SHORTS 19 | Creating Emotional Intimacy In The Workplace With Kris Boesch, CEO and Founder of Choose People

Let's have some fun. Welcome to the LocoShortz podcast created by LocoThinkTank. In this podcast series, Loco Experience Coordinator Deb Piles will unfold bite-sized business learnings through conversational interviews with successful small business owners, topical experts, and community leaders. Together, they'll take listeners through the often crazy experience of founding and growing an enterprise or an idea. So listen in and listen up because these small business stories may just have the secret ingredient you've been missing for your recipe for small business success. Hi everyone, welcome to the LocoThinkTankShortz podcast. I am pleased to introduce Chris Betch. She is the CEO and founder of Choose People and they help transform company cultures, increase employee happiness and of course that makes the bottom line better as well. She's also got to choose people 360 audit, culture audit that she does, and she's also the author of Culture Works and how to create happiness in the workplace. Chris is one of my favorite speakers. I don't know if you ever got to see her TEDx talk in Denver. She got everybody doing the wave, it was a total kick. So I'm really excited to have her on the podcast. And Chris, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to get a little bit of your background and then how you got into people first. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Deb. It really is a pleasure. I now live in South Denver by my old stopping rounds up in Fort Collins, Colorado and that community is near and dear to my heart and my parents are in Lublin and I know a lot of your listeners come from all over Colorado and probably starting to go nationally. But thank you for having me and just a little bit about my trajectory and how I got into Choose People. I had the rare, wonderful opportunity to get to run a moving company in Northern Colorado. And when I first came to that moving company, there had been a lot of thoughtfulness around taking care of customers and that sort of thing. But there hadn't been as much focus on the employee experience. And at that time, in that day and age, there was very little focus around the employee experience. It was very rare. And it wasn't even something that I came into the organization really thinking about myself. Other than we were having really, really high turnover and we also were just struggling with some toxic ways of being. And it was one of those things where I was like, okay, my people are the one who are taking care of my customers and turn my customers, take care of the financial help of the company. Like if I'm really looking at how to make a difference here, where do I start? And it's got to be with my people. And really looked at the employee experience is what we called it then before. There was the term culture right in the business vernacular. And yeah, in focusing on the employee experience and on culture, we had 40% less turnover than the industry average and a bottom line twice that same average. And I thought this is crazy. Prior to more organizations focusing on this. And this was gosh, this was back in like 2006 and so had, again, another rare opportunity to work with the industrial organizational psychology department at Colorado State University to find out what makes employees feel good about coming to work and how do you measure it? And that feel good really is looking at the emotional health of an organization, which is what I would say is a lot of what goes into that culture piece is that emotional health. And so did years worth of work with them over a thousand hours of research to really be able to evaluate that above and beyond just my own experience at the moving company. And then open our doors to choose people in 2010. And here we are over 10 years later, over a decade later, which is hard to believe. And we have had that immense luck and pleasure of getting to work with so many different industries, everything from government to manufacturing to engineering to goodness knows retail to higher education. Like you name it, we've had the chance to work with them, which is because people are people. You know, that's that's part of what we operate from, but yeah, so that's just a little bit of my story. So tell me like what what size of those organizations that you're helping? You know, they vary, however, because my when I was running the moving company, we grew we were the largest, largest moving. We became the largest mover in Northern Colorado, but that meant we had a team of about 70 to 80. And so my experience was within smaller business. And so at this point, we have worked with organizations that have teams of 750, but I'd say our sweet spot is closer to, I'd say between 50 and 250 tends to be more of our sweet spot. Yeah. Help describe what some of your services are. Oh, some of our services, it ranges as you might imagine. We do everything from, you know, kind of spot support where it might look like a relationship repair between two key members of your team to we do trainings on, we call how to communicate in funky town, what to say and how to say it, which