Elevating Leadership and Culture: A Blueprint for Scaling Your Business with Claire Chandler's Talent Boost Insights

Embark on a journey that promises to redefine your entrepreneurial horizon with insights from Claire Chandler, the powerhouse behind Talent Boost, whose 25 years of HR and business strategy expertise are set to supercharge your leadership skills and company culture. As your host, I'm thrilled to share this transformative conversation where we celebrate that thrilling moment of moving from solo entrepreneur to a dynamic team leader. We dissect the best practices for retaining top talent and nurturing a workplace that not only values its employees but encourages them to build careers with longevity.

Discover the secrets to achieving sustainable growth within your organization, as we reflect on the two-year quest to find the perfect alignment of passion, skill, and market demand. Claire opens up about her brainchild, Talent Boost, and its mission to help leaders scale their businesses without sacrificing their most valuable asset: their people. Together, we unravel common expansion challenges and highlight the importance of a purpose-driven culture that spells success for entrepreneurs and established businesses alike.

Lastly, as the episode unfolds, we tackle the often-overlooked role of HR as a strategic partner in shaping company direction and fostering growth. I share my own experiences of reviving workplace enthusiasm and we discuss how clear communication and a resonant mission are critical in attracting the right talent. Claire and I zero in on the magnified consequences of leadership decisions in small businesses and offer a practical growth assessment tool, linked in our show notes, designed to prepare your business for expansion while preserving the team that helped you build it.

If you would like to follow Claire and learn more about her impactful work -

FACEBOOK (BUSINESS) https://www.facebook.com/talentboostllc/

LINKEDIN https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairechandlersphr/

INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/chillinchandler/

TWITTER https://twitter.com/TalentBoost

YOUTUBE https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC43Iz8yWW1gPKN6PkF-wi4g?view_as=subscriber

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Welcome to the Entrepreneur to Employer podcast. I'm your host, brian Montes, founder of Scalocity Works and the Entrepreneur to Employer coaching and membership community. So congratulations is in order. If you've built a successful freelance business that has grown to the point where you need to hire, you have achieved a huge milestone. If you're already past the point of making your first hire and your team is now growing well, congratulations is in order to you as well. So, regardless of where you are with scaling your team and your business, whether you're at employee number one or employee number 100, this podcast focuses on everything related to people operations. We'll cover best practices, strategies and solutions to help you build a sustainable and scalable business that is fueled by great people and a great culture. So if you're enjoying listening to this Entrepreneur to Employer podcast, please subscribe, give us a like and give us a review. Your feedback will help us grow this podcast and we'll be able to positively impact more employers to help them build better work environments. Welcome back to another episode of the Entree to Employer podcast. Today I'm excited to have a guest on that is going to add some real value to the Entree to Employer community. Today we have Claire Chandler of the Talent Boost. She is the president and founder of Talent Boost. She specializes in aligning HR and business leaders so they can deliver strong strategic outcomes both today and in the future. Claire taps into over 25 years of experience in people, leadership, human resources and business ownership to help leadership teams work together more effectively in less time, with less cultural resistance, so they can accept their business growth. Now, who doesn't want that right? I mean less time to execute, quicker and in less time, because the only thing we're fighting is time as business owners and business leaders. Claire has a broad-based expertise in less time, because the only thing we're fighting is time as business owners and business leaders. Claire has a broad-based expertise in management teams, due diligence, organizational design, acquisition, integration and onboarding of new employees. She also has a deep expertise in strategic planning, executive coaching and performance acceleration. So she is my guest today on the Entrepreneur to Employer podcast and we're going to talk about how all of these things can help impact businesses as they grow and allow you to grow your business without losing team members and keeping the best on board. So, without any further ado, let's get into the conversation with Claire. Welcome back to the Entrepreneur to Employer podcast. I am your host, brian Montes, and the founder of Scalocity Works. Today I am excited we have a guest on the show. It's been a little while since we've had a guest on the show, but as we go into 2024, I promised that we were going to start getting some more high caliber guests onto our show. So we continue giving all of you business owners, different perspectives and different insights into running and growing your business.

