Building a Strong Culture - The Blueprint

Building a strong culture isn’t accidental—it’s a deliberate, ongoing process that shapes every aspect of your business. In this episode, we break down what it really takes to create a culture that drives performance, alignment, and long-term success.

We start with defining the kind of culture you actually want—beyond buzzwords—and how that vision should guide your decisions. From there, we tackle one of the hardest realities in leadership: getting the right people on your team and making tough calls when someone isn’t the right fit.

You’ll learn how to place people in roles where they can thrive, establish clear standards and values that aren’t just words on a wall, and communicate those expectations in a way that sticks. We also explore the leader’s role in coaching, modeling behavior, and consistently reinforcing what matters.

Finally, we dive into accountability—how to uphold your standards without creating fear, and how to ensure your culture stays strong as your business grows.

If you want a team that’s aligned, motivated, and built to win, this episode will give you the practical framework to make culture your competitive advantage.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:26

All right, and welcome back to the Second Mile Leadership Podcast. We are your hosts, Jason and Isaiah. And today we have a really cool topic. It's one of my favorite things to talk about. It's one of my favorite things to lean into. And before we hit record, Isaiah and I were debriefing about this subject, and he made a comment that what we're talking about today and the way we're going to talk about it is something that a lot of people don't think about or they don't think about it in the context or the way we're going to talk about it today. And I think that's incredibly true. But it's also why I love to discuss this topic, because when when you're in business, whether you're building a team within an organization or you're building the organization itself as the business owner or CEO, there's an order of events that things have to be done. And I don't know to Isaiah's point if everyone looks at it through this lens, because you know, we we want to get results quickly, we want to seek success very quickly. And a lot of times uh a leader or an owner or a CEO, sometimes they do have that savior complex that they're the only ones that can deliver the result, or we're relying on their individual genius to make it happen. And if that's the case, then you are really working in a way that's incredibly inefficient and you're you're conducting business in a way that will have an incredible bottleneck at the top and greatly limit your ability to grow and scale. And we're not going to talk about, I'm I'm gonna speak broadly at the beginning and narrow it down to one specific piece uh for the sake of this this podcast, but we'll record another podcast to build out this a little bit further. But you know, if you want to grow and scale a business, it'll never be on the back of one person. That's why I'm a big believer that being an incredible team builder is one of the best skill sets we can have as a business owner, CEO, or a leader, because there's only so much that I personally can accomplish. There's only so much that Isaiah can personally accomplish. We need a group of very talented, hungry, bought-in people that are willing to do the work, sacrifice and and and help move the organization forward if we're going to be successful. And oh, by the way, if we're gonna grow and scale, right? So we need more people doing the work if we're going to expand our operations, if you will. So team building always has to be on the forefront of any business or or any team that we're trying to put together. So within that though, and there's a lot of elements to team building, you know, there's there's who we have on the team, who we don't have on the team, what their roles are within the team, there's the the standards and the accountabilities, all these things that go with it. And we're gonna talk a little bit about those things today. But I think the one thing that kind of supports it all, the one thing that that makes it all run and makes it all happen is the quality of the culture of the team. Because something has to make it an enjoyable thing for these people, the team that you build, something's got to make it rewarding, something's got to bring purpose to it. And and, you know, it's it's one of those things where we always want a team to be doing it for the person next to them, not just for themselves. And that's all built on the back of culture. And that's the topic we're gonna hone in on today is is culture. And it will not, you know, culture is a very thick subject. It will not be exhaustive by any means, but we're going to at least start dabbling in this subject and make sure that that you know everyone listening understands the concepts, how we feel about our theories around it, and then what you can do in in your organization to to enhance and build your culture. So with that being said, Isaiah, you know, it's it's a topic that's obviously near and dear to our heart. It's one that we've really honed in on the last couple years. And I would love to hear kind of your opening thoughts on this or some experiences you've had around it, and and and delight us with that, if you will, to kick off this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Yeah, so uh I want to start in one specific place real quick. Um in uh in the idea of talking about culture, team building, all that good stuff. Jason, our team has been talking and um we we think we're gonna kick you off the team today. Great move.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Great move. Yes. Yes. Um it's just a good culture move. Well, I got feedback for you. Why did it take you so long? If you're such a great leader, why did it take you so long? That's my point. That's a good point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

We were trying to be gracious and give you a lot of chances, and that's on our that's that's on our part.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

You sound pretty weak as a leader, if I'm being honest.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

And I hear that for sure. I hear that.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

My favorite Isaiah is um Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Put that out there. Just a small side note. This has nothing to do with culture team building. I hear that as such a great response.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

It is. But going back to your other point, why are you doing this on a podcast and not privately in the office?

