Episode 8 - Tom Keesling - Let's talk culture

Tom Keesling is the Chief Marketing Officer for CUE Streaming and the international president of CUE International. CUE stands for communication unites everyone. I love that! Many of you know my background is in journalism and PR, so communication is a big deal to me. It's also an important feature in building a strong people-centered culture in the workplace. The company provides around 5000 channels, and is the largest streaming service in the world. They have a fundraising arm for churches, and nonprofits as well. I feel one of the most important things a leader can communicate is their vision. In fact, the first question I asked Tom was, as a leader, or someone developing a business, it's easy to get hung up on raising capital, hiring people creating products and getting all of your services ready to go. So how do you, yourself, get a clearer vision for the environment of the organization and what you want it to be like for the people that work for you? And once you get that vision, how do you create it in reality? 

What’s your vision for the future?   1:29

How important is it to get out of the office?  2:54

Hiring for skill vs. skill.  5:51

How important is culture to your business?   6:54

Integrating people into society.   8:04

Paying people for their hearts.   11:00

Cultural Committee and how it grows.   12:16

What is culture and mission?

Thanks for listening. Grab the book the podcast is based on at https://mybook.to/culturesecrets . Check out my website www.chelliephillips.com for more great content. Follow me on LinkedIn.

Transcript

Chellie Phillips: 0:06

If workplace culture is your jam, you're in the right place. Check out this episode of culture secrets, the podcast dedicated to creating workplaces where both employees and the companies thrive. Welcome to the culture secrets podcast. I'm your host Chellie Phillips. And this week, I'm excited to introduce you to Tom Kissling. He's the Chief Marketing Officer for Q streaming. And the international president of Q International. Q stands for communication unites everyone. I love that many of you know my background is in journalism and PR. So communication is a big deal to me. It's also an important feature in building a strong people centered culture in the workplace. The company provides around 5000 channels, and is the largest streaming service in the world. They have a fundraising arm for churches, and nonprofits as well. One of the most important things a leader can communicate is their vision. In fact, the first question I asked Tom was, as a leader, or someone developing a business, it's easy to get hung up on raising capital, hiring people creating products and getting all of your services ready to go. So how do you yourself get a clearer vision for the environment of the organization? And what you want it to be like for the people that work for you? And once you get that vision? How do you turn it into or create it in

Tom Kessling: 1:29

Great question. Um, you know, a lot of it, I reality? hate to say it is intuitive. You're born with it. And so what I do is I asked a lot of questions of the two guys that were there before me. And I said, What is your vision? What do you guys see? You know, because you've obviously drank the Kool Aid, and I have not had it yet. So tell me what you see what is the opportunity, and you begin, because I've got a master's in marketing. So you begin to kind of paint it paint a big picture. And either people are created one of two ways, either they are visionaries, and they and they work at the 30,000 foot level. Or they are minutiae, and they create a fabulous product, I work at the 30,000 foot level. And because of my past experiences where I've built businesses, from zero to 50 million in three months, I have contacts and I said, Can these contacts be also candidates for the streaming service? The answer is yes. So I said, aha, I've got people that I want you to get to know, let's share what we offer to them, see if they liked it as a member benefit? Or is it distributor benefit or as an employee benefits integrated into the into their operations, and it's a way to actually acquire and retain employees.

Chellie Phillips: 2:45

So one of the things I see is a lot of times CEOs get very isolated, and they have three or four people around them that are feeding them information. And sometimes they don't necessarily get the total picture of what it's like for boots on the ground. people inside the organization. They keep getting told everything's fine. Everybody's been quiet about whatever's going on. So how, as a CEO, how important is it to get out of the office and interact with the people in the workforce that are doing the work for you?

Tom Kessling: 3:13

I think it's I think it's absolutely critical. Have you ever seen that the show? Hidden boss? Or what's it called? Oh, Undercover Boss, undercover Undercover Boss. I think that's a fascinating show. Because it does show the boss getting out of his area, and getting down in amongst the people and seeing where the real problems are. And when you get to the core of the problem, you can fix it. But you're right. A lot of CEOs don't get out of their office, and they're surrounded by people that are Yes, man, or people that don't that that dilute the true details of the program or the problem. And at the end of the day, you don't get it you don't get it done. So to me, I think it's absolutely invaluable to find out at all levels of the organization, what's going on? How can we help you? Where are you encountering issues? And what is the take to get it fixed?

Chellie Phillips: 4:06

One of the things that I saw that is kind of across the board is that companies that are really successful, aren't afraid of failure, that you look at it as the opportunity to learn. So how important has failure been in your growth process from from starting businesses, creating businesses watching businesses grow and whatever? How do you embrace failure? And how is that incorporated into the culture?