Speaker 1: 2:36

Claire Chandler, who her and I met last year and it's interesting because what Claire does is focus on keeping your talent, which is so hard in today's environment, making sure that we're building programs for retention and helping our staff stay with us for longer so that they have a reason to continue working with us. She has her own firm called Talent Boost, and she's also a Forbes writer as well. So if you start following her after this podcast, I'm sure you'll be able to find some of those Forbes articles, and maybe we'll even have a link to one in the show notes. So, claire, thank you for joining us today.

Speaker 2: 3:10

Thanks, Brian. It's so great to be here. I've been looking forward to our conversation.

Speaker 1: 3:13

Well, welcome. We're looking forward to it. I'm excited. All right, I like to start out every conversation and ask this one question what is one life experience that you have had that taught you something that you still carry with you today in the business world?

Speaker 2: 3:27

I would have to say it's a phrase that has become one of my business core values and it's called own your walk and if you will indulge me, I'll tell you a very quick story. That kind of will set some context. So I am both a corporate survivor and a cancer survivor. That kind of propelled me out into my entrepreneurial journey.

Speaker 2: 3:46

Thank you very much. Yes, survived both. And here to tell the tale. And about a year or so before I left corporate, I was walking down the hall back to my office and my boss stopped me and he said you need to tone down your walk. And I'm like like what? And he goes your walk. It's your walk, and I'm like like what? And he goes your walk. It's so bouncy, it's so happy, and people are going to wonder if you're up to something. Do you know something? They don't. And I thanked him for those pearls of wisdom, went back to my office and spoiler alert I didn't change my walk, but it was so.

Speaker 2: 4:19

What's interesting to me is obviously that story stuck with me, but it sort of grew over time to become very emblematic of corporate cultures done wrong, right? Companies that advertise for entrepreneurial spirit and then kind of slap you on the wrist as soon as you don't conform to their idea of what a corporate employee looks like. You know companies that say here is where you will be able to bring your authentic, full self to work, and then they kind of go yeah, but that's not what we meant right. And so that story in hindsight has kind of grown and amplified to the point where today that has become one of my core values is owning your walk. I do believe that you will have the most fulfilling professional and personal experience if you are as authentic to your genuine personality as possible.

Speaker 1: 5:09

That's a great story. That's a great story.

Speaker 2: 5:12

People don't believe that actually happened, but I am here to tell you it is true.

Speaker 1: 5:15

And it's unfortunate right, but it's kind of that wake-up call.

Speaker 2: 5:18

Yeah, yeah, there have been a few, for sure.

Speaker 1: 5:21

When that happened was that sort of the moment where you said, okay, I know, I don't want to stay in corporate America permanently, I want to be my own boss someday. What thought process happened after that exact experience?

Speaker 2: 5:32

It wasn't that exchange.

Speaker 2: 5:34

That exchange, unfortunately, was sort of typical of an exchange that I had with that boss.

Speaker 2: 5:41

Really, what woke me up was getting that diagnosis of cancer, which happened a little bit later, either that same year, I don't actually recall, but that is what really woke me up to.

Speaker 2: 5:53

This knowledge of life is short, right. I always kind of say that the year that cancer diagnosis happened and I was forced to go from 150 miles an hour professionally to zero to taking a month off of work, having surgery, having treatment, you know the whole bit. But I always say that that diagnosis, that experience, was such a gift because I do sincerely believe if I had not had that experience that forced me to deal with my own mortality right, my own health, my own priorities, my own set of values, I might still be in corporate and I might still be convincing myself that's good enough, right, that that trajectory is okay for me. So I am deeply humbled and deeply grateful for that opportunity because it really did shake me out of my bubble and of my sort belief that this is as good as it gets. It was a great gift because it propelled me to leap into the entrepreneurial unknown.

Speaker 1: 6:51

Good for you. How much longer did you stay in corporate before you made that transition?

Speaker 2: 6:56

I had surgery on June 2nd of that year. I took about a month after surgery to recover, come back to work and then kind of spent the summer really sort of reevaluating kind of where I wanted to be. I made some calls to people in my inner circle professionally who I have seen as both formal and informal mentors, just sort of sharing with them. Hey, here's something I went through. Here's kind of what it made me realize. Am I nuts to even think that I can make it on my own right as an entrepreneur? Because I think so many people in corporate aren't necessarily totally fulfilled but they tell themselves that the alternative is just too daunting, it's too scary, it's too unpredictable. And I remember one business mentor in particular that I called and I said here's kind of what had been going on, here's what I'm thinking about. Am I crazy for thinking this? And he said it's totally the opposite. I've been waiting for your call. He said I've been waiting for you to get to the realization that you are destined for something different, something greater.