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Yeah, that's a that's a good point. Um we we want to get the news to the people as quick as possible.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

The people. I'm sure the listeners really care about it. They do. I got you. They do.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

They did. I've been been chatting with them. They've been waiting for this moment. Three people just like jumped up and down as they heard that. Really? Really? Yeah, yeah. And this will drop, you know, pretty soon. So I have grossly overestimated my value, I guess. So you have. Anyway, you have.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

That being said, yeah, continue. Well now you know where you are. Right. Yeah. All right. So tell me about the culture I'm no longer a part of.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

In all seriousness, in all seriousness. I do want to start out with a a little bit of praise for you. Um, because I'm gonna split I want to go through a little bit of a story that that I think is gonna help a lot of people out there. But I'm gonna describe our time um working for Chick-fil-A, but I I kind of break it into really two periods. I think there's pre-Jason, I think there's post-Jason. Um and the reason I break it that way is because like when you came on board, it has radically changed our organization. Um and truly that is all to you. Like, I I thank you, and I I mean that from the bottom of my heart. You've you've changed our organization for the better. So genuinely thank you for all that. Incredibly kind.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

It's hard to hear. I don't I don't it's hard to hear those things. Um listen, this is the weird moment because I appreciate it deeply, and I'm gonna do what feels like the cliche thing to do. But God is my witness, I mean this from the bottom of my heart. This has been an unbelievable team effort, what we've done, and Isaiah will go in into detail about what he's talking about. Like I I can do what I do because I have guys like you and guys like Josh and Josh Teasey knows who he is. Um and more people like that too. We have an unbelievable team, and that's why we've been able to do what we do. So thank you so much. Seriously, it means more than I can tell you. I just want to make sure everyone also knows this team is unbelievable, and it's the most fun I've ever had in any endeavor that I've done professionally.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

I appreciate that, but that's very kind of you. Um I kind of want to set the framework a little bit before I go into it, but um, for those who aren't inside the Chick-fil-A world, um we are a business that does around$15 million um in sales per year. That's an insane amount. And we are actively trying to grow that. So when you're already like kind of what I would consider a medium-sized business, um, and you're trying to grow to that next level, it's gonna take some sort of shakeup. Um and Jason has been that shakeup for us. But I remember so my Chick-fil-A journey started back when I was just coming out of high school, going into college, and I needed a job just to help pay for college. And so going into it, um I I loved Chick-fil-A's culture in general. Um, and I was expecting one thing, and I got something completely different. And so what I got on the forefront was a team that truly cared about themselves more than others. Um, it was a team that wanted to get the next promotion, get the next raise, um, do whatever it took to make themselves look good. Um, and Jason, you've heard some of the horror stories from back in the day, but like there would be um there would be shifts where we would have people scheduled from 5 a.m. until 4 p.m. and they are just getting their butts kicked that entire time. And then they don't get a break. Or if there's like literally if they were seen eating food, it's like, oh my gosh, like you took five minutes to go eat food, that's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Well, just side note for anyone listening too that's not familiar with Chick-fil-A, the the work of Chick-fil-A, it's really hard. So when he talks about 5 a.m. to 4 p.m., I mean, anyone who's been to Chick-fil-A knows how busy it is and how steady that busyness is. There's there's moments of downtime, quote unquote, which is never downtime because there's always stuff you got to be doing. But to work that many hours, what, 11 straight hours without a break in that environment, that's unbelievable. That it's that's like a Herculean effort.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Yep, yep. And then every little thing that you did wrong was your fault. It was not the leader's fault, it was none of that. It was your fault. It was it was actually wild. So I started doing that back in 2017. Um and then Jason, you came on board 2024, 2020.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Yeah, J January, yeah. So I'm almost two and a half years, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

So you came on board, uh, but those first um I'm great at math, seven years were were wild. Um like that was that was a consistent thing. Um there was no extreme ownership, there was no accountability. Um the accountability was just directly to the team member or leader that was like failing. And then we didn't give them any resources. So, like, like, hey, you just figure it out. It was the classic case of there's someone that's really good at sales at a car dealership, you promote them to sales manager, and now they have no freaking idea how to lead people. That's what we did over and over and over again. We had people that were really good at operations, they could wrap the they could wrap a chicken biscuit faster than anyone else, and we're like, perfect, you're great at leading people now. It made absolutely zero sense. Um, so a big part of the journey 2024 after since Jason's came on board has been to rework that because that that was so ingrained in people's heads. It was all about operations, it was all about making things the most efficient, which in some essence can be good possible. Um, but it was nothing was about the team. So you had people yelling at each other, you had people calling others' names, you had so much gossip going on. Um, you had people leaving like just the next day, like just I'm gone. Um I had people yell at me as a leader that were team members whenever I try to hold them accountable on something that they needed to be held accountable for. Um like it was it was a crazy culture.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

And you you had a so you had a leader one time yell at you in front of everybody, somebody who's your quote unquote, we'll call your boss, that yelled at you mid shift. And I can't remember what he said, but it was it was it was I was there, I wasn't there when it happened, but I was working for Chick Flate at the time, but like called you out publicly in a very disrespectful way. Do you remember what they said to you?

