Hello, everyone, and welcome to Real Talk by Catalyst Food Leaders. This is where we like to have conversations to lead people forward in food. I'm Jill, and we have a special guest on today, Craig Stevenson. Hello. Hi, Craig. Hello. It's great to have you here today. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Well, we're excited to have conversations. We're always excited to have conversation around culture and leadership. especially when we can have a perspective of where it's gone well, but also where it's broken down, since that's usually where people like to focus. So if you don't know Craig, Craig has spent the last ten to fifteen years leading organizations, including serving as the CEO in his last three roles. Craig, you've spent time in large CPGs and small CPG companies, and you've really seen firsthand what it looks like when leadership is strong and culture is strong, but also when leadership breaks down and culture is weak, right? Is that right? Yeah. And I would say, you know, just different business models too, you know, family owned company, private equity owned companies, big, big public companies. And so that's given me a lot of different perspective on the impact of those different business models on, on everything really. Yeah. Well, that's almost like a teaser. So as people are thinking about this conversation today you know, we, really get to dive into this. And I love it because this isn't like the poster version of inspiration. This is the real version that you get to see every day and, and what that looks like. So, so I really love it that people who are joining us today, if, you know, if you've ever thought like I'm working so hard and the results I'm seeing are not where I think they should be. I feel like this is the episode for, for that person. So, so to, Just to give a little bit of context why I'm so happy to talk about this is that there's a group, Culture Partners, who did a study with Stanford a few years ago, and they talked about companies with strong cultures have four times the revenue as companies with weak cultures. And I chuckle every time I share that because I tell people I've worked for some of those companies that I felt had weak cultures and like we made money. And I think that sometimes surprises people when they're like, we made money. But the part that I look at is there's so much more money on the table if we can just improve a little bit. Is that something that comes to mind as you think about, you know, leading organizations and where they're going? Oh, I absolutely, um, that absolutely resonates with me. Um, and, and you're exactly right. There are companies with bad cultures that can just push up a ton of money. What is the opportunity cost of that to maybe even doing better? Or I think more importantly, I think it puts a time horizon on that ability to earn money. I think you don't build a lasting, sustainable enterprise unless you and the ability to keep people to keep that lasting, sustainable enterprise. If you don't have a culture or a mission or a vision that people really can adhere to and believe in. So, yes, I think that that's absolutely true. Yeah, that's a really great point. The opportunity cost, it feels like at least when I encounter people from some of those cultures, the part they talk about is the enormous turnover and the burnout and overwhelm that they experience. And they always say like, that might not be the culture for everyone. So I always like to put that out there as well. If you, when people think about where they're going, if they know they're going into a culture like that, does that help prepare them for what to expect in terms of, what they're going to experience? I think so. I mean, I know when I've recruited for people, I'm very clear with them around sort of the cultures that, that they're coming into. And, uh, because I want them to come in with eyes wide open. And I think, you know, you, you can do research now so easy on how employees feel about companies, you know, what the reputation is. She's linked in. I mean, there's so many places you can go to contact people. you can get a pretty good sense for what it's like to work there. And as long as you go in knowing that there's either a mismatch or potentially a difference from your own values and you're okay with that, then fine. But I think most people today are are looking for something that's a little bit a little bit more than that you know i'm recruiting right now for a chief commercial officer at my current company gotham greens and this is a large part of the conversations that i'm having with this very senior position is just hey what's it like there what can you expect um what are we trying to change what are we trying to keep the same um that dominates the conversation because The professional experience, the skill sets that come with that professional experience, that stuff is kind of fact and verifiable. But fit, culture, motivation, engagement, all that is linked to some of those other conversations. Yeah, that's a question we often get from people who we've either worked with or that follow us. How do I get a real sense of what culture is like during the interview process. But it's interesting, because I've also heard people on the other side who are like, how real should we be with these candidates? Since this is something you're in right now, what recommendations or suggestions would you have for someone in either of those positions? I think you have to be absolutely real. Because if someone comes in and goes, oh my gosh, this is totally not what I was expecting. You're going to, you're going to turn that person. You're not going to get discretionary effort, and then you're gonna be back to exactly where you were. Um, and you're going to have burned a ton of money and a ton of time and energy. You're going to have, uh, I think burned through a potential candidate pool as you got down to this fit or this, this person that you're not going to be able to re-engage that candidate pool, or it's going to be hard. So I think the cost of not being totally open is actually really, really probably understated. Yeah, that's a really great point. I don't think that's often part of the conversation considering