Speaker 2: 7:58

And so he knew before I did. He saw because of the way that we had worked together in the past. He was an outside consultant to the organization. He saw me in moments that lit me up and he knew that crafting a life around work around my jam was really going to be the path toward fulfillment, and so it ultimately left in mid-October of that same year.

Speaker 1: 8:25

So it moved pretty quick from that time. Might have been November, but yeah, it was about yeah, five six months.

Speaker 2: 8:30

Five six months from getting the, from having surgery, dealing with cancer, coming back and going. Yeah, I'm going to take my shot, I'm going to take my shot.

Speaker 1: 8:37

Good for you, good for you, and I think a lot of business owners have. There's a lot of them, not all of them. There's a catalyst, right. There's something that causes all of us to say we want to start our own business. And the challenge with that is we may be very good at what we're doing or that business that we're going to start because we solve a problem right, we're a great chef or we could build a widget better than somebody else, but where we lack, right, is we don't have all the other skills, right. We're not good bookkeepers, we're not strong on the HR side, we're not good at hiring or talent development.

Speaker 1: 9:08

These business owners become very good at what they do, which is what makes them successful, but then, all of a sudden, now you're running a whole business unit and you're not just part of a cog at a wheel and you've got to deal with all these other things. Hence the reason where you come in with Talent Boost and sort of what you do. So when you left, did you go right into Talent Boost, or was there some other version of it? What does that story look like?

Speaker 2: 9:31

So it was about two years after I left corporate that I founded Talent Boost. So I left corporate late in 2011 and I founded Talent Boost in September of 2013. So I'm, you know, 10 and a half years in as a business owner. It legit took me about two years to kind of figure out and I think a lot of entrepreneurs relate to this Of all the things that I could do.

Speaker 2: 9:55

Right, there's sort of this like Venn diagram. Right, there are things you could do, there are things you enjoy doing and there are things that other people will pay you to do for them or with them. Right, and it took me about two years to kind of fill the top of that funnel with all the different things that I could do based on my skills, based on my interests, based on people were looking for this need and I could fill it. And so there was a little bit of I don't want to say trial and error, but it was really exploration right Around. Really, what was the work that, yes, would bring in good revenue? Yes, I could do. That was within my sweet spot of natural talent and was also something that I could get up in the morning not being a morning person and look forward to my day because of all the things I get to do.

Speaker 2: 10:42

Be energized day because of all the things I get to do Right, energized, yeah. So it took me a good two years to kind of get narrowed into what is the brand, what is the unique selling proposition, what is that unique offering that I'm going to share with the world and build a business around.

Speaker 1: 10:58

Nice, okay. So you went through that two-year journey and then it started to slowly come together for you and I get it A lot of business is trial and error, right what's going to work, what's not going to work? So talk to us about Talent Boost and what you're doing there and what the focus is.

Speaker 2: 11:14

My sweet spot is helping businesses large organizations grow in a more sustainable way. There's sort of this tagline. If you will, my mantra is all around growth on purpose, because I do believe not only is culture foundational to the success of a business a truly successful business and a solid, growing culture is all built around a solid, clear, magnetic purpose. My jam, if you will there's that word again is really to advise executive leaders in large, growing organizations on how to expand their business without losing their best talent.

Speaker 1: 11:53

Okay Now, was this what you were doing when you were in corporate, or was this a passion you had that you weren't doing in corporate, and you developed it as you made that transition?

Speaker 2: 12:02

So a little of both. It was something I had been doing in corporate a role or two before the last role that I was in when I left. When I left corporate America, I was the vice president of human resources and it was a large, global, growing organization and it was really an opportunity for me to get more broad-based HR experience, because you talk to most HR professionals, they grew up in the field, right. They have always spent their career in HR. I was a late bloomer when it came to human resources. I always like to say I snuck in through the side door. I was in customer relations for a couple of years after starting out, spending several years in communications and marketing, and there was an opportunity for somebody to come in and head up the training department within HR After swearing, by the way, I would never work in human resources, right, I had good friends who worked in HR and I said great for you.

Speaker 1: 12:56

You grew up in this stuff.