SPEAKER_01 11:16

I don't off the top of my head that would have been a banger for the podcast, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

I know sorry, listeners, we don't have the story. I shouldn't have pulled out a story that he didn't remember. But he did have a leader uh say something incredibly disrespectful to him in front of the entire team. Um that's that's that's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

In general, I mean what my mind goes to is uh like Isaiah, what the heck are you doing? Um in front of the street.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Yeah, something like that. It was something to that fate. Yeah, that's that's similar to what was said. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Yeah. Um may have may have been a different word other than heck in there, but you know. Don't remember. But anyways, I I that that's all just to kind of frame up this this transition that happened. Um but then Jason comes on board in January of 2024 and starts changing literally everything. Um we had people wanting to develop um leaders, like every single person wanted to develop a leader. I don't know if you remember those conversations, Jason. That's all that everyone wanted to do. And nobody knew what the frick a leader was.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

And then I remember I stepped in at one point and said, We're stopping all I think you were the only one that I was okay still doing leadership development. And man, the the pushback I got, the mutiny I got of what do you mean we can't develop leaders? I'm thinking, you haven't been trained how to develop leaders. How would you possibly develop leaders? And by the way, the development that they were doing was having the opposite effect of what they wanted. I walked in uh within my first week, I had seven leaders tell me that they either have already typed up or think about typing up their resignation. Seven. That's fine. That's within the first week. That's that's how much that's how tenuous the situation was.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Yep. I don't know if I told you that, but I was one of those people for sure.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

No, really.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

I mean I know I know it crossed your mind, but I don't know if I if I realized you were that close. So you actually I didn't know that. So you would you would be actually be number eight.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Wow. That's crazy. Well now you know. Now those wow.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

And and I I I and I understand, but Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

But like I remember you starting to just just the beginnings of preaching team building, um, and the importance of getting the right people on the bus and uh the wrong people off the bus and getting the people in the right seats. And there was so much pushback to that because that had been so the the idea of of not developing your team had been so ingrained in people's minds. It was wild. So the the process to overcome that has been difficult. Um it it's still honestly like I I would I would say there's still a relatively large effect up until modern day. Would you say so? What do you mean? Like the overcoming people's tendencies from the past. And it's not necessarily even the same people, it's just like they were led by someone that did that. Yeah. And so we've we've radically changed things. But it's it's different now.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

It yeah, there's still resistance to change, and I think that's a human nature thing. I think that there that we have a pretty broad buy-in to team building now, which is amazing. And again, what it there's so many, that's what makes this a tough subject, because there's so many ways we can go with it. But at the same time, the the the I think the the idea that that we need to have a great team has been bought into by the team because they see that we now have a great team and they see that the effects of that and they see how much more enjoyable their job is. Um again, there's still some resistance to some old ways of thinking that we battle for sure. And and we we'll overcome those things as well. But you know, you're you're never going to move a business forward with the wrong people on the bus because you know, one of the things you're talking about, Isaiah, is is there was no real s clear-cut standards and values that that this team stood for. And and you know, standards and values are something that also can become cliche, right? Everybody's got to have their values and standards. And I think the reason those things get a bad rap is because people execute them poorly. They're written on a wall somewhere, or they're spoken about one time at a meeting, or they came right out of the owner's head, or the manager's head, or the CEO's head, and no one really buys into it. It's spoken about once or twice, people forget about them, nobody understands them. The beauty of standards and values is they become the filter that decisions are put through. And if we're gonna live in team building, every decision can be put through. But if we're gonna live in the world of team building, you gotta know what okay, get the right people on the bus, the right people off. How do you know who they are? There's some glaring people that stand out on both sides, like this person's a disaster. But I gave this example uh to somebody just in a meeting the other day. Let's say that we'll live in the world of Chick-fil-A for a minute, but you you know, people who don't know Chick-fil-A, that the way the chicken is made, it's breaded first. Like we we handbread the chicken before it it gets cooked. And that person that does that is called a breder. So let's just take a breader, and you got Joe Smith's a breader, and Joe Smith's a really good breader. Like, meaning the quality of the product Joe Smith produces is really high level. It it fits the standard of of Chick-fil-A that they give us. And you know what? Everyone really likes Joe Smith. He's a good dude. He's a okay, that's that's what he has. Now he's, you know, one of the one of the great cultural things Isaiah's brought to the organization is the idea of being in fourth gear. We talked about uh, you know, that that you it's a busy business and it's always hopping, and and so you gotta live in fourth gear. If you live fifth or sixth gear, there's times you gotta pop into those gears too, but that's not sustainable. You never want to be in first, second, or third. That fourth gear is kind of the sustainable thing, and that's a great concept Isaiah's brought to the organization. Well, coming back to Joe Smith now, let's say he produces a good product, we like him, but he works in second gear. And he he's a little bit slow. And you know what, he's late a lot, and and he doesn't always have the best attitude, he doesn't treat the team members very well. But dang he produces a great piece of chicken, and man, he's a good dude. Like we like him. What do you do with Joe Smith? Do you keep Joe or do you let Joe go? I mean, that how do you know how to make that decision if you don't have standards and values in place? What do you do you wait the quality of his chicken or his likability, or do you wait his punctuality, his attitude, and he moves slow? Like, which is more well, if you don't know what you stand for, what you believe in, what your values and standards are, you cannot make that decision, or you're going to make a bad decision or no decision at all, because you're frozen with indecision. So that's why it's so important to have those things and and and it's really hard to build a team without that. And so I just quick side note on what you're saying, you can go back to your story, but I think that's an important point to highlight.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