that, like you said, the candidate pool, because people notice when job postings go up And then, gosh, I thought I just saw that role open a little while ago. Why is it up again? Yeah. And that's a disaster. And you can tell people till you're blue in the face that no, there was this issue or whatever, but it raises a little level of skepticism. So in this particular role, I've been looking at have been incredibly honest, but all of my roles. I remember recruiting people for after I was the CEO of Dr. Scholl's and we had carved that business out of Bayer, the big German pharmaceutical company. And, uh, you know, we needed to hire a chief marketing officer and sales and a couple other things. Um, and, um, I, uh, I was like, look, these jobs are, these jobs are doer jobs. Like this is, you are here to do the work, not, not direct the work. And I wanted to be very clear with people about that. Given the fact that we're small PE firm, we had just carved this business out. There was lots of things to do. Because I just wanted people to know that that was the expectation. Yeah. That's such a critical part that seems to get missed where we think about kind of the overarching, like what it can be versus like the very specific, like this is what we see happening and what you're doing when you're here. That sometimes can be very different. But I also want to pause for a moment because, you know, we kind of dove into talking about roles or culture, but everyone defines culture a little bit differently. And I don't like using the culture, like the canned definition, you know, that, you know, it's sometimes people say it's what people do and no one's watching, you know, you can get to the technical one where it's about leaders and behaviors or behaviors and patterns and values. And that's important too. But when you think of culture, and people asking about it, what do you share with them so that they understand how you're looking at culture and what it means? I go down two different vectors. And this might be a little long-winded answer, but the first vector is every company sees itself as something. And they organize around that something. And the examples I would give you is, you know, from my past. So let's take lumber family farms, for example, where I was just the CEO for the last four years, when I got there, they saw themselves as farmers. They were farmers. And then they saw themselves as, um, green millers, millers, uh, of grain. And then they saw themselves as manufacturers. And then they said, oh, we, we sell a brand of rice to consumers around the country. And so all the operational constructs within the company were really geared around farming, milling, and manufacturing. And the consumer sales, marketing, innovation, all that stuff was sort of secondary. And that really impacts culture because your work processes are focused on how you see yourself as a company, right? So at Gotham Greens, my current company, we see ourselves as greenhouse operators. We build and farm in greenhouses, and then we cut lettuce out of greenhouses and we ship out of them. And so we see ourselves as greenhouse operators, not necessarily makers of branded consumer packaged goods food. You know what I mean? And so the operational- It's more than that. It's more than just the greens that you're growing. It is. And so I think how companies view themselves is an enormous impact on culture. Um, and so, and I saw that when I was president at birds bees, um, as well. And, and so, so that's the first vector that I talk about with culture is I'm trying to say, where are we today? And where do we want to be from a, from how we see ourselves? Right. And then, uh, then there's the second vector, which is just, how do we behave? Um, so it's not what we do, but how do we behave? And I am not one for highfalutin cultural posters that are stuck up on the wall. And, you know, these mantras, they can be good, but there, I don't know that they drive the culture of, of, of a company. And to me, culture starts with just how do we treat each other? How do we converse? How do we talk to each other? How often do we talk to each other? How truthful are those conversations? You know, I always say to the teams that I've led over the last several years, it's like culture and employee satisfaction and employee engagement and discretionary effort. All of that comes from the day-to-day little conversations. If those are engaging and people feel valued and people feel engaged, your culture will be fine no matter how you define it. But if those are not transparent, not honest, not frequent, surface level, then it doesn't matter what you think your corporate culture is because you're not living it in the way that you behave and the way that you converse. Yeah, when we talk about culture and people think about the behaviors, like the ones you just described are the things that we ask or invite people to start noticing. I'm curious because when you step in as a CEO, you've already had conversations, hopefully those honest conversations about culture. And then you kind of step in and you're in meetings or in the space What do you look for? You gave us a couple of things, but what do you look for? Or what do you feel? What do you hear that helps you know a little bit more in those first couple months about, is this the culture that I think it is when I stepped in? Yeah, it's going to sound a little bit rote, but it's all about observation, right? So it's being present and actually watching how those conversations go. going to the plant floor and just watching how supervisors talk to maybe employees or how directors lead their department meetings or just, I love having my door open because I catch snippets of conversations that are happening in the hallways or in the rooms next to me. So it's observation and being in place, right? So at Gotham, we have thirteen greenhouses, twelve greenhouses, and I've only been here for like forty-five days and I made seven of them already and was able to really observe sort of how the management team works with the workers. We have seven hundred employees. We have a lot of people for a smaller company. And so being in those places and watching those things are super important. I think the