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Episode Overview:
In this episode of Unlocked, host Skot interviews Ed Offterdinger, a seasoned leader and developer based in Washington, D.C. Although not German himself, Ed's ancestors likely hail from Germany. With over three decades of experience in the field, Ed brings a wealth of knowledge to the table. He recently published a new book with an intriguing twist, which they discuss at the beginning of the interview. One of the central themes of the book and Ed's life is conscious capitalism, which he explains in detail. Ed firmly believes that business should play a significant role in improving society, and he outlines why it is the most effective way to achieve positive change. The conversation also delves into the phenomenon known as the "great resignation," where a staggering 4.3 million individuals left their jobs in August 2021, a topic that has recently come to light. Stay tuned to learn more about Ed's insights on these subjects.
Additional Resources:
So, Ed has some insights about why that's happening and how great companies, what they're doing to prevent that from happening versus the companies where it's happening all the time. So, I'm really looking forward to you hearing this interview. I'd love for some comments and some questions that you have for Ed or myself. Put those in the comments. If you're watching this on social media, do that. I would love to hear your thoughts. So, let's get on with the interview with Ed. Here we go. Ed, welcome to the show. So, good to have you.
Ed Offterdinger:
Thanks, Skot. Good to be here.
Skot Waldron:
Yeah, so you recently launched a book, Conscious, Capable, and Ready to Contribute.
ED OFFTERDINGER:
I did.
SKOT WALDRON:
Now, this is your first book, but you had been in this world of unlocking people for a long time. You're not a newbie to this space, so to say. So, tell me about why now. What is it in your career that you're like, "I need to write a book"? Has it been something you've thought about for 20 years and then all of a sudden it took you 20 years to get the courage to do it? What sparked it? What's the core essence of this?
ED OFFTERDINGER:
Thanks. Yeah, I mean, I would say, I was going to do it for 20 years. It wasn't the courage. It was the time because I was running firms and doing all kinds of stuff. I think the most important thing to know in this regard is that all the time that I was managing partner and CEO of two different companies, I had an outside coach. That was Dave McGuire. I always look over to the left because his mask card is on my inspiration wall over here. I think of Dave every day. So, I was always keeping track of things. I'm a journaler. I've been a writer essentially all along.
So, after I retired from Baker Tilly, Catherine and I started up people development business and had ideas to get it out. One day, she said, "Hey, do you want to write this book? Why don't we write a fable?" That's how it got started, so that's what I did. She wrote the how to and I wrote the fable, all about Andrew Hyde, Shift Advisors, and boy, how much fun they had as they almost lost the company.
SKOT WALDRON:
Interesting, okay. So, it's not your typical book where it opens up with case studies and a principle and just goes through necessarily not only the how-to part but you have this story fable element to this. Okay. So, what was the idea behind that?
ED OFFTERDINGER:
So, if you think about audience, obviously, one of the things you want to do is choose the right vehicle to reach audiences. As I'm coaching clients now, I am constantly rolling to the left or rolling to the right and grabbing a blog and saying, "Hey, why don't you try this?", or "Why don't you listen to this podcast?" So, I'm constantly reading those great business books and I love them. I mean, they've gone all the way back. Built to Last really drove my early years of leadership, Adam Grant. I love Dan Pink as we were talking about before. But as we really got into it, Catherine knew that I wanted to write fiction. So, that was an important element to it. I got that love from my grandmother and my mother, constantly reading.
Then you look at people like Pat Lencioni, who have managed to do pretty well with things like The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. So, it was just a genre that appealed to me and to us. We've got all of our how-to's. Andrew and his team discovered all of the how-to's along the way of the story. So, if you can get it two ways, you can get into the story or you can wait until the end and read all about the capabilities and the life cycle and all the things that we believe are so important.
SKOT WALDRON:
Okay, very cool. So, tell me about the title then, Conscious, Capable, and Ready to Contribute. What went into the title? What was the intentionality behind that?
ED OFFTERDINGER:
Yeah. So, there's three important words there, conscious, capable, and ready to contribute. So, if you really boil it down to what Catherine and I believe, is that employee development, building people's capabilities, and we've got certain capabilities that we think are the ones we need at the 21st century, but building those capabilities is really the best thing you can do for your business. There's data coming out for years, proving that that's the case. So, obviously, really, really good for people.