Speaker 2: 12:58

Yeah, exactly, Boy you learned things the hard way, right.

Speaker 2: 13:01

And so, yeah, lo and behold, I brought over my box of my picture frames on my house plant from my other job and went over to HR and that evolved over time. So it came in as the head of training and development. That then sort of morphed into recruiting and staffing and talent and career and executive coaching and succession pipelining and all those things, and as it grew, every other thing that I pulled into my orbit I was hooked. But then of course I was starting to get groomed to be on more of an executive track and to do that I really needed broader HR experience and I spent about a year in that role and it was another great gift because I had an amazing team that I had the honor and privilege to lead and to manage and to motivate. That was a wonderful experience. But it also proved to me that wasn't really where my heart was.

Speaker 2: 13:52

And again, had I not been diagnosed with cancer and kind of forced to take a month off and sit and recover and not look at emails and not be in conference calls all day long, right, I think I would have still been outrunning that voice in my head that had been trying to ask me are you doing what you're passionate about?

Speaker 2: 14:11

When I finally acknowledged the answer to that was no right, that the role that I was in was really not what I wanted to be doing as a career or what I found was fulfilling, I looked back at that previous role as head of talent and career development with nostalgia and with longing. But as my mom always says, never go back, always move forward. And so I knew that that was not something that I could do within that company. So all of those stars aligned right, all of those pieces kind of came into focus and I think had I not had those years as head of talent and career development, it would have taken me even longer to kind of figure out if I'm going to make that leap, what it is that I'm going to specialize in.

Speaker 1: 14:54

So it helped you set the foundation.

Speaker 2: 14:55

It absolutely did. And then, of course, over time being a business owner now for 10 plus years working with some amazing clients and helping them through their own growing pains, I took that foundation of that corporate experience and have continued to build upon it and sort of amass, you know, best practices and proven frameworks that really kind of get the job done.

Speaker 1: 15:14

Nice, Well, yeah, so you're 10 years in now. You're definitely doing something right. Congratulations on a 10-year anniversary.

Speaker 2: 15:18

Something's working right.

Speaker 1: 15:19

Yeah, something's working. So you've probably worked with hundreds of companies and leaders. What are some of the pain points and challenges that you see them have?

Speaker 2: 15:30

are some of the pain points and challenges that you see them have. There are three or four main symptoms that they kind of show up at my door complaining about, right, the sort of the foundational aches and pains. The first one, absolutely no doubt, is what I'll call low attraction. They are just not able to find and acquire enough of the right talent, and that can stem from a whole bunch of things, whether it's their employer brand is not known, is not liked or respected, whatever it might be, so there's sort of this low attraction pain. The second one is low retention Obviously translates into high turnover.

Speaker 2: 16:01

So many companies will come to me and say we are bleeding talent and typically that is a symptom of a deeper problem, right, I think. The third one is what I would call low engagement. Most companies by now do engagement surveys and most companies that do engagement surveys don't do enough with what their employees are telling them that they need. As we know, when employees are not engaged they're only going to do just enough to get by, to not attract negative attention, to kind of get through their day. There is a reason we have so many memes about work, right? Don't Monday, my Sunday. If we were supposed to enjoy it. It wouldn't be called work, right? That's all kind of expressions of this low engagement, yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:48

And then I would say the fourth pain is low internal hire rate or low internal fill rate it's all different ways to say. We have a leaky talent pipeline. We don't have enough of a bench strength that, as people are moving on in their career, as people are retiring, the average tenure, especially as you go up the leadership ladder, is a lot shorter than it used to be. Nobody's staying in the executive wing of the same company for 20 and 30 years anymore. They're there for three to five. They're making their mark, they're padding their resume and they're going on to something bigger and better. And what ends up happening is these organizations have not done enough to stabilize the bench, to give people a reason to join, to give people a reason to stay, to give people a reason to engage and to contribute, of course, to advance and grow their career. And so all of those different things so I guess that was four of them, I would say are the biggest pains or the biggest symptoms that I've seen.

Speaker 1: 17:47

Yep, it's across all industries. Right, it's not an industry specific problem, it's across all industries and it ties back to your leadership, your culture, your employee brand, everything you mentioned. What size companies do you typically work with?