other thing that's really interesting is just really trying to focus on Um, the things that people don't say so, or the things that people don't do. And so you're, you know, whether people have scheduled one-on-ones with their people or not do, um, is there a structured functioning leadership team that is having the right conversations and and engagement and are they cascading those messages and that work out to the organization? Are they doing that or not? And it's not necessarily that those things are structurally that important, but the outcomes are. And so I think that that's super important. I'm a big believer in high performing teams, activities to create, to create an engaged open team environment and to do things that facilitate that. And again, just understanding each person's personality types and how they make decisions and let's do exercises that take us through mock decisions and see that Jill thinks about this really differently than Craig. And I want to be conscious of how Jill does that And Joe needs to be conscious about how I do that, especially as potentially the leader so that we can, we can be faster and more efficient and more honest and transparent with each other. Um, so again, probably a longer answer than you wanted on that, but, um, and maybe not the answer you were expecting, but it's sort of how I look at stuff. No, I think that element of, you know, we always say that the higher you are in the hierarchy of an organization, the more time you need to spend in those conversations. Because that alignment on how we show up and how we view things is critical for those moments when things go wrong. And hopefully we can have that. And even for them to go right. So hopefully we can have those conversations earlier. Of course, I'm a fan of like, how do we take some of that and put it into standards of who we are so our processes can then have alignment with those. But if we aren't willing to step into that space and say, gosh, I really don't see it that way. I look at it like this. We don't get to that spot where then all of a sudden when there's some fire going on or crisis that we think we're kind of on the same page, but we're not really. Yeah, and it's been so interesting to see how it varies by the different roles and just how norms and practices sort of entrenched themselves and expectations. When I took over Burt's Bees, Clorox had just bought it a year and a half or two years before that. And just, you know, Clorox buys a natural personal care meter. Like, oh, my gosh, there was fear in the organization because you had this chemical company buying this natural products company. And just, you know, they were acquired by this big company. They had no idea how the norms were. They had fear because they were going to change things. And so that was a really different environment. go to um uh lundberg i had replaced a family member who was ceo for years um those norms were entrenched right and even at gotham i replaced a founder who had been there for since day one And so, you know, whether it's family-led or founder-led or just acquired like Dr. Scholl's or like Burt's, like those are all really different experiences. But, you know, the best lesson I learned on this was my first general management job at Clorox. I was appointed to be the general manager of our professional products division, which was a relatively small food service and janitorial business. Um, kind of where your career went to die, uh, in a big CPG company. Cause it's not consumer marketing, right. It's B to B marketing and B to B sales. And of course people felt that way. Right. I mean, people felt like the company didn't care about, um, this is sort of where you just sort of walked your way through the end of your career or people had ended up there and then just were dying for validation. We were crying out, um, for validation and, um, And just also just someone who cared about them. I think they were part of some matrix management organization before that. So they didn't, I don't think they even really knew who was running the show, right? The people there. And, you know, I, I was like, okay, I'm going to treat this like the last job I ever have. And we're going to figure this thing out and we're going to become, we're going to become important to the Clorox company. And these people are going to be validated and, and um you know they have been growing at about four percent per year forever so not bad but not not breakthrough just by engaging that team telling them that i that i i cared about them i i have a i have a mission and a vision that i want us to accomplish that first year without an extra dime of investment without any change in the business plan we went from four to twelve Wow. And then, and then we kept that up. Then we started expanding the business into healthcare and really building that piece of business out, which no one thought. And when I left that division was probably three hundred and fifty million. And today, it's over a billion. And it started at sixty million bucks, right? So, to me, that was such a powerful lesson that all these things about engaging in the small conversations, showing your care, and engaging the team, being present, all of those things really matters. And I love that you talk with that, you know, lead with that because I know in earlier conversations, we talked about how really everyday conversations are what help set culture and drive culture. And even earlier you mentioned one-on-ones. What would you recommend for, you know, I see this a lot with managers and directors who they are busy going meeting to meeting, going through a checklist. they view being present as, hey, I showed up, I was at that meeting. And yet then there's this disconnect between how their people are feeling with them. What would you recommend for them to think about maybe their current version of being present versus the presence that you just talked about that you had with this team at Clorox that really motivated and shifted how things worked? I see ineffective one-on-ones a lot. And when I watch them, part of it is, if you're the, especially if you're the person who's going to the, to the higher up manager, you know, are they, are they present in the