No, I want to add on to that for just a second. Like you and I, um we make we're we're heavily involved in in all basically all of the people decisions. Um but there when when we're talking 180 employees, um, which is around where we like to float at, there's gonna be people, things that we don't see that we don't necessarily hear about all the time. Um, and people have to make decisions. So you can set the vision, but then the actual team building part is getting everyone else to buy into that vision and being a part of that culture, um, which is so, so big because like I see Joe Smith, I would develop him in that situation. Like I think that that that skill is absolutely something that can be worked on. That's not a make or break deal for me. What a make or break deal for me personally would be if Joe Smith is having a piss poor attitude all the time, um, if he doesn't care about the quality of the chicken, um, if he doesn't care about the guest, and I just said it twice, but the overall care that Joe Smith has. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Um, which he could which which if you develop him, you and I are in lockstep with that for them. I'm gonna I I'm gonna put this in a question to you. How long would you develop Joe Smith before you realize, you know, he actually doesn't care. He's just been BSing me, or he's never going to evolve to what I want him to be. What is I know it's it's gonna be person dependent on some level, but what is your general mental framework around the amount of runway you'll give grace to somebody?

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Yeah, I always base that off of the my level or or my perceived level of their care. So if they care a crap ton, they like they they genuinely like working for Chick-fil-A, they they want to produce a good product, they want to move fast, they just don't know how to, dude, you get you get the longest runway. We're talking um Atlanta or airport runway. Um if if not, dude, we're talking like private um airport that's that's just national or just domestic. Um like you're you're not getting much because that like I I have not learned how to. I would love to, but in my private business, if anyone reaches out, I can't develop care for you. Like I just can't. I don't I don't have that skill yet. I would love to have it. I don't know if anyone in the world has that. Yeah, that's a tough one. Yeah. So that that is the single d determining factor.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

So that's a that's a personal standard for you. And you and I agree on that one heavily. That's a personal standard for you. But how would you know how to handle Joe Smith if you didn't know that was your standard?

SPEAKER_01 20:02

I wouldn't. There's there's nothing for me to go off of. Literally nothing.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Because what you would have as a-frated. Well, I know, and then what you would have as a leader is some people saying, no, don't fire Joe. We love Joe. What do you mean, fire Joe? He's got great breading skills. And you have another contingency of persons saying, dude, he's late, he's unreliable, he has a bad attitude, fire Joe. Well, well then as a leader and as a team, how do you make that decision? Well, you gotta have standards and values.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Yep. And then I have half the team pissed at me, and then I have half the team that's like, oh, dude, that was a great decision. So then how do you reconcile that?

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Then how do you get that team that's pissed that you bought into the broader vision? Because now they're thinking you'll tolerate mediocrity because you're tolerating Joe. It's just messy. It's messy. So let's let's break this down. So we talk about culture. It's it's one of those things where you're gonna have one either way. Like you don't e it's not a binary, you have one or you don't. It's you're gonna have one. Is is it going to create itself or are you going to design it yourself? That's that's the conversation you have to have. The other part about culture is it's a living entity, meaning it there is no design it and let it go or or let it be. It's design it and then keep feeding that thing all the time because it I I heard this said one time, it's one of my favorite sayings, and I'm not sure where I heard this. I don't uh it's a very smart saying, so I don't want to take credit for it. So, but it's everything left to itself will eventually devolve into chaos. And we see that in every aspect of life. If you have a house, if you just stop taking care of your house, would your house get better? No, it would it would, you know, fall into decrepitude of some sort. And same with your body, same with the relationships, same with everything. Every nothing gets better when it's unattended. Nothing. So uh, and I'm sure there's somebody out there who can think of one one-off, but okay, maybe there is. But for the most part, nothing gets better. And culture is the same way. You have to tend to culture all the time. So, all right, if we're gonna go forward with that premise, we have to design our culture, then then where do we begin? Like, how how do we start doing that? And I think we've already talked about step one. I think before you even start building the team, you have to decide what you want your culture to be. That's step one. Like, you can't you can't build a culture when you don't know what it's going to be. And there's a couple ways to do this. You can do it yourself if you're an owner, leader, CEO per type person, or you can bring your team and get them involved in it. I don't recommend doing it by consensus because that's that's messy because you know you need everyone to agree on everything. No, but I think you can get input from your team. Ultimately, it needs to be the leader's final decision. But with heavy input from your team. Why does that matter? It matters because they are not going to buy into your values and your standards if they had no say-so and no part in it. So you really have to do that. So once we have those established, now we got to start picking our team. And Isaiah, when I say pick our team, we start talking about getting the right people on the bus. That's, you know, it's another cliche thing that comes from good to great and the book Good to Great. But get the right people on the bus, the right the wrong people off, and then get them in the right seats. You know, people hear that and they think, oh, that's easier said than done. I can't find these people. How do we find these people? And or how do I identify the people in my business that's that need to go? So what is your methodology around those things? How do you approach picking your team and also cutting people from your team if you want to use sports analogies to make sure that you have the right people in place that are going to live up to those values and standards on a daily basis?

