Build Better Leaders by Protecting High Performers From Low Performers

If you’re scaling a team and the drag from one low performer is slowing everything down, this conversation will give you the clarity and language you need. I’m joined by Brett Hoogeveen: trained engineer, former healthcare executive, startup investor, and co-founder of Better Culture, a firm trusted by leaders from fast-growing startups to Fortune 500 companies.

We explore the real reason culture becomes a bottleneck as you scale, and why protecting your high performers is one of the fastest ways to build better leaders, elevate team performance, reduce burnout, and remove the friction that keeps your agency from moving at the speed you need.

Brett shares the top-down and bottom-up frameworks his team uses inside hundreds of organizations, including why removing toxic behaviors accelerates growth, how to strengthen manager consistency, and the simple cultural systems that compound into sustainable results. If you’re committed to a healthier, more energized agency in 2026, this episode will give you the playbook.

If you’d like to follow Brett’s work or explore the tools he mentioned, you can connect with him on LinkedIn or visit betterculture.com. He also created a resource for this audience — the People Leader Checklist — available at betterculture.com/catalytic

Join Dr. William Attaway on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares transformative insights to help high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners achieve Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, and Confidence.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Brett And His Mission
• 3:07 Why Culture Drives The Bottom Line
• 5:00 Defining Culture As Attitudes And Behaviors
• 7:25 Top-Down Commitment, Bottom-Up Creation
• 10:02 Seven Principles For Leadership Clarity
• 14:48 Pride, Recognition, And Whole-Person Success
• 18:25 Protecting The Right To Work With Pros
• 22:20 Removing Toxicity To Shift Performance
• 25:40 Bottom-Up: The 20 Tenets Of Culture
• 30:05 Simple Habits, Compounding Consistency

Transcript

Dr. William Attaway: 0:00

I'm so excited today to have Brett Hogaveen on the podcast. Brett's a trained engineer, a former healthcare executive, a startup investor, and the co-founder of Better Culture, a prominent leadership development and technology firm with clients spanning from entrepreneurial startups to Fortune 500 companies. In the past 10 years, Brett has trained thousands of leaders and worked hands-on with hundreds of organizations and executive teams focused on creating stronger businesses through elevated leaders, stronger teams, and more energized workplace cultures. An international speaker and certified speaking professional, Brett focuses on providing practical and actionable advice on leadership, company culture, and the not-so-secret secrets of becoming successful and happy. Brad, I'm so glad you're here. Man, thanks for being on the show. I love it. Thank you for having me.

Intro: 1:00

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host, author, and leadership and executive coach, Dr. William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway: 1:17

I would love to start with you sharing a little bit of your story with our listeners. Brad, I had a couple of the high points there. I'd love for you to share particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How'd you get started?

Brett Hoogeveen: 1:31

Boy, you know, I was a numbers kid growing up. I was uh I was always good at math, math and science. And when that's the case and you don't know what you want to do in life, every guidance counselor that you talk to says, well, maybe you should, you know, go be an engineer or something like that. And I didn't have any better ideas, so I kind of took their advice. And I really didn't realize, I got all the way through college, my first job. And even though my father, which is side story, he had started a company that was uh year after year voted the best place to work in in my hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. Oh, wow. I didn't really understand how important actually where you work would be uh in my quality of life. I kind of thought it was about like, what are you good at? What, what profession do you want to pursue? And it wasn't until I got out in the real world of work that I realized, oh, actually, I I thought I like this career, but I don't like the job I have. I don't like the company I work for. And that was sort of when I realized that culture matters a heck of a lot more than I thought it did. And that, you know, you could do a lot of different jobs in a lot of different, you know, sort of industries if you work with great people and for a great company. And so that's sort of how I got interested in leadership and culture specifically, um, was through firsthand experience.