meeting? And if they're not, you can see they're doing email or they're looking at their phone or if they're, cause sometimes these are virtual and sometimes they're in person. It depends on the organization. Like that is just such a pet peeve of mine because you're devaluing that employee's time. You're not engaging in just helping them, coaching them, developing them. I've had managers who I've talked to about this where they kind of look at the one-on-ones as, hey, well, I can move those around. Those don't need to be sacrosanct. I can move that around because I'll always find time to get that in. But, you know, that's not the message it sends to the employee. The message it says to the employee is she doesn't really value our time together. Right. And I just you cannot do that. You know, if you're going to say this is an important part of the way that we engage with each other, I'm going to value your time as much as or more than I value my own. This is something I live and I will push other things off to make sure that I make those. And if I, for some reason, have to move it, I always issue an apology to that employee and try to get it rescheduled because I don't want them to take away a message that was unintended. Yeah, that's really powerful because as you think about that time and that space that you create for people to have a different conversation, or maybe it's a continuation of conversation. That one-on-one time, that's precious. And I think about some clients that we've worked with, they're like, wow, I didn't have to do my one-on-one this week. And then they just kind of move through it. And I hurt a little, my heart hurts a little for them because it tells me that they haven't had the experience of a one-on-one that feels that connection. for them to understand how important that can be for them personally and professionally. And also the other side doesn't recognize that perhaps either. Well, at its best, it's a completely different conversation than you would have in a team setting or in a department setting because there's an intimacy to it. And if there's a trust to it, then the conversation is really different. And you get to such different levels of assessing how do you make, how do you enable this person to be more successful? How do you coach them to be more successful if that's the necessary step? Versus like, you know, you can't have some of those conversations and say a leadership team or department meeting because that person's role is different. Right. And so, um, yeah, I, I use that word intimacy a lot and that sometimes it's a little, um, people will be a little off like, wow, that's kind of where you hear in business very often. Um, but it is, these are intimate, intimate relationships. They may not, you know, be the same as a family kind of thing, but these are, you spend a lot of time with these people. You, you hear their, there are hopes and dreams and other things and so you know you need to make sure that you're you're prioritizing that yeah that's fun i'm chuckling a little my dogs love doing the same thing i feel like every time they're like oh can i be in the podcast with you so yeah i uh the animals we have no worries no i try i don't know what they're riled up about right now that's okay um maybe they're not feeling that they're one-on-one times being done right they're not feeling like we're present for them right now but you know i chuckle when you talk about intimacy because the first coach i had he said do you love your people when i was like do i love my people like i like my people most of the time but love them like That's, that's really not my expectation here. And, you know, it didn't take long being coached with this person to understand like the, yeah, I, I'll totally admit I wasn't in a spot where I was thinking about being a leader is really this being dedicated and committed to your people and making sure you're taking care of them to the nth degree. I was kind of like, ah, yeah, this is just what you do is you move up the ladder. You do your thing, you work hopefully together as a team, and then you all get promoted or whatever's next. Having that perspective was the thing that fundamentally shifted how I think about leadership and structuring roles and what that looks like. So as you use the term intimacy, I can see where people might kind of lean back a little bit, but that's something worth considering if you just did have that reaction to our lizard. And look, that word is going to mean different things to different people. But what I would say too is by creating that environment where there is that level of trust and open, candid, trusting dialogue then when you do make decisions that may look tough or difficult, or you, you know, like a personal decision, um, you're doing it against a backdrop of that, that trust and that, that mutual understanding that comes with that, with those, those types of conversations. And it's such a huge enabler, you know, um, it's difficult when you're new to an organization because you haven't had a chance to build up that uh that there's a that book seven habits of highly effective people talk about emotional bank account uh um god i read that thing three years ago it seems like but um uh but it stuck with me and And sometimes as a CEO, especially as a new at a company, you have to make some early decisions that are really challenging when you haven't built up that emotional bank account with people. But as long as you're consistent over time, I think you'll be able to get through that. Yeah. You know, in one of our earlier conversations, this kind of makes me think about this, where that trust is so important. Because you had said something about what you look for is whether everyone understands that their role is to protect the brand, to protect consumers and protect the organization. So when you think about how that fits with culture and leadership and presence, and just the lens where you've been able to do this at different places, how do you know when people genuinely feel that they are responsible and own this versus you said earlier, the poster on the wall, that they just talk that talk, but they don't actually walk it. You know, it's not the outcome that determines