Speaker 2: 17:59

The sweet spot for me is somewhere around 5,000 employees, 3,500, maybe up till about 10,000. Once they get into kind of the mega population they get a little bit more unwieldy. Not that I turn down the opportunity. If it's the right alignment, right, and if the leader is somebody that I enjoy spending time with, that is a must have for me. But yeah, that's kind of the sweet spot 3,500 to 7,500 employees, Okay.

Speaker 1: 18:23

And you're working with the leaders, you're working with the employees combination of both.

Speaker 2: 18:32

How does that look? Top down, as much as I can. It's interesting because several years ago I was doing a lot of public speaking prior to COVID. This is going to come out wrong, but I was focusing on the wrong end of the talent spectrum, and what I mean by that is I was doing workshops with employees, with individual contributors, with middle managers, frontline supervisors, about rekindling their passion for what they do. Right, I had this great experience, this epiphany that happened through my cancer experience, and I wanted others to benefit from the transition and the transformation that I went through without all the pain, right. And so I was doing a lot of workshops to help people tap back into what they truly are passionate about and then help guide them to have those types of conversations go back into their corporate jobs armed with. This is what I want to do. This is how I think I can realign my job to kind of fit in with that and have that conversation with their boss. And the reason I say I was focusing on the wrong end is I was absolutely reigniting that flame for them and I was sending them back into their corporate bubbles, but because their managers were not as enlightened, they weren't very receptive to the concept of modifying a job description, maybe having them rotate through a couple of different roles, right, and so I was really setting them up for disappointment, and what I found was when I come into an organization and work with the highest level of leadership I possibly can.

Speaker 2: 19:49

First, that's who we have to convert. Leaders have to understand that they have the biggest impact on the culture of a company how they show up, how they behave, what they believe and how they interact with their employees. Are they trustworthy, Are they genuine, are they vulnerable, are they authentic? It's all of those things which translate into are they followable? And if they're not, everyone else is watching. Right, your employees are kind of like your children, like they hear everything you say, even when they say they're glued to their tablet. Right, your employees see what gets rewarded, they see what kind of behavior gets promoted and they see who ends up staying with your company and who's running for the exit. And so leaders have the biggest impact on a culture. But that also means they have the greatest opportunity to do more with their organization. And so I know that, if I can get in and work with the executive level leadership and get them to understand and embrace and own this awesome opportunity. And get them to understand and embrace and own this awesome opportunity that they have to shape a culture that will actually nourish their talent pipeline, will attract the right people, will put them in the paths where their performance just skyrockets and where they have not only to buy in but the skill and the will to execute your growth strategy. It actually becomes easier to grow than the job that they're doing right now. Right, they're kind of making it too hard on themselves, and so that's really where I focus in.

Speaker 2: 21:17

I work with the executive leadership first. I don't want to say convert them that sounded a little bit set in the head, but you know, really kind of work with them a little bit on what they can be doing differently. Then they sort of introduce me to their teams. I typically work with the HR organization because they are the ones tasked with building out culture and supporting the employees and attracting and retaining and engaging the right talent. And part of that conversion of leadership is to get them to understand that every single person in your organization impacts talent. Everyone is talent. You're either using them or you're not. You're either appreciating them or you're not, but every manager has a responsibility to nurture talent. It's not just the job of HR.

Speaker 2: 21:58

It is not a check the box exercise to have a career conversation or developmental conversation or correct some budding conflict. That is the job of every manager. But a lot of HR organizations are still structured and still functioning like it's the 1990s. They're still kind of walking around with their metaphorical clipboard, looking for somebody's wrist to slap because that's what the business has asked for them to do and instead they should. They need to and it's part of what I try to bring out in them. They need to embrace the opportunity to lean into the business, be the feedback loop to help leadership understand the impact of their words, the impact of their decisions, the impact of their communications or lack of messaging on the overall health and strength of the company.

Speaker 1: 22:42

Yeah, they're there to support and, unfortunately, HR does still in a lot of organizations is still back in the 90s and that's why HR for the most part is not trusted and dis does still in a lot of organization is still back in the 90s and that's why HR for the most part is not trusted and disliked in a lot of organizations. Right, because you only see HR when somebody's getting fired.