Dr. William Attaway: 2:45

You know, I love that. And I think that is so true. The environment, the culture that a that a team or a business organization has is so critical. And yet, man, I find that it is not something that is top of mind, and it's not one of the lights on the dashboard that business owners and C-suite leaders are so focused in on like they are on the profit margin, right? Why do you think that is and how do we deal with that?

Brett Hoogeveen: 3:12

So I think it's because it's it's a little bit invisible what the impact is. It's not quite as tangible as you know, this quarter's sales numbers, or, you know, uh uh turnover costs or a quality metric or a customer retention rate or you know, these things that that feel like there's an obvious primary connection to what comp what most business leaders care about, which is the bottom line and success and what those metrics. But what people don't understand, I think, is how much the way that your employees feel every day about their job and about their company and about the work that they do, how that's culture, how much that really drives all of those metrics that people care about. So I I often am helping people understand that if you'll focus on culture and helping create an environment that people are more and more excited to be a part of, then all that other stuff sort of gets a little bit of rocket fuel. You know, it's easier to make progress on all those other things. So I don't know why it's not more obvious to more people, but that's sort of my mission is to make it more obvious.

Dr. William Attaway: 4:20

I love that. So let's let's start for our listeners who who maybe haven't really dived into this before. How do you define culture?

Brett Hoogeveen: 4:28

For me, there are a lot of good definitions out there. Um, but the way that we define it at better culture is we we say, look, you you imagine a group of people that you interact with. And this could be your team at work, it could be your neighbors at a barbecue, it could be your family at Thanksgiving dinner. But if you imagine the attitudes and the behaviors that you will expect from that group of people the next time you get together, that's really what your culture is. It's the attitudes and the behaviors that a group comes to expect from one another, is what your culture is. So I really like to describe it as attitudes and behaviors, something that's really understandable and describable, sort of noticeable. What do you think about that?

Dr. William Attaway: 5:08

Yeah, I like that. You know, uh it it becomes more tangible, like you say. Like when you're talking to executives or teams about this, like what are some things that you that you talk about? Is this just something that comes from the from the C-suite level or the business owner? Does it come just top down?

Brett Hoogeveen: 5:25

The prioritization of culture has to come top down, right? A top executive or executive team, they have to agree, yeah, culture matters. Culture's a priority. Um, culture's right up there with the other things that are important to our business. But then the actual creation of a healthy culture can happen from a lot of different directions and parts of the organization. Um, you know, if you're a manager of a of a frontline team, you can do a lot to create a great culture just on that team. Um but if it wants to scale across an organization, it's got to have an executive tilt to it, obviously.

Dr. William Attaway: 5:56

I I think about culture as something that cannot be delegated. That it has to be prioritized at that top level. And you can never delegate that. Would you agree with that?

Brett Hoogeveen: 6:06

I think I I mostly agree with that. Um I I I like the scenario. I I know where you're coming from on that. And in 90% of cases, that's true. Um on occasion, you know, we all have strengths. And I have seen a few executives that realize their style isn't um isn't what would be ideal for the building of a great culture. And if they can become aware of that and self-aware and talk about it and and work hard to help other executives, you know, like if they essentially say, hey, look, I I know I have several other folks that are going to help us build an amazing set for uh for the play that we're putting on every day in our business. My job's just to not knock it down. You know, like I need to at least I can let other people be the be the ringleaders of building a great culture and as long as I stay out of the way and don't ruin it. Um I have seen that work on occasion, but that's a rare exception. I mean, 90 plus percent of the time, it's really the CEO that's got the best and most passionate vision for the type of company they want to create. And that certainly works a lot better than the way I just described.

Dr. William Attaway: 7:12

I like that. And I like the I like the example that you gave there, building the set. You know, you do not want to give me a hammer and nails. I'm not good with this, and I'm gonna hurt myself and other people, right? But I can cheer people on and I can talk about how important it is that we do this and cast vision for this and encourage people as they are using their gifts to build it. You know, and and that's what I think of when I think about culture. I'm thinking it's my job not necessarily to do the culture, all the culture stuff, but I'm the biggest cheerleader because that's something that is so critical. I mean, I I I think every organization, every team, every business has a culture. You either have one you designed on purpose and protect, or you have one you didn't mean to have. But you have a culture.