whether or not you think people are exhibiting the kind of behaviors and walking the type of talk that you want it's how they got there um that to me is the best indicator that people are bought in and i remember an experience i had at one company where we were dealing with a recall and um you know so we had a recall and we um We put forth our emergency response team and all of that stuff, and everyone did their job perfectly. The outcome was not what we wanted. But I remember this conversation to this day. I sat in the room with the team and the rest of the leaders in the organization, and I said, You guys did everything that you needed to do right here. The outcome didn't go our way, but I'm going to celebrate the how more than the, more than the actual one. Um, and that was a really, uh, I think both powerful for me, but also powerful for them because there, I think there was, you know, you just don't know what, how someone's going to react. If it, you felt like you did everything right. And it didn't go your way. You have to be consistent about that stuff. You have to make sure that you're celebrating the how, because that will drive the what most of the time. And people will say, wow, this guy's got my back, or this person has my back, even when it didn't go the way they wanted it to go. Like, wow, that's proof as in the pudding there, right? Yeah, that's a really good point because too often, I say too often, but often the outcome is what's a little bit more easier to see. So when you think about the process, especially with leadership and conversations, reflecting on like, did we have respectful conversation? Were we able to openly share? Those are the things that help the team be in that space versus just plowing through it. As you talk about recall, it actually brings up something because spending the majority of my time in food safety and quality, one of the things I always figure we're kind of like the canary in the mine. We're supposed to help say, gosh, things aren't going well. And as I've been in this space working with leaders and organizations, one of the things that I see, not all the time, but often, is that what maybe senior leaders hear and see feels really different than what maybe middle managers or even some of those frontline team members are experiencing. And that can roll into a variety of different scenarios when we think about risk to the organization, whether it's product consumer, even team member. So I'm curious, since you've spent time as CEO and in senior leadership roles, what is it that you look for in to make sure that there isn't this gap in like what I'm hearing and seeing, whether it's in data or how people are talking about things versus what's really going on that I need to know? yeah i think that's a a really great question and obviously we have some experience together uh you know thinking about quality systems and companies but you know the first thing is is are people measuring quality the same way across different functions So are the consumer leaders thinking about quality the same way the sales folks see and think about quality and measure quality as well as the operations folks? And when there's a different lens to that or a different weighting to that, then that's where we're not getting a consistent picture. So if manufacturing, for an example, is saying, look, we have metrics in place. We know what we need to do and we're hitting those metrics. We're good. And yet maybe the consumer marketers are looking at qualitative consumer comments that, you know, come in through either any sorts of type of vehicle. And they're saying, look, this is different than what you're reporting. And I'm valuing that consumer comment differently than, than maybe you do, we have to get into a common thing of how we're thinking about those and how we're weighting them. And I think that that's sort of the first step is that everybody in the organization is thinking about quality, thinking about safety in the exact same way. Then you create all the conversations that you need to create around that. Yeah, that alignment. I love how you talk about it because it's often just the lens. We might have the same goal in mind, but the lens I'm seeing things through is different. And so I'm looking for different data, I'm looking at different numbers, I'm seeing things differently. And when that happens, that naturally creates some gaps and assumptions that don't allow us to see the picture the same. Yeah, absolutely. you know, you are what your perspective is, what you measure, right. And what you see. And that's why I also really think that that cross functional communication that's enabled by highly functioning leadership teams and department teams, that's where you'll get common measurement, common understanding. And so you should avoid some of those, some of those pitfalls. And if you have people in your organization who are, potentially barriers to that, then you have to deal with that. I have a set of values that I walk employees through whenever I join a new organization or take a new job. And some of them, like, it's kind of corny. Like, okay. What makes it so corny? I don't know. But one of them is I tell them, I say, people who use information access as power, that's my pet peeve. Someone says, well, we talk about that, the leadership team, you don't really need to know about that. And we have fiduciary and confidentiality responsibilities, certainly. But when you use your access to information as power, is you're actually trying to create a power structure. You're trying to reinforce a power structure and you're legitimizing your power, not by the power of your thought and your leadership, you're doing it through access. It seems so weak. It seems so weak to me. i just don't do that and i'd rather live in a world where i overshare and and potentially you know it potentially comes back to get me than to live in a world where i don't um so yeah that's that's one of the values i walk people through is do not use information access as power but we have to do another podcast because i'm curious what are the other things that are pet peeves or on the list from correct But, you know, that's a really, you know, you think about that. I remember