But the thing that hit us was one day, Catherine said to me, "Well, what if point of all this development is social contribution? That in some senses, if you develop your people and a broad holistic set of skills, they're so positioned to contribute to society, and in essence, it's about contribution."
So, we're big believers in intentionality, so consciousness. As I mentioned before, I'm really involved in the conscious capitalism movement, which is conscious leadership and so forth. So, when we were thinking about how to have something that captured all of the things Andrew figured out and then we talk about consciousness, building capabilities, so that we can contribute to society. That's why the subtitle is How Employee Development Can Become the Highest Form of Social Contribution.
SKOT WALDRON:
So, talk to me about conscious capitalism then. That principle, you mentioned that a couple times. You mentioned to me when we're in the pre-show, chatting it up a little bit. I don't think a lot of people are necessarily familiar with that term. Talk to me about that.
ED OFFTERDINGER:
It's funny, I was playing golf the other day and a guy goes, "Conscious capitalism?" So, it's quite an oxymoron, but he thought I said conscience. I said capitalists with conscience.
SKOT WALDRON:
Okay, all right.
ED OFFTERDINGER:
I have the nerve to say the problem is not capitalism. There are some bad capitalists, which is true. So, conscious capitalism is an international movement. It's actually started by John Mackey, who is the CEO and Founder of Whole Foods. He joined teams with a gentleman named Raj Sisodia. In 2014, they published this, Conscious Capitalism. It's really about the idea that business is really the best way to elevate humanity. So, in it, they talked there are four basic tenets. I'm not going to go through the whole spiel, but number one, which most companies figured out, our purpose. That's a Jim Collins special, right? So, no great surprise there.
Secondly, they have a stakeholder orientation. So, that really comes from Ed Freeman at Darden and UVA, which is his idea as Mackey would say, they're really only trade-offs. You can't exclusively do everything for the customer at the cost to the employees. Similarly, you can't just do everything for the employees at the cost of the shareholders. You have to keep it all in balance. So, these companies build elaborate stakeholder maps to really do the... You got to pay your taxes, you got to be a good corporate citizen, you got to deal with your suppliers, all of that. And then there's conscious leadership and conscious culture.
So, the movement is really designed to inspire, educate, connect people that are of that mindset, running companies like that or want to run companies like that. So, I got into conscious capitalism through Andrew Hyde, the character in the book. I can explain that in a second if you want. So, David Gardner, who is the co-founder of The Motley Fool here in D.C., a very conscious company, John Mackey is on their board. He and I co-founded the D.C. chapter of Conscious Capitalism. So, something I'm very, very involved in.
I'll say one more thing. There's a lot of people and I feel this way about myself that, gosh, I was a conscious capitalist all this time and I just didn't know it. I mean, I didn't know there was a term for it. Now, an organized movement, which has been around about seven years now. We're really starting to have great success all across the country.
SKOT WALDRON:
Okay. Very cool. Awesome. Thanks for sharing that. Thanks for sharing the book, too. I think I've seen that cover around. So, really cool to bring that up. So, yeah. So, you mentioned Andrew. Tell me about that. I do want to hear about that.
ED OFFTERDINGER:
Okay. So, Andrew Hyde is a 50-year-old executive, running a successful by all measures consulting firm in D.C. He does strategy and some other things. Totally fictional. So, he's in a crossroad. So, one day, I'm sitting in my office, I'm working on the story. I think, "Okay, now, what kinds of things would this Andrew Hyde character either be a part of or discover along the way?" I remembered the yellow book, Conscious Capitalism. Sure enough, I went online and there was the CEO summit of conscious capitalism. It was happening three weeks later in Austin.
I applied and got in, because I've been a CEO. I walked in. I was like, "Holy smokes, I've met my troop." So, conscious capitalism does permeate throughout our story too. It's an organizing set of principles actually for Andrew to run Shift Advisors. He discovers it through his coach actually. But it was all because one day, I'm sitting in my office trying to think about what this guy would be into. Sure enough, I remembered the yellow book and led me to Austin and up to my eyeballs in Conscious Capitalism.