Brett Hoogeveen: 7:57

No, you got one no matter what, right? There people show up with attitudes and behaviors, right? That's what your culture is. So people do stuff when they show up at work, right? They show up in a certain way. So you do have a culture. Um, you just have to be intentional about it. You have to prioritize it, envision it. Okay, what are the attitudes and behaviors we want from our employees? And then what can we do to actually influence that, to make sure that people every day are living those, those, those behaviors, those attitudes that we want a little bit more, right? And that's what effective culture building really looks like.

Dr. William Attaway: 8:27

So let's dive into that for a minute. What are some things that you can do from a leadership perspective to encourage or to drive those type of attitudes and behaviors that are moving you toward the culture that you want?

Brett Hoogeveen: 8:40

So in my organization, Better Culture, we have two primary schemas that we work with organizations to help them first understand and then implement. And one of those schemas is what can leaders do, sort of from the top down, yeah, via leadership to lead in a way that builds healthier teams and cultures. Okay. And I'll go deeper into that in a second. But first I want to mention the other approach is really bottom-up. What can everyone do to show up with the right attitudes and behaviors to make themselves more successful, make the team more successful, and build a healthier culture across the organization from whatever position that you're in? So when we think strategically about building a great workplace culture, I love that simple model of, well, what do leaders need to do sort of top-down? And what can everybody do bottom up to all contribute to building these this healthier culture?

Dr. William Attaway: 9:33

That's that's really good. Uh a lot of the people who are listening are top-down. Like they're the they're the owners, they're the business owners, the founders, the executives. They're listening to this. What are what what are some what are some examples of things that they can do top-down?

Brett Hoogeveen: 9:49

So over 30 years ago now, my father built a company in the Omaha area that, as I mentioned, was voted the best place to work over and over again. And the number one secret to what he and his early leadership team did there is they said, we want to make sure if you're gonna be a manager in this company, we have to have crystal clarity on what it means to be a leader. Okay. And he came up early on with these seven principles of leadership. That turns out, if leaders will understand these simple mindsets and then work hard every day to bring these things to life, you'll have a fantastic culture. And so if it's okay with you, I'd love to share just a little bit of what sort of what that is. Because in the work that we do at Better Culture, we've now worked with leaders across dozens and dozens of industries. And every single time, people say, Yeah, this is what like I would love my managers to do more of these things in my company. Um, and so whether you're an executive or a frontline leader, it the these seven principles will help you build a healthier culture. So the first one is kind of a catch-all, but it says you've always, always got to be focused on mission, culture, and the pursuit of excellence. Okay. That that that's, you know, it's a catch-all, right? Mission and vision and values and things like that. Okay. But the second one is where it starts to get interesting. We believe it's a leader's job, and if you're listening, always, always, always, with every interaction that you can find, opportunities to help people feel more proud of where they work and to know that their company is proud of them. Okay. So hopefully you could start to see what it would look like if you conducted yourself every day looking for opportunities to communicate in a way that helps people feel more proud of their business and to know that the business is proud of them, that they feel seen and valued and recognized. What do you think about that uh for as a as a principle of leadership?

Dr. William Attaway: 11:38

I love it. Uh I think it values people. It shows the honor and respect that you want to show to another individual, not just for what they do, but for who they are. Love that.

Brett Hoogeveen: 11:49

Yeah. And what we find is so many people just miss, they don't no one disagrees with me on that. But then I say, okay, well, what about the 97% of the chances you had yesterday to do that that you didn't do? Right? Oh, oh, so good. Right? Okay. So uh the another one that we talk a lot about is it's it's a leader's job to help their people be successful at work and in life. And when you show up that way as a leader, your employees feel that. You know, if if if they're just there to do a job, you know, complete a task, check boxes, or if you're really truly deeply invested in their success. And part of that success is kicking butt at their job, you know, getting all the getting all the boxes checked and getting all the stuff done. But the other part of that is like, I want you as a person to be successful here, right? And happy, um, both at work and outside of work. And again, if leaders will conduct themselves in that way, it makes a huge difference on how employees feel about their job, their team, their manager, et cetera.