the first time I tried to do this, I was working for a Brit. I was in Hong Kong, actually. And I said, hey, so what kind of things do you value an employee? And like, how do we want to communicate? And he looked at me and said, I'm British. We don't have these conversations. But it didn't dissuade me from trying to do it, you know, as I move forward. that's fine that's that's a whole nother side of culture just um like literally different cultures sure um but i think that's so so often though that part gets missed where like we know things about ourselves as leaders and the things that make us cringe a little or that that we appreciate and the more we can share that the more we can also invite others to share it yeah and i think it's super critical. I do the same thing with my team. What are the team standards? I've got a couple things I want to add in and what are the things that you all expect? One of the ones my first coach always really ground into me was make sure for you to be able to support people the best, you need to hear it from them first because it's hard to be blindsided. How do you bridge that? So that's something that I always tell people that good, bad, ugly, like it's easiest for me to step into conversations when I already know what might be coming. So I want to hear it from you first. So I think when you, when you establish and you share sort of your values or your beliefs about business with your teams, The other thing I always say to them is that you hold me accountable to these. So if you see me not acting in a way that's consistent with these, I want you to call it out. So one of the other ones is transparency. I will strive for transparency as much as possible, which is obviously related a little bit to information access. But I'm like, look, if you see me not being transparent around something that you think is germane, call me out on it. and we'll either have a conversation about why i didn't see it the same way as you um or i'll i'll acknowledge it um and that becomes a if people are believe that that you're being truthful about these things then it enables again it enables a whole different level of conversation Because when people trust you, they share their work product with you, right? They don't just share the end game. They share the work product with you. And that's actually where you can really make the difference. If they don't have trust and they just try to show you the shiny little end game presentation, and by then, gosh, it might be too late to even help or to coach or say, you might've done that a little bit better and you're not making them better. Right. So, um, that's part of the reason I walked them through some of these things. Yeah. One of my pet peeves is rework in all forms, whether it's product, whether it's conversations, whether it's you name it, if we have to come circle back multiple times, which I'm okay doing that to make sure we're on the same page, but when it creates the inefficiencies, to me that creates a lot of just the inefficiencies. And when I think about how that actually impacts what we do as a team and what it does to our organizations, those are sometimes the things that if we don't recognize them, slow us down because we get stuck in those cycles. And I don't know if people look at it through that lens, So I'm curious from your perspective, when you see culture breaking down, where do you see what it costs the company? I mean, there's gonna be the standard like turnover and low engagement, but what do you see and where do you see it showing up first? You know, the things before someone even says, that's a culture problem. You're like, yep, we saw that way back here. I think um it's a real good really good question probably one I should ponder a lot more but a couple things that popped into my head one is that it does impact speed right you you just aren't as fast as an organization if you're retouching things two three four times right so and and speed is important in today's Marketplace I mean competition has never been more capable. People are using productivity tools that we couldn't even imagine ten years ago, like AI and things like that. So speed is number one. I think the other thing is that, and it gets a little bit to your engagement thing, but employees boys will just be working too hard at the wrong things, right? Because they're having to rework things that they thought were complete or were progressed. And when they work too hard, that just starts this ball rolling downhill around engagement. So I think that's important. It's why, again, I'll come back to If you have the right environment that creates a sharing of work product at the right time, then you can reduce that amount and the risk of rework. Because when someone's doing a work product and they're making a choice, I'm going to do this or I want to recommend this. They may want to say, Hey, why don't we just talk to Craig about it for a little bit? And we talk about it. And so then when it comes, I know that Joe weighed these two options. We talked about it and I know why, and then never have to revisit that. Right. Um, so I know it may sound simple, but, uh, it's in practice, it, it can become hard, especially when you're the CEO, when there are real and perceived barriers to getting to that person. Right. Yeah. And I think there's, you know, just once again, I'm in this space where food safety, quality people all talk all the time about just make a couple of bullet points for the CEO. And like, we don't necessarily want to bother them with these details or, you know, bring them in early and, you know, just thinking about like, how, how do you find out whether it's the CEO or, you know, insert another title or person, like what's the best way for us to communicate effectively? Yeah. To help so that we avoid my pet peeve of rework. But yeah, I don't love that on quality and safety. I don't love that bullet point approach, right? Because one of your core jobs, especially if you're a premium product, consumer packaged goods company or consumer food company, being the steward of the brand and being the steward of the employees, they need to be like, you need to be engaged at a really decent level. Um, and if you're not, and then