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Yeah. One thing, and I I think this is is really quick or really, really important before I answer your question. Um I think there's a lot of people in today's society that do not actually have values or morals themselves. Like they don't even know what they stand for. Um they don't know what vision they want to cast for their life. Um so before, and and what you said is is spot on. Um but before your team actually builds that, you have to build your own. Like you have to know what you believe in first, what matters to you, um, what you want for your team before you can get their buy-in.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

I'm so glad you said that. That's a great interjection.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Yep. Um because that I mean that that's everything. If you um if you don't do that, I I don't I don't know how you stand for anything.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Well, you'll be seen as a hypocrite too, because you won't have values outside of work, and people know that by the way, whether you tell them or not, but then you're trying to hold up these values at work. And also, we talk about this a lot at at Chick-fil-A, is if I don't know what I stand for, what my values are, and I can't even get passionate about that, how in the hell am I going to get passionate about the values at work if I can't even get passionate about my own personal values? So yeah, it's a great first step.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

Yep. And this is uh I want to harp on this for just a second, and this answers your question partially. But as a leader, you are a shepherd to your flock, and what you choose as your vision, as your values are incredibly important. That that is uh I I don't want to just skip past that because like if you choose that, hey, we are going to be uh a store that just like we we just allow whatever and whoever we want in because we're super lovey-dovey and all the things.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Or or or or what's really common too is we just need warm bodies, so we'll take anybody. Correct. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Correct. Yep. So what you actually pick as um your vision as your values is incredibly important. Um and this is one of the this is one of the areas where like you as the leader, you have a crap ton of responsibility like to choose that. Um but then what we want is insight from your team after that. So this is one of the exercises we did, but I went and I had people, it was some quiz online, um, but basically had them go and figure out what what values they really cared about. And so I brought my values to the table. I had all of my all the people under me bring their values to the table, and and then we discussed them. I mean, like that was a I don't know if you remember it, but I was a solid like two, two and a half hour meetings somewhere around there. Yep. And then we talked about numerous times after that, but it's that important to to actually do so because you look at where we're at today, oddly different from where we were at. But then getting all those people to buy into the shared values, the the shared vision is incredibly important. So that's where I would kind of start to answer your question. And then the I would I would say the back half is like if people are not fitting into what your top leaders and your vision is, then they have to go. Like they they just simply disagree. And and if you're trying to strive for a few more million dollars in sales or whatever it is, um, you will need your team absolutely aligned to get to where you want to go. Is that does that kind of answer your question?