supports your team and having kind of candid and constructive conversations coming from a place of care, concern and curiosity rather than judgment and assumption. We also do trainings around creating interdependency awareness if you struggle with silos. We also have trainings to support change management. If you have all sorts of changes and your team is resistant, we have, but then we also have our whole culture audit process in which we will have a team hire us for basically a year long deep dive in transforming or upgrading their culture from where it is now to where they want it to be. And so we have some of those clients as well. So it just depends on what's needed. We've also done some leadership teamwork in which a leadership team isn't aligned. So there's no way the rest of the team can be aligned. We've also had teams bring us in because their meetings are really ineffective and to support when to have a meeting and how to have that meeting be uplifting and empowering and action oriented by the time you leave in a way that people don't feel like they're walking away with a huge to-do list or where there's no decision making being involved at all. So just it really varies on if organizations are dealing with gossip or apathy or silos or entitlement or just like mediocrity where it's like, yeah, it's fine, it's okay or if they're dealing with high turnover, it just really varies. So help me understand what a silo is. So what a silo is is an asylum can be a person, but usually oftentimes it can be a department where the department is really aware of what they need to do and what they need to accomplish and what their agenda is but they're not present to how they fit in with the rest of the organization and aren't really present to how much they impact the other teams and or how they are impacted and that's where we create that interdependency awareness. For example, you can have sales and ops operating in their own silos, which is where you can get those huge disagreements and frustrations and inefficiencies, so that would be probably one of the most common examples is where you have sales and ops not getting along because they are operating within their own silos versus being uptight. Right? Yeah, I've never really asked before, but yeah, I totally get it. I see it a lot and we're going to continue. So what would you say your special sauces, what makes you different from the other coaches or speakers out there that kind of work on something similar? Yeah, I would say as a workplace culture consultancy, one, we do have 10 years of experience under our belt. We were one of the first that kind of got into this work, but even more important than that, I would assert that one of the things that we've learned over the 10 years of doing this work is that the kind of the ingredient that kind of secret sauce, as you said, is emotional intimacy. And so we support organizations and really creating that strong sense of camaraderie amongst team members. And we do that by creating a workplace culture in which people have the experience where they're known, like you care about me as a person, that they matter, that their work matters, that when they go above and beyond it matters. And also that when they slack, it also matters. And then also creating a sense of inclusion in which people feel like they belong. And there's a sense of shared identity and pride. And so really everything that we do falls under those three pillars. And it is the thing that tastes those organizations are like, we're good, we're fine, it's okay, you know, but we're they're aspirational and they want something more. And they want it to be that off the hook amazing, like great place to work. That really is, that's, I mean, so we've helped those organizations are in that toxic place, get to where they're like ready to go to emotional intimacy because you can't start there. If you're toxic, you got to do some cleanup first before you can kind of jump in, jump in. And just so you know, like when I came into the moving company, it was brutal. So I have all the empathy, all the understanding of what it's like when you like if you're like, oh my gosh, I'm trying to do the right thing. I've got good intentions or I don't know where to start. It's mayhem or, you know, that's something that we support organizations with. And then also those that are aspirational that really do want something more than just, you know, that's okay. Like it's fine. It's good. It's not that bad. Oh, I hate that one. It's not that bad. I'm like, oh, our lives are bigger than that. Like what we're up to in the world is bigger than that. So yeah. I love it. I mean, that gives me goosebumps that you work in this area because I for a while, I've known that what's the percentage of employees that are just not engaged with those high and it varies year to year, but it is painfully, painfully high. Yeah. So with what you're doing, I'm assuming that helps with that because if they're happy, then they're engaged. Yeah. Well, and if they feel good about coming to work, right? If they're like they're, which there's a lot that goes into that, we use the term happy. And I'll be honest with you, we use the term happy early on back when there