Dr. William Attaway: 12:46

That's good. That's so good. Uh I think being successful at work and in life, I love that inclusion there because that's that really speaks to the to the wholeness, the totality of one's life instead of trying to compartmentalize and say, we're just going to focus on this one slice of your life, even though you're one person. I think that's valuable.

Brett Hoogeveen: 13:08

Yeah. I'll give you one more so we don't have to do all seven of these unless you want all of them, but there's other ones that are on conflict and on communication decision making. But the one that people really people resonate with the wording of this. Um, and I think we're the only sort of leadership consulting company that says it this way is it's a leader's job to protect the right of good employees to work with other good employees. Um, this gets into performance management, dealing with problem cases, toxic behaviors, non-performance, et cetera. But what we find is if you want great people to want to stick around and want to be a part of a team, it's a leader's job to protect those people from toxic coworkers, from people who aren't pulling their fair share of the load that's going to cause them to burn out because they have to do extra work, et cetera. Uh, we could show you mountains of employee engagement data that show that the second lowest scoring question on our own culture survey that we do with organizations says supervisors in my company do a good job dealing with poor staff performance. And that's the second lowest scoring question across all the data that we gather. And I promise you, it's not the problem employees that are rating that low. It's your stars, it's your best people that are saying my manager is not protecting my right to work with other good people. And that's how you burn great people out.

Dr. William Attaway: 14:29

Oh my goodness, that's so good.

unknown: 14:31

Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway: 14:32

Okay. That may be my favorite. I like that one. People like that one. Yeah. I love that one. I think that's so good. And I can think of so many examples of places where I've worked in the past, uh, but also a lot of my clients who talk about this. And how it's like, they don't even seem to care that this is going on, but they're holding me to a standard and they're not holding it, it's so dysfunctional.

Brett Hoogeveen: 14:54

So this is the math side of me. If you if you don't mind, I'll go back to the math, math side of me. You can make a really good case that one way, and this this sounds harsh, but uh just math for a second. That if you want to create a healthier team and a healthier culture, one way to shift the distribution of how all of your team, how all your employees feel about the company, is to just remove the negative ones, the toxic ones, the non-performers, and replace them with somebody that's at least average, at least a little bit. And my job with my clients is to help them create a better culture consistently over time. And there's a lot of things we can do to move people's attitudes and behaviors and shift all those things. But man, one of the fastest ways to shift that curve is just to get serious about saying who's not a fit here, who doesn't meet our expectations, who's who's making life harder for everybody else. And if you'll just get serious about that and deal with those folks in a compassionate and fair way and help them either get on board or or go bless some other organization with their company, you'll make so much progress fast.

Dr. William Attaway: 15:54

Well, I think it it illustrates that you have what you tolerate, you know. So often we we, as leaders, will let the bar slide. And when we do that, we're never gonna get, you don't drift into excellence, you drift into mediocrity or worse. And high performers are not gonna stay in that environment. So I love that. I think you're exactly right. You pull out the the non-performers, the low performers, you pull out the C players and watch performance skyrocket. Man, that's so good. I love that. Thank you.

Brett Hoogeveen: 16:24

Thank you. Yeah, and what I find is when people look at it from the perspective of it's not my job to go deal with this non-performer or to have a tough conversation, or that that feels messy. If you if you orient it through the lens of it's my job to, it's my job as a leader to protect the right of my great people to work with other, at least good people. It it feels like a more noble mission than, oh, I gotta go deal with this, you know, have a heart, I gotta write somebody up, I gotta. No, I'm protecting the right of my awesome people to have a great experience here uh in my organization.