SPEAKER_00 26:50

Yeah, absolutely. And I want to touch on a couple things you said. And so culture at the end of the day is, you know, in my estimation, in my experience, is a set of beliefs that drive our behaviors. And so we have to get the beliefs of the organization aligned. So you hear the word alignment thrown around a lot in the world of business. And it can be every all these words become cliche, but they I think they only become useless, like cliches in a useless manner when you're not really serious about them. But when you're serious about them, alignment matters a lot. And so it's okay, we're going to to break through this plateau that our business has. Anyone out there who's hit a business plateau and they can't quite break through that ceiling, or anybody who is is you know struggling to scale or whatever, a lot of times it's lack of alignment causing that. And and and getting your team aligned on the same beliefs, the same behaviors that we execute every day, but based on those beliefs. And what are those beliefs? Well, those are our values, our standards, the mission that we're on, the goals we have. We have to have everybody aligned. I don't know how you get a team. Like I like to use sports analogies because it's you know, sports and business are very close cousins in a lot of ways. But, you know, it we imagine if take take your favorite football team, whoever that is. If you don't like football, pick your own sport. But take your favorite floor gators, heck yeah. That's right. So so we're okay, we're talking about the best team in the history of college football now. So the uh you know, imagine if if you heard an interview with you the players on your team, and let's just use NFL, just because it's a little more broad. Uh you know, you're you're you're a fan of of the Atlanta Falcons as we're in Atlanta, and you heard one team member say, Yeah, you know, our goal is a Super Bowl. That's what I that's what I really want. And then interview the next team member. Well, I I I just want to break the rushing record. I don't really care about winning a Super Bowl. And they they interview the next guy, well, I just want to break the SAC record and and and I don't really care about how many games we win. And then you go to the next person, yeah, I want to win the Super Bowl. And the next person says, I just want to get paid. I don't really care about all how would you feel about that team? I mean, you would be livid and you'd wonder why some of those people are even on the team because you know instinctively, intuitively, no, I got to get everybody aligned to go to the Super Bowl. And then we have to get them aligned on what it's gonna take to get there, right? So that's a big a big word in the world of leadership. And what we're getting them aligned on are the values, the standards, the mission, the goal, the things we talked about. So now, like we spoke about earlier, that becomes the filter that these decisions get put through. So how do I pick my team? Well, I'm gonna get the people who don't align, and I'm gonna try to get them aligned. We don't just give up immediately. But once I realize I can't get them aligned, they're gonna go. And then I'm gonna have a hiring process and a promotional process in place that rewards people who are aligned. And my hiring process might not be there, they might not have the inside track on all the things we believe as an organization, but I'm gonna at least make sure that they have similar values and standards and they believe in the same things we do before I ever hire them. And then the people that decide to promote into leadership are gonna be really aligned with what we're doing. So now, now that we've gone through that process, and that could take weeks, months, years. I mean, that that can be a long process, but now that I've gone through that, now it's okay, now I got to identify my talent. Who's good at what? Who's my quarterback, who's my wide receiver, who's my DB, who's my D lineman, who's my linebacker, who are those people? And I got to fit them into the right slot in the business to leverage their said skill sets. So that's the front end of team building. And until you do that, Isaiah, nothing you do is gonna matter. No system you build, no goal you set, nothing's going to matter because you're not gonna have the right people executing those things. So we got to get that done first. And and and within all of that, we have to be very diligent about feeding that culture all the time. So those values, standards, the mission don't get forgotten about. They always drive our behavior and they're always in the forefront of everybody's mind. And there's a lot of different ways to do that. So so we we have something we we do at Chick-fil-A that Isaiah wants you to talk about is we we take them through a a uh six-step process. And we just talked about step one is we're going to decide what our standards are gonna be, what our values are gonna be. And then step two, we got to communicate those at a very high level. Just spoke about those. Once we've done those two things, Isaiah, there's four more that we do. And the last one's always funny because it's it's interesting, but there's four things we do after that. And if you will, walk us through what those four things are because this is how you're gonna make sure the culture stays ingrained and you keep feeding the uh the beast, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Yep. I I hate to interject again, but there's one thing that I was thinking about as you were talking about football. Um I think you you may be better at explaining those six and articulating them than I am, but one thing I want to harp on real quick. I'm gonna I'm gonna start with a question. Who do you think is the best football team in the past like few years that models what you just said? What level of football? College. I'll see if you and I are on the same page.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Uh that that models that's a tough one.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

It's not who you think that I would say.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

I know. You're leaning, you're hoping I say Georgia. No. Um I uh it's tough because we're not on the inside of those things. But if I if if I if I know Isaiah and we did not talk about this, and I think I do, I'm gonna go Indiana is what he's thinking.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

That was awesome. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

I texted Jason um before he answered that. Nah, he did not. I get the prize for that one. Um But Indiana had zero five stars. Zero five stars.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Like, can we can we say real quick before you go on that we're actually talking about Indiana in this context? How wild that is. But anyway, yeah, go on his walk.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

Um But I think it's such a good example because what that man Kurt Signutty did is actually wild. Like I had full honesty, I did not like him in the beginning. Because like his little Google me comment was awful. Um but dude, now everyone's Googling him, so he's kind of got a point. Um But to to be that team, um, like Kurt Signutti has talked about this so many times in different interviews or postgame interviews, whatever it was, um, about building the team and getting the team right. And damn did he. Like zero, five stars, a bunch of freaking three stars and walk-ons over there, and they kicked people's butts. Like it wasn't like like they dominated, like they were a dang good football team. I did not want to go against them as a Georgia fan because there was just something special about that team. You know what was special about that team, Jason? Go ahead. I mean, I have my own thoughts, but go ahead. Their culture. Yep. Two thousand percent. It was their culture. And that's what that that that's the leadership that it that that started from Kurt that went down through every single level, then went through the the coordinators, then went through the staff, that went through your defensive ends coach, whoever it was that permeated the entirety of Indiana Hoosier football and changed that program. Like it's it's just absolutely wild.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