you are, you fulfilling that role of being a steward of the brand, uh, particularly in a one brand company, right. It may be different if, you know, you're at a brand company, but when you're, when the brand says lumber family farms, or the brand says Gotham greens, or the brand says Burt's bees, like, You're the steward. And it's vitally important because consumer trust takes forever to earn and it takes a moment to lose. Well, with that, right now with GFSI, they have updated a lot of their requirements around food safety culture. And I know this applies to culture in general, but they're very specific about they're going to be auditing to standards. I'm curious to see kind of what that will all look like, because as they've layered on these expectations, it just is kind of a reminder that there's still work to be done. And one of the things that often food safety quality professionals hear is, gosh, you need to take this case and build a business case. And we do and show ROI, but oftentimes culture work there, there isn't this direct bottom line. number that you can share with the types of investments you need to make better one-on-ones and to be more present and to have better conversations. So for people sitting in the audience that are like, how can I move my leader or my CEO? What is it that they might want to focus on? And from that point, also from the part of what is maybe I don't want to say the wrong language, but what would be like the wrong language or wrong approach to take? I think the wrong approach to take is through a fear lens. If we don't do this, this will happen, right? That's just a very difficult place to put a leader in a company because you're not really giving them room to ask questions because you're painting a scenario that is pretty fear-based. Oh my gosh. If we don't make this investment in this, you know, this data tracking thing, then we're going to have a recall in two months. Well, okay. Are we really going that path? I think, I think you come through it through the lens as, you know, sort of what I just said, which is as stewards of the brand, and thinking about ways that we can insulate that brand from quality issues or safety issues or employee issues, there are a series of steps that we can take. And I'm going to walk you through what those series of steps are and what we think this has cost in the implementation and have that kind of dialogue But often I've seen, particularly in quality people, they come into a fear lens and it's like, I don't know how to deal with that necessarily. But you feel like your back's against the wall, right? Yeah. You know, we often talk about when we're in this space, and I say we as these professionals, that we spend a lot of time thinking about theory and data and what could go wrong. that's often what we're looking for. Like where are things not okay so that we can help fix them so that we're on the right path. But that also, you know, really that challenge of like, how do we look at things and always bring, there are things we're doing well and right. And we have made progress and reminding people that that counts. And we should be sharing that just as much as we are sharing the things that aren't going the direction that we want them to go. Yeah, I think that that's right. And actually sharing them in a meaningful format and being a good conduit of all the information. I've had to terminate quality people in my past. And part of that was because they used information access as power. And they were a barrier to flow through for both good activities and potentially risky activities. And you just couldn't have that happen. And so, yeah, I think you're right. Every conversation with a quality or safety person can't be about risk or about an issue. That's also another thing that you just can't do. You see them walking up to your office and you're like, oh no. We don't want that to be the feeling people have when they see us. No, especially since your role, the role of those people is to protect employees or protect the brand. You can't do that. That's one of the things we definitely work on. How do we help bring people along and how do you make them go, oh, gosh, you know what, I want to run that by my quality person. Or even quality people like, oh, I need to make sure I talk to my ops person or my supply person. That's, at least when I think about the progress, is good. And look, there are some binary choices. Do this or don't. There always are. But not all of them are binary choices. And so having that conversation about, well, we can improve if we do this and we can get this far, if we do this and we can, here's the path, here's the roadmap, here's the pathway we're on. Um, let's prioritize like it's, it's no different than dealing with a marketer and how they build brands or a sales account executive and how they're developing a customer. You know, don't, don't say, oh, we better give this customer this, or we're gonna lose our distribution. You can't, put a leader whether it's a sales leader or a company leader in that position because they don't know what to do with that um so so on our podcast we get quite a few managers directors some vps that listen and i'm curious because they often will come to us and be like something's off like i feel it but i don't always have data You know, like something's just not working well, or I feel like there's something going on. What do you want them to know? Like, what would be the first move they should make when they feel like something is off and they don't have the data? Because that puts them in a, usually they feel very off because they're supposed to always come with data. But look, the world is not strictly data. It's a qualitative assessment and it's a quantitative assessment. And if you're going to come with something where you don't necessarily have numerical or fact-based data, it's like, hey, what's the qual? What is giving you this feeling of unease? And what's the materiality of it? And I think being choiceful about the materiality of it is important. You know, if you, if it's a, it's a low risk thing, but you don't feel that you feel like something's off, like you probably shouldn't elevate that. But if it's something that's material