Speaker 2: 22:57

Well, you know, that's the thing HR's reputation is we're the people who hire, fire and keep you out of jail. Yeah, and while that still happens, right, that's like, still, that's the foundational price of entry to be an HR organization. But they are no longer just the compliance department. No, they are equipped and they are motivated and they are knowledgeable enough to elevate the conversation to actually help the business achieve its growth strategy. And if I can just get on my soapbox for just half a second, I am so inspired of if I still hear HR people saying, but we just need a seat at the table, I have to hold myself back from slapping them. Now, I'm not a violent person by any stretch, but it's like, could you stop complaining that you don't have a seat at the table? If by now it's 2024, you don't have a seat at the table, then you haven't done enough to walk into the boardroom, pull out a chair and sit down. Yeah, and once you do sit down, contribute value, talk in the language of business.

Speaker 2: 23:53

I was talking to a client the other day and they were like they're trying to get a more consistent vocabulary around how we speak about talent in the business, and I'm looking at some of their draft communications. The methodology is amazing and it's really going to help elevate conversations and clarify expectations around performance and behavior, but they're talking about things like we're going to operationalize the core values and we're going to have a unifying construct and I'm like, if you use those terms, yeah, let's just play HRBS bingo for another lap around the sun. It's not that you have to use highfalutin business words. You have to use words so that the business is going to resonate with. If they don't see a direct connection between nurturing talent, having a consistent language for clarifying expectations and how it's going to stabilize their foundation for growth and for profitability, they're not going to do it. Stabilize their foundation for growth and for profitability they're not going to do it. They're going to see it as another.

Speaker 1: 24:52

HR exercise, that they just have to wait out until HR gets tired of nagging them and moves on to something else. That's right. That's right. Communications need to be clear, not clever.

Speaker 2: 24:58

You fall in love with it. Yep, that's right.

Speaker 1: 25:01

Well again, what you're talking about is obviously great for big enterprises, but even smaller business, right? Business owners, they're the leader, right? The same lesson applies how he or she walks into that business, how they conduct themselves, how they engage their employees right. It doesn't matter the size of the organization, those practices and those behaviors are. They cross any size.

Speaker 2: 25:23

I would actually argue that it is more important when you're a smaller company. You know the bigger companies. When they make a misstep, whether they hire the wrong talent, they misuse that talent right, they don't put them in the right role, where they don't pair them with the manager who's going to nurture them. The larger the organization, the less of a ripple effect one bad hire or one bad decision is going to make throughout the business. But when you think about that as a big pond is going to make throughout the business. But when you think about that as a big pond, a small company, when they make a bad hire, when they make a bad decision, when they either make a misstep in their communication, say the wrong thing, the ripple effect of that in a small organization can absolutely destroy their business.

Speaker 2: 26:05

It's magnified right, absolutely, absolutely If you do think about it as the analogy of the pond and you throw a rock in the middle of the pond. It takes a far shorter time for those ripples to hit the shore in a small pond than in a big one. In a big one, by the time you get to the shore, that ripple hasn't even made a dent Right. So it's hugely important.

Speaker 1: 26:26

Yeah, Thank you Excellent point. What are two or three things that leaders can do immediately in their business? If they start, they're identifying that they're having these problems? Right, the low attraction, high turnover, low engagement right, if they're seeing that and they know it but don't know how to fix it, what are a couple of things before bringing you in, of course, what are a couple of things they could start to do?

Speaker 2: 26:49

So I think the first one, especially around the low attraction or even attracting the wrong talent, is that they need to clarify, they need to get really, really clear on their purpose. There is a reason. My methodology, my mantra, is growth on purpose, but this is one of your do not pass go fundamentals of business. But this is one of your do not pass go fundamentals of business. Simon Sinek, I'm sure you've heard of great thought leader around the space of this concept of start with why. And basically he said every company knows what it is that they do. Most companies, if they're kind of been around a while, have figured out how to do what they do, but it's the companies that differentiate themselves, are the ones that are truly dialed into why they are in business to begin with. And so that is one of the four pillars of my growth on purpose methodology.

Speaker 2: 27:36

That first one is aspiration. It is all around helping organizations. If they're not crystal clear on why they're in business to begin with, is their mission magnetic enough that the right people get closer to your orbit and the wrong people kind of stay away. And that's employees, that's vendors, that's partners, that's clients, right. So that is a very first step that any company can do is to reevaluate. Do they actually know why they are in business to begin with? And here's a little tip it's in answering that question you're starting to pull up your company website and dig out the mission statement. You're looking in the wrong place, because a mission statement too often is really sort of the public facing flowery language that the shareholders or the stakeholders or whatever wanna read. It is very rare, especially the older it gets, that it is in complete alignment with what you deeply believe.