Dr. William Attaway: 16:57

So that's so good. I'm gonna remember that one, Brett. That's really that's solid there. That's really well said. Thank you. Thank you. So, so we've talked from the top down. Let's say people are listening who are not at the top. They're not the ultimate decision makers, the owners, the C-suite. They're more bottom-up. Are there ways that they can take actions or think about attitudes and behaviors that contribute to a desired culture?

Brett Hoogeveen: 17:24

Yes. Is that a good enough answer?

Dr. William Attaway: 17:27

Absolutely. We're done. Let's move on.

Brett Hoogeveen: 17:31

So, how can they do that? I mean, so so um the way that you show up, the attitudes and behaviors that you show up with shape other people's experience of a team and a culture. And so probably three, four years ago, um, even our best clients and our best organizations that we had worked with that had gone through our leadership training, had experienced our seven principles, had put those things, the top-down stuff in place. What we were finding is you know how training is, it, you know, you do great training and you hope people use, you know, 90% of what you teach them, and you find out maybe they're using 10% of what you teach them. And it's like, hey, that's good. Let's reinforce, let's keep going, let's grow, let's get better. Um, but we were finding even with the organizations we were most deeply partnered with, uh, there was still 85% of the employee base that wasn't a manager that they they didn't have any interaction with better culture. And if we wanted to help the whole organization create a better experience, a better place to work, we started asking ourselves, okay, what could we do for the rest of the employees to help them grow, develop, be successful, but also contribute to a healthier team and culture? And we uh it was a long project, but we came up with sort of a universal list of these attitudes and behaviors that across industries, across organizations, people would say if if an employee shows up and does these things, they would be a star in our business. And that became what we call our 20 tenets of culture. And it's 20 attitudes and behaviors that if employees will lean into, those attitudes and behaviors, not only, of course, will it create a better, healthier culture, because that's where we started out. But what we found out and what we didn't expect was when we looked at the research around these things, and these are things like they're not complicated. Be coachable, be helpful, be welcoming, be upbeat, you know, don't gossip, right? That the these are not hard things to understand. But we what we found is there's there was data that showed if if individual people will work on these skills, yeah, it's good for teams and good for culture. It'll actually make them more successful and happy in life, right? And so that's what when when we got really excited and we said, wow, I think we can really not only help organizations build healthier cultures, but we can do that that third principle of leadership. Um, help people be more successful at work and in life. If we can help teach these skills, these 20 tenants to every employee, it makes people um not only better employees, but it makes them more happy and successful in life. And that that's a lot of fun.

Dr. William Attaway: 20:04

That's really good. You know, and they're they sound very accessible. Like anybody can grab these and grab onto it and say, okay, yeah, I can do that. Like I can choose my attitude on that.

Brett Hoogeveen: 20:15

Yes. Yeah. They're so accessible. And that's I think that's the hallmark. You know, one of the best, best and worst compliments we get for our content is people will say something like, Yeah, it's just so common sense. Right? And it's like, thank you, I think, right? Uh, but oftentimes, you know, it's not the most complicated things that get the best results. It's the basics. And executing on the basics gets you often more results than trying to implement something really complicated.

Dr. William Attaway: 20:45

You know, it makes me think a friend of mine told me years ago, common sense is not a flower that is planted in every garden. I like that. I think that's true. I think we we can we can point people toward these simple truths that can make such a dramatic difference. And that's that's what I'm hearing. I mean, you you have served clients in so many places, so many industries. Like, can you think of of one that stands out that you would say, hey, you know, they really did the work and they saw some results from it.