was like the happiness project and there was by Rubin and there was Tony Shea who, you know, Rustin Peace, he did delivering happiness with Zappos and there was just kind of this full happiness movement and choose people was started at that same time. But there really is like creating this deep sense of camaraderie. You know, that's ultimately what we're looking at and sense of purpose. I mean, there's a lot of pieces that again go into that because people need to be both a contribution in their work and feel contributed to within their work. So what was it like, because I know you were on TEDx Denver, when was that? Oh my goodness. That was a few years ago. I want to say we're in, let's see, we're in 2021. I want to say that was like 2016. I feel like it's been five years. I love it because it was all about creating intimacy in the work force. It's very interesting. So I don't know, can you kind of give us synopsis about how, what that means? Yeah. So there really is, it is a little bit to kind of what I spoke to, but the emotional intimacy is that sense of truly feeling connected to where you are contribution, where the work that you do does matter, that people do care about you as a person, not just as a worker. In fact, we had a whole conversation on today and we have something called camp culture and where we have a facilitated culture mastermind is part of the things that we offer through camp culture. And we were talking about retention because people are quitting at this really high rate right now, because right, you know, everyone went through COVID. We're questioning their life and their choices and their priorities. And so a lot of people are quitting and organizations are looking at retention. And there's a piece where if we're not thoughtful about people feeling good about coming to work, even if that's turning on a computer, right, and may not be actually coming into the organization. It varies depending on where you're at, you will not be able to retain your people. And it won't, it doesn't matter how much money you throw at them, people are making some really different life choices right now. And I always say, you know, golden handcuffs are still handcuffs, like nobody wants those, like nobody really, like truly, you know, and so supporting people and having the experience of feeling self-actualized through their work and where they genuinely feel connected with their co-workers. And I respect and appreciate the guidance and development they received from whoever they're supervisor or bosses. You know, it's just all kind of, at all, that's everything that goes in creating that sense of emotional intimacy. And again, I always say camaraderie too or team cohesion because I have my HR people who are like, they love it, but they're also like, we gotta be careful, you know, with the terms we use. And so, but yeah, so that's that really is what that emotional intimacy looks like is that experience of known matter and included. So COVID. Yes. I mean, obviously that you're just explaining how that's kind of changing the way employees are thinking and feeling. Yeah. Manage to navigate your way through the rough shutdown months and things like that. Yeah. As far like, how did we as choose people navigate that? Is that? Yeah. Well, I will tell you, Deb. So our number one marketing, our number one way of getting word out about our organization was speaking at national conferences. And my COVID moment, everyone has their COVID moment, you know, I always say everyone has their 9-11-1-2. But, you know, my COVID moment, it was 10 p.m. I was in Detroit, Michigan. I was leading as the morning kickoff keynote for a conference. And at 10 p.m. the governor said no groups of 50 or more. And that was that. Like that, that was that. And all the things that I had booked, like everybody else, you know, just disappeared overnight. Clearly that industry is not recovered yet. Who knows? We'll see how much longer. But yeah, we pivoted as an organization. And we actually created our online academy called camp culture in response to being like, all right, we're not going to necessarily be able to always, you know, be able to be there on site. And now, you know, now things are coming back and we're doing some things with teams on site again, which is wonderful. I missed, I missed, missed, missed people and being with them face to face. But I've also become a lot more adept at being able to, you know, work with remote teams nationally. And so that's been fun too, you know, it's been a learning curve. But yeah, so that's kind of that's kind of how we made it through. Yeah, as a business owner, yes, your biggest challenges have been yeah, well early on. And I mean, this is for any of your listeners who, you know, we're in that kind of startup mode. But early on, I had an idea to choose people was actually a different concept when it started. Originally, I was like, you know, we want to be the seal of approval that goes on products and services to say this product or service was made by happy employees. And I had, you know, friends and family tell me and even some, you know, work colleagues tell me how great that idea was and I just love my idea. Oh, was I married to my idea? And