And I guarantee you the process they use is very similar to what we're talking about today. I've never studied it, but I would bet a large sum of money. They may have their own way of doing it, they may say it differently, they may have acronyms attached, they may have all these things, but I guarantee you, philosophically, it follows what we're gonna talk about here uh for the rest of this podcast. But quick side note on the on the Google Me thing, I don't have as big of an issue with that as a lot of people did because on the surface it comes off arrogant. But if you look at Kurt Signetti and where he came from, he came from nowhere. He came from these, you know, sisters of the poor university background. And in college football, you have to win quick. So to me, what Google me said was, I don't have time to build my credibility. Just go Google me. And once you do, I'll have my credibility. I kind of saw it as a credibility builder quickly more than an arrogant statement. And I don't know the man, so there could have been arrogance behind it too. I don't know. But but I do think there was a purpose. He has proven to be a very purposeful man. I don't think anything he does is on accident. And I mean he looks ornery and he he's an interesting guy, but he's I I just think that probably had purpose beyond just arrogance, uh, which I think is interesting. 100%. But so what they start with? Well, they started what we already talked about today, likely that's a philosophy. One of the reasons they were so good this last year, uh, and this is 2026, we're talking about right now, in case you're listening this far in the future, but is their roster age was old, they were older. Like they had grown men on that playing against young men a lot of the times. Well, that that's likely a philosophy, right? And and and very low likelihood that was on accident. And that was the way he saw he could get Indiana on the top, is take these three and four star grown men, 30, I mean at 25 years old, and go play against young boys in a sense, 18, 19-year-olds. You're gonna have uh an opportunity to win. So there was a philosophy, belief systems, and they executed those things, they communicated those things at a high level. And if you look at anything, any these little social media clips that come out of that you see Kurt Signati talking at an interview or whatever, he talks about the the number five thing on this list all the time, and I'll get there in a second. But I hear him talk about number five all the time. So, one, figure out what your values and standards are gonna be. Number two, communicate them relentlessly. The old adage is the minute you're nauseous talking about it is the minute they're first hearing you. I get people all the time that, you know, a year into my coaching will say, Oh, now I see what you're saying. It just takes a while for messages to set in. It's like in marketing, right? It takes a lot of impressions for somebody to act. Well, because it's hard to get through the information that we're inundated with all day, every day. So you, if just because you said it once or twice doesn't mean they remember. And that's where a lot of organizations go wrong, is they don't relentlessly communicate it. And we're gonna have uh Mark Miller on the program here in a couple weeks. And I heard yo. I thought he said who. I'm like, really?

SPEAKER_01 36:37

I do actually know who he is. I have listened to every single book that he's written.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

Yes, yes, both of us have. He he's fantastic, but um but I heard him say that he was coaching uh a bit a corporation one time. He didn't get the name of the corporation, and he asked the CEO, how often do you talk about c your culture? And the CEO laughed, and he's like, Is that a real question? He's like, Yeah, it's a real question. He said, Every chance I get, and he never stops talking about it. So we got to establish it, communicate it, and then we have to coach it. Because just because we communicate it doesn't mean that people know how to do it. So if I have a standard and we use Isaiah's of fourth gear, I may not know how to get in fourth gear. I may not know how to manage my energy well enough. I may not know what fourth gear looks like, I may not understand uh all the dynamics that go into that. So I need to be coached on what fourth gear looks like. So we establish it, we communicate it, we coach it. Now, as leaders, we have to model it. So we have to be the beacon of the standards. This is why it's so hard to be a leader. And you know, I get pushback on this sometimes when I say leaders can't have bad days. I d I mean we can, because we are gonna have bad days. I just don't think we can really show it. And and I think that's going to happen some too. And we have to, you know, figure out how to navigate that when we do, and that's a different discussion. But I think for the most part, we cannot have bad days because we have to model the standard because the minute we don't, it gives them permission not to as well. So now we we've we've established it, we've communicated, we coached it, we're modeling it. So now they know exactly what it looks like, exactly how it should be done. And when they fall short, this is number five, we got to hold them accountable. We cannot let the standard slip ever. Because the minute we do, we talk about building the team, and likely you want to build a team of high performers. And we talk about getting the right people on, the right wrong people off. You're talking about high performers on, low performers off. Well, high performers notice when you're letting standards slip. Low performers love it. They love the standard slipping because they can fly under the radar and just come in and do a minimal job and still get paid. But high performers see that, they notice that, and they don't want to be a part of that. And you will lose them to other organizations if you allow this to happen. So we have to hold people accountable at an incredibly high level. And if you hear anything Kurt Signetti says, he talks about holding people accountable at a relentless level. So now we we've established it, communicated, coached it, modeled it, held them accountable. If we're holding them accountable the way we're supposed to, it is then and only, or let me say that differently, if we've done all of those the way we're supposed to, it's then and only then can we go to number six. Because if someone's not performing, this is a leader has to look in the mirror first. Isaiah talked about uh the prior culture he worked in where it was blame everybody else. But a leader looks in the mirror first. And if I have an underperformer, I don't know yet if they're a high performer or low performer unless I've done these things first. Because sometimes high performers cannot perform highly because they don't know how they're supposed to perform or they don't know the standard, right? So so I have to make sure that I've checked those boxes. But if I have absolutely established a strong standard and value system and I've absolutely communicated it, coached it, and modeled it, and I've absolutely held you accountable, and you're still not doing it, I gotta go to number six and that's make a change. I gotta go find somebody else to do the job. But I can't really, in good conscience and faith, make that move until I make sure those first five boxes are checked. So when we go to establishing a culture, this is the framework. And this thing is not like you do all these things and it goes away. You do these things in perpetuity over and over and over and over and over and over again, forever, forever, until you're not in the business anymore. And that is how you start to begin building a culture that you want. It's really hard. It takes time, it's frustrating. You got to make hard calls. It's emotional, it's tough, but it's necessary. So, Isaiah, what are your thoughts around all that and that that framework that we use in our in our coaching?

