Panel Discussion on Workplace Culture

Mike Minkler: “The IT support business as you can imagine is a is a fast-paced, dynamic business, marked by a high degree of turnover. We’ve had rapid growth and faced with challenges of finding the right employees, and then keeping the right employees. We had really high turnover. You know in some years, it was over 50%. It was clear to me that we had you know low engagement, you know low trust with our with our team, and a lot of one-way communication right? So, we knew we had a problem but we didn’t know how to solve it. You know you hear all these things about people first culture and we need purpose and values and vision and those types of things and that all makes sense logically but how do you get that? Judy come on up.”

Judy: First of all good morning everybody. I just want to tell you the background story of how this talk came to be because this is the first time Mike and I have presented together with any of his team. And it was because about a year ago we went out to lunch and he said, “You know Judy, I met you at a presentation, I continue to go to presentations, and I get so frustrated because I hear people saying over and over again how important healthy culture is, but nobody will offer an implementation. And I’m just sitting in my seat frustrated like – ‘I could do a better job up there.’ And then the panel discussions tended to be just senior people. He goes, ‘I would put our frontline people on this panel. We can answer lots more about implementation.’” so I said, “Mike it sounds like you might want to take this out on the road. And he said, “I do.” This is what CMIT did. And the reason I’m so grateful for leaders like Mike and the other owners of CMIT is that what this model is, is one in which your whole intent is to have faith in people which means that I’m going to help you be responsible for managing your relationships your productivity your engagement level. This is harder because this is longterm investment in people. This is developing them from the inside out.”

Lydia: “My name is Lydia Schulte and I’ve been with CMIT since 2014 and I’m an office manager there.”

Orion: “I’m Orion Starwalt, The Service Desk Team Lead.”

James: “My name is James Cox. I’ve been with the company since April of 2012 so 7 half years. My current title is Senior Solutions Engineer.”

Orion: “I started at CMIT. I came from an extremely corporate company. I came to CMIT and I was I guess just engulfed in this Life Works stuff, just you know rewires your brain. You get used to being extremely comfortable with your peers, with your you know your boss, everybody. You start, you get used to feeling you know worthy and then you know I I got an enticing offer from another company that I ended up taking. And when I got there I just immediately was like, ‘This sucks!” I ended up leaving and just coming back just based on that, just because honestly CMIT. I was in Marine Corps for 5 years and you get the sense of brotherhood with the people you’re with. You get that sort of same feeling with camaraderie and closeness because you just have ultimate trust across the board of people.”

James: “For me, it was just an additional task at first, that we were being forced to do. I’m not going to lie, I didn’t really see the value in it at first until decided going with the program and I learned, ‘Hey not only can I use these tools at work but I can use them at home, with my relations with clients.”

Orion: “My biggest concern was just another one of those things things that companies tell you you know like, “We value you. We, you know, we want your feedback. You know, all this all the stuff that you know pretty much every corporation in America tells you, but they don’t really mean it. I think my first mentoring session with one of the owners, there’s, it started off thinking that you know this is going to be them just talking at me. But, the first time that they legit like had a an actual LifeWorks mentoring session it was like an actual give and take, like a legitimate transfer of ideas and feelings and stuff like that.”

Lydia: “To me, I had a traditional way of thinking that there’s work and then there’s you know your life after work. And I was really adamant about not integrating the two of them. I thought it might have been you know inappropriate. I think my fears were over embellished and you know this is about creating a workplace where you want to go, where you don’t you know wake up in the morning and say, ‘Oh my gosh! Work again!’ you know.”

Mike: “So my fear was, ‘Oh my gosh! If this doesn’t work what are we going to do?!’

Audience question: “I was wondering if there were times I would assume that people in the organization choose not to move forward.”

James: You know if they’re not willing to commit they’re probably not willing to commit to your business long term anyway so they may not be the best fit. But, like I said, this one individual, we hit this roadblock each time with him, and you know we work through the process. We had our LifeWorks meeting last night as a company and he presented, so he’s still in that engaging process.”

Orion: “I think that in general this way of thinking is counter to um the norm of how you you’ve grown up the corporate world. And in that in that way, absolutely you get people that you know rebel against it or you know say ‘No’. That changes as the the whole environment gets more open and they start seeing things and they start feeling like, ‘Okay yeah.’ ”

Lydia: “I think that now our company in general is bought in to you know making LifeWorks work for us and I honestly think that when the majority of people are bought into LifeWorks, then it really rubs off, of off of everybody else.”

Audience: “How do you keep from blurring the lines of manager and employee as far as, you know, too being too familiar with one another?”

Mike: “While we’ve created a culture where we have very open dialogue and disclosure, we’re very straightforward with one another, we also know that in order to operate a business there are certain things things that have to happen. We talk about shared power, and you know it’s it’s not this Utopian place where everything just magically happens. There’s still got to be you know expectations. You’ve got to be firm firm and respectful you know.”

James: “So, it’s giving them the responsibility to pick up that work and do it versus me saying, ‘Hey this has to be done by here. Go do it now.’ ”

Orion: “I think he was saying it’s not this like, ‘It’s cool man. I’ll find somebody else.’ No, it’s… they the ability to say that but they also have to take responsibility for what happens.”

Lydia: “So with you know this responsibility based culture and it really creates an environment where we want to succeed. Like nobody really wants to like sabotage the company or anything like that. And I remember the first time where I realized how well this was working. All of our owners happened to be out of town I think for some kind of convention and it was sort of like all of the kids by themselves on their own, but you know we ended up functioning really well and you know, everybody kind of took charge of themselves, and we really didn’t need those grown-ups there you know holding our hands. We were able to you know really work well together and make sure that all of our clients were happy. So there really doesn’t, with this kind of culture, you don’t necessarily need that authoritative figure because you’re creating a culture where everybody kind of wants they want to do good. The biggest thing is making sure that the people who are owners, the people who are at the hierarchal level, are brought into this too. I think that’s the most important part.”

Judy: “We’re worried that the alternative is permissive and what I would tell tell you is the kind of leader that can lead this kind of culture has the strongest positive ego. I mean that because when you have a positive ego, you’re not attached to I have to be the big cheese, and I have to be able to throw my weight around. You’re a leader who creates other leaders. it’s those are the kind of leaders our world needs today.”

Mike: “So, our purpose is, ‘to maximize potential positive experience and personal growth.”