Tom Kessling: 4:31

Great question. Yes, there have been a couple of experiences with failure. Number one has been the failure if you form a partnership, make sure you understand your partner, make sure that you understand the strengths, the weaknesses and the moral integrity of your partner. Do they share the same vision? Number two is look at your product. And then you go through the typical marketing thing. Does it have a unique purpose? Does it have what we call a USP Unique Selling a universal selling proposition? So all of that kind of stuff you Look at it, you create the environment to try to reduce and minimize those risks as much as you can with those failures. But you never know. Because who would have known that COVID would have hit, every best laid plans get thrown away, and stuff. So a lot of it is luck. A lot of it is timing. A lot of it now we, we do go and research to make sure that we can minimize the risk. Because now at my age, I've learned an awful lot about, you know, what is something that is a fly by night, what is something that is just a seat of the pants, and what is something where you can sort thoroughly research it, or foreign park or foreign partnerships with people that have got complementary strengths to make it because, as they say, There's no such thing as a self made multimillionaire, they are all supported by a team of people that share the same vision. So you talk about that team of people.

Chellie Phillips: 5:51

You know, a lot of what a lot of what I'm hearing now is that we're not necessarily going to hire for skill, because if you make it to the interview point, we've already vetted you and realize that you have skill that we're looking for that we're going to hire for culture, how you fit inside the organization, how you fit with a team, how you collaborate, that kind of thing. What's been your experience with hiring for culture?

Tom Kessling: 6:12

No, absolutely. I want to share with you that one of the things that I do is I also have worked for Southwest Airlines. And Southwest Airlines is really one of the kings of culture, they stressed out. And the big thing in there is, you know, hire for attitude, train for skill, and stuff. So I, you know, everybody can be trained, but not everybody can change their attitude. So that is what I'm seeing in successful companies now that are very cohesive, is they look for somebody that fits the existing culture of the company, or they hire people that are coaches to really enhance the culture of that company. So it is becoming more and more important than the likability factor, and then we can train him to do the job correctly.

Chellie Phillips: 6:56

So one of the things that, you know, we were talking about is that there's not necessarily a budget line item that says culture on it, it might be employees, engagement, it might be serving, it might whatever's in there, how important is it as a CEO, when you're looking at that to make sure you address those areas inside your budget and actually associate dollars with that? Because I think a lot of people look at culture as that it's a fluff word. What is culture like it's there's not really anything to it. But when you really sit down and track it, it you know, it improves productivity, it improves morale, it takes away from your your health cost, because they're happier people, they're showing up for work, they're not hitting your sick time and different things like that. So if someone were to say that culture is fluff, and I don't need to put money aside for it, how would you address that?

Tom Kessling: 7:39

No, I think that especially in these days, we've had a lot of cultural changes that have been impacted the country in the last several years. I think a progressive company understands why those cultural interactions took place. Why did we have the issues that we did that happened over the last several years on things that we've never witnessed before or if we did, it was very isolated. And so it's now become, there are terms that we've never heard of before, that are being integrated into society, stuff. And so the people, the company that embraces that, and takes those people and incorporates them into the company, to be able to provide a valuable asset, I think, are the ones that are going to survive, because we're very polarized now. You know, whatever happened, we're very polarized and stuff, you're losing 50% of the possibilities of greatness out there. If they know that you are strictly this way, focus, whether it's a religious side, whether it's a political side. So you've got to, as they say, Never allow religion and politics enter into the culture of the company, that it's very true.

Chellie Phillips: 8:44

Yeah, one of the things that we're looking at is what are the roadblocks to culture inside an organization and you just named to if you become too polarized one side or the other, whether it's politics, religion, or whatever? What are some other roadblocks that you might have encountered as you've been growing, growing a business that impeded the culture that you were trying to create? And how did you get past those?

Tom Kessling: 9:03

I think the biggest thing is the stubbornness for people to accept new ways, is the stubbornness for people to embrace that there might be an answer that's outside of their own internal world and stuff. So like I said, some people are big thinkers, and they can accept other people's viewpoints, some people can't. So what you have to do as during the interview process, is really kind of identify those people and determine if they would be somebody that is consistent with the culture that you want to that you want to have. The other thing that I've seen this really successful that companies do that are successful is the accountability piece is that it doesn't just remain on the shoulders of leadership, that accountability gets spread throughout the organization, whether it's a frontline worker, whether it's someone sitting in a cubicle, whether it's someone that's in a management position, there's some level of accountability for spreading that culture at every level inside that organization. they take ownership in it. How important is that? And what are some of the most effective ways to do that to engage the entire workplace? I think number one is that at each of the different levels of the organization, whether it's at the chief level, whether it's at the VP level, whether it's at the director or management level, is that each of the levels has the commitment to improve their culture. And they have regular meetings, primarily, it's about every three months. So if we have three months, what has been accomplished, what has been an issue, and stuff, so we can take people that are really proficient in those areas, and they are helping coach us through that the migration of that process and to culture has such a critical, critical key component to the acceptance of all people, and the growth. Because when people feel comfortable, they feel accepted, they're willing to perform at a greater level, because of the embracing of the company and the culture that comes with it.