that could infect, you know, either safety or quality, then gather some call data and, and, and, and, and have the conversation. mean not to be overly simplistic but often when there's smoke there's fire and uh you know and that smoke can be observational or it can be fact it can be database right but um you know i don't think you can discount the quality you know i'm a marketer at heart and you know and and when you do marketing there's a ton of data out there uh but the most insightful stuff is often the qualitative right it's talking to people it's listening to how they they think about things um that uh that really sort of sways uh how you make a decision yeah you know i i'm a pretty big data nerd being a black belt but i always have to remind myself data is a tool it's a tool to help us make decisions and so If we don't put that into context with people, with seeing a process, with seeing a system, we're missing an element that helps us make a better decision. And I know this about myself is that I'm not. And I'll tell you what I mean by that, which is I will get what I think is enough information to move forward with a decision. And it's one of the powerful things that I had mentioned earlier about understanding the personality types of people on your team. So, you know, we, we still use Myers Briggs, right? And there's an exercise you do coming out of Myers Briggs that you can do for your team called the Z exercise. Essentially it's, it's walking your team through a decision process and seeing how long different people spend at different points in the decision process. And one of the first steps is data gathering. And so I've gone through exercises with my leadership team for like, and, and to the extent that your personality is either predisposed to spend a lot of time at that step or less time with that step, there's a count. You, so you get a count and like, okay, it's one, two, three. I'm already know the next day, but then I'll be looking sometimes and it's like, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven is still in the fact gathering thing. Right. And then there's another step on this exercise where it talks about where you're thinking about the people implications. And you also get really insights on like how people view how much time to spend on thinking about the people impact implications, right? So for me, watching how my teams do these different exercises and where they spend their time really allows me to say, okay, I'm going to know that Jill's going to need to spend more time in the fact gathering phase and the data phase than I am. And I need to, I need to understand that respect it and understand its impact on organizational decision-making. And then she needs to know, wow, Craig is going to move really fast. And so we better make sure that the date let's try to get the data that he needs to him sooner. That's going to frame this problem because it'll either slow him down or give him the right information to move forward. I just had this conversation with my new team because they've been a little bit shocked about how fast I've moved on certain things. And then we're like, gosh, we better be getting him the data, like the most important stuff, like right out of the gate. And I really was like, wow, that's totally right. That's totally the message I'm sending. And so we got to spend some time on it. But it was interesting that they observed that, you know. They felt it right there. They felt. Yeah. Yeah. That's just that another part of like to move fast. It pays to invest in knowing what people need and want. And that helps everybody. Yeah. We talked a lot about many different areas, factors today. Like it's been great for someone listening and their food company leader. What do you want them to walk away with from the conversation today and actually do? I'm going to add that in there, like to actually do after they have been part of this conversation. Well, without sounding too pop psychologist or anything like that, I think, you know, I love working. I've always loved working. I like our industry. I like doing things, uh, being parts of things that people interact with every day. Right. I think that's, what's fun about consumer packaged goods. Um, uh, and I want the industry to thrive and I want people who are in it to feel like it's great. So I would say the one action step is, is, is make your people feel great. Engage them, have those small conversations, have the meaningful conversations. Do you do nothing? If you, took anything away from what I've said and you think you can apply it, that would be the thing I would apply is you will help your company and yourself and your people and our industry if people just love what they're doing and they feel engaged and they feel valued. Yeah, that is a great takeaway. Today's conversation, I mean, we talked a little bit about cost, but it's not really about cost. think it's about what's possible what's possible when you put people first it's what's possible on what you can do as a business it's what's possible when you spend time using this as part of your strategy because if you don't and you don't have that connection then you're on that side of like We still might make money, but we're not able to make money. And when people love what they do, it shows in profits too. They're all connected. Absolutely. Yeah. So thank you, Craig, for being with us today. Love your perspective. Love that you share time with us and our audience. Really appreciate it. Well, happy to do it. And I appreciate you having me on. And I've enjoyed it. So thanks. So good. And for our listeners, if today's conversation made you think, I would like to honestly look at where our organization is, we are happy to have a culture conversation with you. It's structure, there's no pitch, but just a chance to look at what's going on and help you move to where you want to go. Because sometimes we all get stuck in where we're at. We also have a GFSI culture guide that you can download from our website. And of course, those links are going to be in the show notes. So that is today's Real Talk. And we always say culture doesn't change until leaders do. And we will see you next time. Thanks, Greg. Thanks to our audience.