yeah, it took me a while, it took me a while to realize like, okay, like, lovely idea and the companies that can can get the certification are like, yeah, nobody knows you. And the companies that couldn't get the certification were like, yeah, we can't get that. We need help. And so eventually I was like, okay, like, that's that's actually what's needed and wanted is to support the organizations that are either aspirational or who are really, you know, stuck in the toxicity, like, how do they get out or how do they really jump to that next level of having an amazing culture. But I will say that took a while to transition. That took a while to transition as a company, longer than it should have. I was too attached. It was an ego thing. I think it was an identity thing. And then the other thing I can tell you was early on, I wasn't charging enough. So I would, you know, I would tell people what I could do for them and I'd give them the price point and I just wasn't taken seriously. Because I didn't know what I didn't know. And I just, you know, and so I think we tripled our pricing and started like looking work left and right, it was kind of funny, unexpected, but funny. So how did you come to learn that you didn't know what you didn't know? I mean, what helped you overcome that attachment to your original idea? Like failure was near. Whereas like, oh, honey, yeah, this isn't going to work. Like, this isn't like, you aren't getting revenue. You know, and that's the thing is that as business owners, you know, we're very innovative. We're coming up with new ideas and we're trying things on and you just have to be so willing. I mean, yes, you want to innovate and try things on, but you do have to one give them long enough to try on, right? Because I know other business owners where they shift too quickly, nothing ever gets a chance to grow. But at the same token, you got to know when to call it. You know, you got to know, no matter what you've invested in it, you got to know when to call it. And you know, I have another project that I've started now that it'll be curious to see kind of how it comes together. If it flies or if I have to let go of that one, because that's another one where people are like, oh my gosh, that's such a great idea. And we'll see, we'll see. Is that the Hello Bench project? What is that? Yeah, that is our Hello Bench project that we're super excited about. And of course, in our brilliance, we were going to launch it right before COVID hit. And the Hello Bench project is we're creating the place in the space to remember our shared humanity. And it's literally a 12 foot by five foot bench that's in the shape of a question mark. And it has a question on it that invites, you know, two people from all different walks of life. And they could be eight or 80. And it could be, you know, what's your grandmother's favorite recipe or what's your favorite recipe of your grandmother or what inspires you. Because right now, if you go on a boardwalk and there's two benches and one person sitting on one and no one sitting on the other, if you sit on the one with a person's at like, you're a creeper. You're creepy. It's like, why are you sitting over there? So just this desire to create more sense of a common ground from all different walks of life. And we, we're at the point we have to get a new new pricing since it's after COVID and the lead times for the manufacturing are very distinct. And but yeah, we do have, we did have some pre sales. You know, we had to put everything on pause, but we're looking at transportation hubs and we're looking at city parks and we're looking at museums and we're looking at campuses and there's all these different locations where, and it's like experiential art. So yeah, we're so excited, but we'll see, right? Like it, like you can't just be like, they were like, oh, that's lovely. But like, unless you're like, yeah, we want 10 of those in our city, you know, then, then yeah, so yeah. And we're curious to see if we can get people off their cell phones and start up. Yeah, I love the encouragement for that. Yeah, yeah. So what advice would you give some new business owners or small business owners, any that have they can work their help improve the culture. Yeah, things like that. So, and how do you say that again? So any tips for us like, in terms of, you know, what can business owners do? Some of them probably at this point or early stages can't afford to hire a consultant. Right. Yeah, some of the things they can do are considered. Yeah. So, so the one, there's a couple of things, a couple of things I would advise. So one, the good news is to create an extraordinary workplace culture does not require throwing money at people. So it's not about trying to have the bullying party that you hope people will show up at. It's not about giving people raises hoping that that will make them happy. That doesn't mean you shouldn't pay your people well. Right. But it's, if you, I've seen that happen, right, someone's unhappy. So then we try throwing money at them and then they still leave and you're like, why, you know, you get frustrated. And you have to know that for every, like a lot of times new business owners feel like they don't have