Speaker 2: 28:35

If you're an executive leader and what I have found to be true this is sort of a second part of that insight for any business owner is the clearer you are about your aspiration, your purpose, your mission, your why, and the more it's aligned with what you deeply believe to be true about what you want your business to be about this is a company of any size the easier it becomes for people the right people to follow you, for the right employees to want to take part in that, for the right clients to want to be in your world.

Speaker 2: 29:08

Because if it's aligned with what you deeply believe, you as a leader don't have to go and convince anybody that your mission is a good one. Instead, you get to stand in your conviction about what you believe, and there is a huge difference between convincing and conviction, and so that is one very necessary, relatively simple step Doesn't mean it's easy that any leader in any company, of any size can do. First is start with self-reflection and have conversations with your fellow leaders and your employees to say why are we here, what are we trying to accomplish? And why are we here? What are we trying to accomplish and why does that matter?

Speaker 1: 29:52

It's a good first step. Everything's got to take a first step right A hundred percent, and those can be hard conversations, depending on where you're at and where your ego's at.

Speaker 2: 30:00

So if it. Oh yeah. Yeah, you're about to trip over a landmine about ego, but yeah, it's true, and the longer it's been since as a business owner or a leader that you have actually asked yourself why you're there, the harder that conversation is. I think the global pandemic it's just like I said cancer was a gift and I'm an optimist by nature, so I look for the silver lining and everything. But I think the global pandemic was also a great opportunity coming out of it for people to do a hard reset, for people to kind of refresh their perspective on what their business was going to be all about and how they were going to get the right people not just to join but to stay and to contribute and to help them grow.

Speaker 1: 30:41

Definitely made a shift for a lot of people, totally.

Speaker 2: 30:44

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 30:46

Well, good, Any other insights or pearls of wisdom you'd like to to make what you just gave them? I mean, you could probably go on for hours.

Speaker 2: 30:53

I know we could, we could, and you're going to hopefully ask me in a minute or two if there's any kind of other action that leaders can take. I'll look forward to answering that. But that whole aspiration conversation and clarifying exercise is so foundational. It's a do not pass go moment, but it's so true. I think leaders and owners and businesses and employees need to kind of check their alignment with the mission of the company actually employees, because right now it's a candidate's market and if your employees are not feeling it like they're not feeling like they belong in your company, they don't believe in your mission and they don't kind of jive with the people that you're asking them to follow. They're telling you that with their feet, which is why companies are seeing unprecedented turnover.

Speaker 1: 31:38

Yeah, okay, for everybody listening today, there's your action item coming from this podcast. Right Is to do that reflection. That's an important exercise where that's a good starting point. So, claire, I've enjoyed the conversation. We could easily go on for hours because there's so much to continue unpacking on this, but we will go ahead and wrap it up. I've enjoyed having you on the podcast. How can they get a hold of you? Do you have anything for our listeners? What would you like to partner with?

Speaker 2: 32:01

Yes, love that. So, on social media, I tend to spend most of my professional time and attention on LinkedIn, so I encourage your audience to come connect with me, say hello. You can also check out. I have two websites. The company website is talentboostnet. My more personal branded website is clairechandlernet. And the gift I have, or the invitation I have for your audience, is to go to growthonpurposecom. I am working with my publisher on a book of the same name, so you can pre-register for the book, so you can be among the first to know when it hits physical and virtual bookshelves. But also, more immediately, there is a link to a growth on purpose assessment. It literally will take you five minutes to complete and you will immediately get some findings in terms of how ready you are to expand your business without losing your best talent. So I encourage anybody who can, who's listening to this conversation, to go take that assessment. It's free, it will take you five minutes and it might just change your business.

Speaker 1: 33:04

That sounds like an excellent use of five minutes. For sure, everything she's mentioned will be in the show notes as well. All the links will be there. We'll make sure everybody has access to it. Claire, I've enjoyed the conversation. It was wonderful having you on. Thank you so much for being a guest today.

Speaker 2: 33:18

Thanks, brian, it's been a pleasure.

Speaker 1: 33:20

Thank you.