Brett Hoogeveen: 21:18

Hmm. Yeah. Um I have uh let's see, I can think of quite a few. Um there's one particular organization that I've done a lot of work with recently um that I just really admire their their consistency at trying to get better. Um and uh it's a local organization. Nebraska Cancer Specialist is the name of that group. I just had their practice administrator on my podcast a few weeks back. And just every quarter, every time I touch base, they're they're working on something culturally to get better, whether that's with their physician ownership uh uh practice group, whether that's with their leaders, whether that's with all employees, whether that's with their customers. And, you know, it's interesting to see when you have executives that are just focused always on looking for small opportunities to make progress. Those are the businesses that it doesn't feel like they make a lot of progress in a week or a month. But when you look over three or five years, they were just voted a best place to work in our local community. And it's because of all of the consistent little things that their leadership does to try to strengthen that organization. And I guess those are the organizations that I admire most, are not the ones that try to push through one big initiative, but to try to stack up lots of little things over time that make kind of all the difference.

Dr. William Attaway: 22:40

Consistency compounds. Yes, it does. I love that. Brett, I want to talk about talk about you for a second. You know, you have to lead your clients, your team at a higher level today than you did even three or four years ago. And that same thing is gonna be true three or four years from now. How do you stay on top of your game? How do you level up with the new skills that your clients and your team are gonna need you to have in the days ahead at Better Culture?

Brett Hoogeveen: 23:11

I hope I have a good answer to that. You know, that that would be good if I did. Uh it's funny, there are so many ways. There's so much information out there. Um, and what I have found for myself is um I used to think if I just pursued more information, if I just read more, if I listened to more things, if I went to more conferences, but somehow that was at the heart of me really developing my own skills. And I've shifted in recent years to thinking that actually um understanding just a few areas that I want to get better at and trying to stay focused on those things and really filtering the types of information that I'm working on or that I'm considering is actually probably a more effective way for me to grow my skills. And so um I love that. I think I listen to a lot of podcasts. You know, I there are certain things, audio books, audio works best for me. Um and so I just try to control my feed and my narrative in those areas and listen to people who I respect and admire. And um that's my, you know, there's no rocket science to that. But uh that's been what I think has been most effective for me is um not just looking at every best-selling leadership book or every new idea and saying, no, here's here's my lane, and who do I really respect in that lane and try to focus on fewer voices and fewer new ideas that I can actually operationalize.

Dr. William Attaway: 24:37

You know, I love the intentionality of that. I'm saying I'm not gonna try to, you know, focus on 20 things this season, this quarter, this year. I'm gonna focus on three or four and dive deep. I think that I think that there's a lot that we can take away from that. And I hope our listeners are grabbing onto that because as we record this, we're wrapping up 2025 and everybody's thinking about next year. At least the best leaders I know are. Yes. And I think the intentionality you bring to that is going to determine the results that you get. So thank you for sharing that. Absolutely. You know, you think about the books that you've that you've listened to, right, or read. Is there one that stands out that you would be like, hey, if if you haven't read this or listened to this, this one made a difference for me. This one made me think differently.

Brett Hoogeveen: 25:27

Um if it's okay with you, no, I I don't have one that I can really reference that made the biggest difference for me. Yeah. Um I really like, you know, it's it's it's interesting. We put so much time and effort into building our own set of content that um increasingly uh what I find is I'm not trying to add new insights, new perspectives. I'm trying to figure out how to make the things we do more effective. Um early in my career, I really I was always assuming there was more out there than what than what we deliver to our clients. And of course there always is, right? Um but similar philosophy to to to what we just discussed, I think oftentimes more isn't isn't better. And so um what I've try to focus on more than more than reading, you know, a new thing is what can I do to make a make make the things that I know work more effective for our clients? And so um I don't know if that's a good answer to your question, but I don't have a book if it doesn't square with the philosophies we are teaching. So maybe that maybe that means I should work on my own book.

Dr. William Attaway: 26:34

You know, uh there are worse things. I think I think to to capture the insights that you've gained so far and making them accessible to a broader audience that you may never talk to in person, uh I think has a lot of value. I have found that from my own writing. I would encourage that.

Brett Hoogeveen: 26:51

Well, thank you. I'll take that to heart.