enough time. They're overwhelmed. They don't have enough time. They're being pulled in a lot of different directions. They got to make, you know, they got to make the donuts every day. And in order to both recruit and retain top talent and to have an extraordinary workplace culture, it is going to require your undivided attention in small increments. And which you are connecting with your people one-on-one face-to-face if possible, even face-to-face on video and being sincerely fully present and interested in what it's like getting over there in their world and finding out what it's like for them. Because demonstrating that you genuinely care about that person as a person, like, it's, and literally, it could be five minutes of undivided time. I'm not talking about a whole hour, but five minutes where you're not looking at your phone. You're not being distracted. People aren't pulling on you. You're not, you know, thinking about your grocery list or, you know, and this is how many lists they got going. But your undivided attention where you're truly present and curious about what the experience is for your team member. It's one of the most powerful investments you can possibly make of your time in your people. And it does cost you a little bit time, but it'll come back to you tenfold. I love it. Yeah. Gosh, most of my career, I mean, I'm a boomer. Yeah, all career. It was never, I never felt appreciated or the thing you knew anything about me, just a number. I've never been happy. And now working like for local think tank, it is all about that. It's about getting to know your people. And, and so anyway, I love where that comes from. So, what would you say you're most proud of? Ooh, what am I most proud of? Goodness, that's a great question. I am most proud of impact that we've been able to have over the past ten years. And so, there's organizations that we've worked with that went from being in the top 20% you know, for workplace culture to the top 5%. There's organizations we've worked with. We had a government team that had 22% voluntary turnover. So, over one in five people was like, I'm out. And normal government turnover is like 1% or less, right? Like they don't have that, right? And in one year of working with them, we got to 0% voluntary turnover. And it's just, I mean, it's, and those are the stats, but I can tell you like the stories of people saying, like, thank you so much. Like this was a place that like I, I, I was committed to the mission, but man, it was brutal to come to work every day. And, and for me, when people feel good about coming to work, right, they get to go home and be better parents and better spouses and better citizens. You know, you have a lot more energy to help your kids with homework when your work day hasn't just been brutal. And I really think it impacts our communities. I think business is one of these beautiful opportunities to positively impact the world. And, and we would want to do that internally as well, right? As externally. And so, I am really, really, really proud of the impact that we've gotten to make over the 10 years. Yeah. Yeah. So was that where you choose your company name, choose people? Is that kind of tell me how you came up with that name? Oh, that is a great question. There's a gentleman. I'm trying to remember his name. I can't remember his local and fore Collins too. And he told me to read some book about naming your company. And basically the, the book recommended that you come up with a verb and a noun. And, and, you know, like go figure, right? And I just like kept, and I was like, well, I'm all about people. And I really believe we have choice. Every single one of us has personal ownership and responsibility and our choices. And, you know, profit is important. 100% profit is important. You won't have a thriving, financially healthy workplace without it. But I really, 100% I believe it starts with the people, right? You have to have your purpose. But your people are the one who brings your, they bring your purpose alive. And when you bring your purpose alive, then you have profit, right? Because mission feeds the money and money feeds the mission. And so, it's just, but people are the one who make that happen. And your culture is literally the area where your team breathes while running your marathon, right? To, to fulfill on that purpose. And so, like, why wouldn't you just do everything you could to create ease and velocity for your team and which they've got joy and they're excited to be there. And like, I mean, it's just, and it's so much more fun as a business owner when your people are excited to be there. Oh my goodness. It's so much like your life is richer for it. So it's a different kind of well, if you will, but it's one of the most fulfilling. So yeah, you are speaking to my heart. I mean, for all people and sometimes we just get treated like a number and, and I just know that they are the more creative and things will happen for the company. So, person and what you do, how do you stay sharp? How do I stay sharp? You know, Deb, that's actually an arena that I have not been. So I love what you got right. So I used to be part of a CEO peer group, loved it, swear by it, recommended a knowledge