodleaders.com. And I'll also include the link in our show notes. So you'll be able to see that as well. Yes. Cause as we say, week after week, leadership is not a one person show. Culture does not grow on its own. It all takes intention and a system. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And with that, we want to thank you for joining us on your Monday morning or afternoon, or maybe sometime during the week that you like to catch up with us. We love having these conversations with you. So please add in the comments. We can see your comments, even if it's a little later on YouTube. We love to check them out. We love to hear your perspectives. So until next time. Subscribe to our podcast. Don't miss an episode. Yes, yes, yes. And we will see you again next Monday, or you will hear our voice on a new episode later on in the week. Yep. And remember, culture doesn't change until leaders do. Everyone have a great rest of your week. See you next time. Bye.