Dr. William Attaway: 26:54

So so last question that I have for you. You know, every business owner, founder that I know uh looks around the landscape and sees so many things that they wish they could change or fix or and solve this one. This would make a difference. If I had the ability to snap my fingers and solve one problem in your business today, what would you want that problem to be?

Brett Hoogeveen: 27:20

In my business? I think it would be it would be uh a communication challenge, a uh, you know, helping people connecting what we know we can do for organizations with them understanding what the challenges that they're currently facing are tied and connected to culture, right? Um and so maybe that's a sales messaging uh, you know, uh context. We we spent a lot of time on that in the last six months. And we're making progress, helping people understand why why better culture might be something that they should focus on as a priority for 2026. Um, but we don't have the magic bullet yet of, you know, some companies get it, a lot of companies don't. Um and so I'm trying to help other organizations sort of slowly come around to the idea that, huh, uh, you know, adding culture as a strategic priority uh wouldn't take a ton of effort, wouldn't take a ton of time, but would generate a lot of value for our business. So anything you can do to help me communicate that even better, I think is the problem I'd want to solve.

Dr. William Attaway: 28:23

I love it. I think that's something that a lot of business owners struggle with. And I appreciate you sharing that. That's really, really well said. Thank you. Brett, this has been just a masterclass today around culture and what you're doing to make a difference in the companies that you serve, uh, I think is is incredible. Uh, I know our listeners are gonna want to stay connected to you and learn more from you and about what you're doing at Better Culture. But what's the best way for them to do that?

Brett Hoogeveen: 28:53

Well, uh, you can find me on LinkedIn, Brett Hogaveen is a good way. You can go to betterculture.com. I I'd like to, if it's okay with you, I'd like to spin one of your questions sort of back a little bit and give a give an answer I think might be interesting to your people, uh, to your listeners. You know, you asked about, you know, it's we're recording this toward the end of 2025, business owners are focused on 2026, and then you asked me what one of my goals would be. I I'd like to maybe give an idea for what what business owners might think about as a bold goal that they could adopt. And this is really hard to reach, but what I have found is this is uh this catches people off guard a little bit. And the question is this what if in 2026 you made a promise to all of your employees that over the next couple years, you were gonna be able to look them all in the eye and say, I'm gonna promise you report to a world class supervisor. What would that do for business? If people said, you know what, every employee in my company is gonna work for a world class leader. And in order for that to happen, there's just two things that a business has to do. You got to put the right people in leadership positions. And then you've got to kind of train them how to be a great leader. You know, what do people want from a great leader? And I think if businesses would do that, they would see remarkable results. Just focus on effective leadership throughout your organization. And uh I know today we've talked a little bit about sort of what great leadership looks like. Um, we also just recently created a free resource that helps people understand that first question, which is what are the characteristics of somebody that should be put in a leadership position, leadership potential? We have this people leader checklist that we recently created that I'd love to give to your folks if that's okay.

Dr. William Attaway: 30:37

A hundred percent. That's so generous, man.

Brett Hoogeveen: 30:40

Yeah. So I create a landing page. It's just at betterculture.com forward slash catalytic, if people can spell that. It was hard for me, but I figured it out.

Dr. William Attaway: 30:49

We'll have the link in the show notes.

unknown: 30:51

Good.

Brett Hoogeveen: 30:51

Uh but if people will go there, it's just it's a it's a checklist to say when you're promoting somebody or even when you're coaching a current leader, what are the characteristics that make them more naturally um likely to be the type of leader that people will say, man, I have a great boss. You know, I work for a great company because that makes all the difference.

Dr. William Attaway: 31:08

That's so good. Well, that's so generous, man. Thank you for doing that for the listeners. Yeah, well, thank you for having me on. Well, it's been a joy. I'm so grateful for your generosity, Brett, and sharing so freely from your journey so far. And I can't wait to see what you do next. And I'm looking forward to reading your book. Thank you.