Chellie Phillips: 11:00

One of the people that I interviewed talked about that we've been paying people for years, for their hands, but if we if we started paying them for their hearts, how much more productive and how much farther, would we have been down the road by now? Yeah, that's a very good point. And, and I totally butchered that, I'm sure from what they said, but it was like it has stuck in my head for about four months now, since I've been doing these interviews that that's like, we all should kind of embrace that philosophy and look at what we're doing. The other piece of the book is that that I'm also trying to show us that you don't necessarily have to be the CEO to make a culture shift inside of an organization, it could start with a team, it could start with, you know, a division, it could start whatever and spread. So if you were not the CEO, and you were the leader of a smaller team inside an organization, what piece of advice would you give somebody who sees an issue and wants to try to address it? And how can they go about making a cultural shift that could spread from say, their piece of the world to the whole organization

Tom Kessling: 12:01

I love the focus groups, I love where it starts out small. And then we encourage people, you can give them some extra incentives for participating and opening up their minds. But typically, it's small, it starts with a small, very active group of people. And then it grows and it grows and it grows and it grows different corners of the company, we may have a reminder board, or we may have something that is an internal email that also embraces, you know, the expansion of cultural committee, now to every Tuesday and Thursday, or something like that. So as it becomes more of a regular communication and memorandum, throughout the company, it becomes more embraced and people are more willing to step outside their comfort zones or their limitations to try something new.

Chellie Phillips: 12:49

I think that's important. A lot of people have this huge rollout. Okay, here's our new slogan, this is what our culture is gonna be. And there's like this big rah, rah party, let's get everybody excited about it. And then six months from now, everybody's back to the same old, same old because there's not been a continuation of it, I guess that would be culture is not something that's kind of a one and done. It's something that's a continual breathing element inside the organization, how do you as a leader inside that organization, not let it die and not let it become, oh, we talked about this last month, we'll skip it for a couple of months. And we'll come back to it and let it get lost in the shuffle of everyday work. The thing that I've seen that's most effective, from what I've been around is the creation of a culture committee. That stuff and that culture committee, there are people that are invited to participate in the culture committee, and their incentives by the culture committee, actually creating demonstratable results that impact the company that's up, so then they feel good, and they see that it is become, you know, part of the policy manual now. So as to you, what are you looking for, as tangible results from these kinds of things? Like, what are you measuring?

Tom Kessling: 13:56

I think the number one thing that we measure, when we look at our win loss, is were we able to acquire and bring on new people that would not normally look at the company, because they would have felt threatened or something like that. So we look at the ability to reach out to a further group of people. And number two, is the ability to to keep them and stuff, keep them embraced, keep them entertained, keep them, keep them involved, believe in the company. And as you know, believability in the company increases productivity. So if they believe it, and it's and it is part of their lifestyle and their true beliefs, their honorable true beliefs, they're willing to put in more production stuff because they're happy and satisfied. And they feel they feel really good about the products that they're producing.

Chellie Phillips: 14:45

I know you're busy and have things to do. And I have one last question and then I'll let you get back on with your day. The thing is that when I first started talking with a lot of people, and I asked them what their culture is, or you know, like how do they talk about culture inside their organization, a lot of them will give me their mission statement. And, and to me culture and mission are two totally different things. Okay, so if I were to ask you, how could you How would you describe what is culture? And how is it different from a company's mission?

Tom Kessling: 15:12

To me the mission statement is a collective, it's a collective internal vision and passion, as well as external receivership. How is it accepted it the acceptance of it externally, culture is and mission can be. It can be heartfelt, or it can be monetarily focused. Or it could be another objective culture is a whole different thing and embraces the heart, and an approach that embraces the soul of your internal company.

Chellie Phillips: 15:50

I like that. I tell everybody, it's your internal brand. People talk about you. How do they talk about you in the break room? How do they talk about you in the parking lot when they're trying to get out at five o'clock and say I'm done for the day. I appreciate your time. I appreciate you talking to me. Thank you very much for your time as well. Thanks for listening to this episode of the culture secrets podcast. I believe one of the biggest takeaways from this interview is when Tom said you should hire for attitude because you can train skill. It's important when you hire to hire people that fit the culture you create so that you can continue to enhance and grow your culture inside the organization. If you're interested in learning more about the secrets you can use to build a strong people centered culture in the workplace. Join the waitlist for my book culture secrets at WWW dot Chellie phillips.com backslash waitlist. You'll be notified when it's available at your favorite bookseller is scheduled to arrive on April 29 2023. If it's after that day you're listening, check me out on Amazon and grab a coffee. If you have comments or questions please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter. If you like what you heard, I'd love it. If you'd subscribe, drop me a rating and share this link with a friend. I'm currently looking for corporate training and workshop presentations. I'd love the chance to work with you or your company. If you're interested, please visit my website at WWW dot Chellie phillips.com that C H E L L I E P H I L L ips.com. And remember, building a value culture is your competitive advantage and the backbone of any successful organization.