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Yeah, I relate it to uh to one of the things that you and I both agree on. I've already harped on a little bit. And this episode isn't directly about this, but it fits so much into the culture piece that we have to talk about it is the care. Um, but every single step that you just went through, there's care involved in every single one of those. Yep. Like the reason that you want to hold someone accountable is because you care about them. Like you don't want them to fail, they are continually not on time. Okay, well, if they go and do that another job in the future, they will fail. Like you can't do that. Um, if they don't hold the line on something that they're supposed to hold the line on, like you have to hold them accountable. That's that's just the truth. And then the the last one is has been like in the beginning when I was starting to let go of people, um, I would get antsy before it, I would not feel good about it. Um, and it was it was really, really hard for me to do because as the leader, like kind of wild, especially like the age that I was, but um I'm in charge of that person's livelihood in a way. And that that's a most people don't think about that, but as the as the leader, as the manager, as the business owner, whoever you are, um that's a large amount of responsibility. And that that deserves a certain level of care that comes into that. But now it's genuinely like, dude, I care for you so much, you're not gonna succeed here. And I can just like I I want to give you as much time as possible to go find something else. Because I'm just telling you, I don't want to lead you on here and think that you're gonna grow or get a raise or promotion or whatever you want, because it's not gonna happen. So the reason I give that example is because whatever your vision is, it has to go through every single level that Jason just listed out. Um, it doesn't stop at number four, it goes through number six literally every single time. Um so in general, that's what goes through my mind. But I mean you and I could talk about this for hours because it's it's so incredibly crucial to a successful business.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

Well, and something you said there is is you felt bad at first because you're in charge of their livelihood. And I think that's a that's a mistake we all make. I mean, I I definitely made that mistake earlier in my career because you're you're looking at it too closely. You're looking at their immediate livelihood. And in reality, is when you allow them to fall below a standard and you don't push them to live up to their own individual standards, or you don't push them to greatness, you're greatly damaging their long-term earning ability. So what what what really brings me the most reward as a coach and as a leader is I I look forward to the day where the people I coach call me and they go, dude, my career was never the same because of the impact that you helped bring to my life. That's what I don't, it's not really for tomorrow, like literally tomorrow, it's for 10 years from now. So every time you let somebody fall below the standard and you don't want to let them go, now after you checked all those boxes, to be clear, that is it and in fact it's checking those boxes that is the grace, right? That's the grace you're giving, is checking those boxes. That's the runway. Those boxes are the runway. But when that runs out, you got to make a change. And and you have to see it through the right lenses. You're doing the kind thing for them. Because if they've done, if you've done all that and you've established all the things we talked about today and they're still not performing, there's not the right job for them. And they're never going to perform. And then what happens when that when that occurs? Is one, it hurts the team, the organization, of course, but it hurts them because they never get to go realize their true potential and their true earning potential because they're in the wrong organization. So I heard somebody say it one time that I don't fire people, I just make them available to the marketplace, which I think is a funny way to say it. Um uh, but they get to go do their own thing and finally thrive because they're not thriving here. So every time we put our comfort ahead of that, it's selfish. So you got to be very willing to make a change when the time comes. But but if you do these things we talk about today and you do them consistently without fail, you will build the exact culture that you want as long as. You're doing it with clarity and you know exactly what you want that culture to be. So, with that being said, we can wrap this one down again to Isaiah's point. We can talk about this forever. Well, I'm sure we'll do multiple episodes on this moving forward. Um, and and and again, there's limitless information on this. But I hope this gives you a starting point. If you want to build a culture in your business, maybe this gives you some things to process, think about. There's a lot of great resources out there. There's a lot a lot of great books on it. Uh the the Mark Miller uh gentleman we spoke of has got a great book on it, Culture Rules. There's the culture code, there's all kind of and and listen, almost every leadership book. Yep. And every leadership book almost is a team building book if you look at it through the right lens. With that being said, Isaiah, anything you want to say before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_01 45:07

Yeah. Um I don't know if I gave you this tab, but like just to kind of put a bow on the pre-Jason, post-Jason uh effect. So um three years ago, if we just went off of last month's profitability, um we have grown 44.3% in our profitability. Wow. That's wow. I I've never heard that number. So that's what culture does. Yep. Period. It's what a great team is. That's what culture does. Yep. Yep. And you have to start there. That's exactly what we did. That's the results we got.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

That's a great way to end it, man. Thank you so much. And and listen, it it it it would not have happened without you and and and the team that we have. So thank you so much for everything you've done. Uh it's it's been fun. We got a long way to go. We are in the middle of this. We talk about it at work. We're we're a 10 and 2 team that's trying to go 12 and 0. And that last those last two wins are going to be the hardest two because it's it's there's a lot of detail oriented stuff involved there. But we're gonna get there. We have the right team and and we'll keep you posted on the progress. But I hope you take some of this, implement it into your organization, and have wild success with it as well. So, with that being said, we'll wrap it up and we'll see you next week.