each and every person who participates in local thing tank, because it is a beautiful way to keep yourself sharp. I do a lot of reading articles, LinkedIn discussions, those sorts of things to keep myself sharp, but there is the power of a peer group. And there is, there's a gentleman who became a mentor of mine a couple of years ago, and he just recently passed, but he got me connected with a group of people who are really committed to creating organizations that are like living and growing organ like a culture that's truly, I know that there's a whole definition of what that means within that group, but I found it really powerful to be connected with peers that are committed to similar work coming from a similar perspective and it's international. So I get to connect with people in Austria and Australia and just like here just perspectives that I wouldn't get if I was in my own little thought bubble. So yeah. So do you have any like favorite books or well I know you wrote a book? Yeah. Yeah. There are so many good ones out there. There's I'm trying to think off the top of my head some of my favorites right now. So I still love conscious business by Fred Kaufman. That's one of my favorites. I still love drive by Daniel Pink. You can't like, I just, I love his work. You know, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Brunei Brown. Her work is, you know, absolutely an alignment with our work. So there's just, there's a lot of great, there's a lot of great people doing great work out there. It's interesting though because I've been, how do I say this Deb? I've been trying on even for myself personally. So I'll just share this last bit. So with COVID for myself, what I got is that I'm no longer willing to white knuckle it and white knuckle it meaning like grabbing the steering wheel to where my knuckles are white and I'm stressed and I'm waking up in the morning with this like I used to think it was just really high energy. I just was waking up with really high energy to take on the day, which was really helpful. But when I took a deeper look at it during COVID, I'm like, I actually think there was a level of anxiety there and, and a proving and a demonstrating and so I've actually been taking on running my business from a different paradigm from a place that's a lot more rooted and grounded and peaceful quite honestly. And it's like it's the out like I'm getting more business now like it's just kind of fascinating. So it's some of the traditional business books that I used to point people to. I don't as much because it's a much more rigid model, which is something I used to adhere to more. But it's I've really been enjoying. You could say a little bit more of a spiritual take, but it's been it's been interesting to combine some different parts of who I am into my business and have it flourish. It's been really cool. I love it. And I think there's a lot of that going around. I think we have a new new better culture on the way. I know things are crazy, but in terms of work environments and things and people's, we don't want to run around and be stressed anymore. So yeah, it's not needed. We can actually have the same outcomes or better outcomes. Exactly. Coming from there, I think that's the thing is that I think we've all we many of us I had certainly bought into some again, some paradigm, some agreements, some worker agreements. I just don't I don't think they're true. You know, the more you work, the better the more money you'll have or the better outcomes you'll have. And it's it's actually it's just not true. So yeah, I think you hit it right on the on the head there. So I'll reach you and get in touch with you. Oh, thank you. So you can reach me. My direct email is Chris with the K K R I S at choose C H O O S E people.com. And that's probably the best way to get hold of me. And then our website is choose people .com. And if you're curious in the Hello Bench project, that's Hello Bench project. Like hello. Hello Bench project.com. Yeah, and those are probably and we've got all different ways on our website. If you want to reach out directly, you can direct message us and and we'll get that. You can also reach out on LinkedIn. So yeah, your your last name is spelled B O E S C H. You got it. That's correct. Now you bet, everybody. It's got some extra letters in there to be sneaky. Yeah. For Chris, thank you so much for your time. I had a blast. Hopefully people will reach out to you because I think you have a special niche here. Thank you guys. Oh, thank you. It's such a pleasure to be a guest. Thank you so much for having me. You're welcome. Thank you for listening to today's episode of the Local Short podcast. This is Kurt Bear, founder of the Local Think Tank and host of the Local Experience podcast. If you or someone you know would be a great guest for our show, or if you'd like to know more about our small business owner, pure advisory chapters at Local Think Tank, please visit our website at localthinktank.com or email us at connect at localthinktank.com. That's L O C O thinktank.com. If you've enjoyed this series, don't forget to subscribe. We love great reviews and Apple podcasts for wherever you're listening. And until next time, stay local.