SKOT WALDRON:
Here you go. To write about something that's so embedded in your belief system is definitely something that translates to the book. You can sense a book that comes from the core of someone and that's what's really cool. That's going to be interesting to see how that translates into the effectiveness of how those principles are carried out through Andrew and what he does and how he exemplifies those principles and carries them out throughout the story. So, really cool. I asked you a question earlier about some of the big mistakes that companies make. So, you've worked with numerous companies all over the place, executive level and teams.
Understanding, "What is the biggest problem when it comes to company culture and how that shapes the effectiveness of what they do?", you started by saying, many companies start with a very defined mission and culture, but struggle to maintain that as they grow. And then it happens when key hires are made, who don't share the values of the founders. So, I can imagine that it's that principle of, "Oh, wow, we've got a rock star. This person is so good at this job. We've got to go after this person. Their skill set is unbelievable. Their track record is unbelievable." And then it doesn't necessarily work out. Talk about that context a little bit.
ED OFFTERDINGER:
Sure. Yeah. Here's the way I would put it. I remember that when one of the firms that I was at, we had about 50 people. Then it became 100 until then. What I know from working with my clients too is that at some point, you can't manage by eye contact. So, what that means is you have to have systems and organization and people who need to know what the deal is. How does it work? What's important? So, when you asked me earlier also about, "What is your definition of company or corporate culture in the first place?", to me, it's how things get done. Who gets promoted? What kind of people get hired? Who succeeds around here? I think we think it's like, "Okay, we're going to have a party culture." Yes, that's all true, but it's really how things get done.
So, I think it's very easy when either you've started yourself with one or two partners and you're managing it because you're choosing people and you're interviewing all of them. So, what can happen through acquisition is another way. You've got a great idea. You're succeeding. Suddenly, you're up here and you're delegating out. You have to, or you can't succeed. And then what happens is you haven't really laid out in clear terms, what are all the things you're looking for in a particular person, which is not just the ability to sell or grow or whatever it is, but also, those values. What's important? It's so interesting, because Catherine and I spend a lot of time working with companies on embedding all that into the lifecycle.
So, if you want to hire people of a certain nature or character or diversity now, it can be done, but it won't happen unless you're very conscious and intentional about it. You can bake all that into the process. That happened to Andrew and his story. He and Pat, who was his co-founder, had a great, great start. They left another company because they were frustrated with it, got off track, and then they just succeeded. And then when that success happens, you get busy and you stop doing all the interview. So, I think it's a very common problem. I think the solution... I'm not saying it's simple. I'm not saying it's easy to do. I remember John Kotter, who's the great Harvard guy, Leading Change.
One of the things he points out is... I've coined it. It's 10X. I know, in your practice, you've seen this too. That's when you communicate, particularly with all the data that's thrown at us and employees today. When you think you've communicated a lot about something or values, how we're going to do it, multiply it by 10. You just need to stay at it. I do think as we get busy as leaders, we just don't take the time to communicate as much as necessary. I think those are a couple thoughts on that.
SKOT WALDRON:
Okay, good. I can go with that. I want to also bring up this because you put a lot of weight on the values aspect of that, right? The values aren't aligned with the company, and they don't share the values of the founders. Through an acquisition, the company that's acquiring that other company, they're not aligned in their values, right? There's a big valuation, and they're like, "Hey, let's do this thing, right? They're going to give us lots of money." But those values are missed. I know we talk a lot about values and we cram them down the throats of our organizations when we're coaching them and understanding what they are, but honestly, it's not that a company realistically looks at their values every day and goes, "Cool, let's talk about these today." Nobody does that, right?
So, why? Why do we put so much emphasis on these values that sometimes get printed on a cool poster in our break room and they're in our employee manuals? We say we're so concerned about the values of our companies, right? But then a lot of people just roll their eyes at them. Either the employees roll their eyes, because they're just like, "Oh, yeah, those? I don't even know what they are." But everybody thinks they have to make them. So, I don't know. Talk to me about this value discussion.
ED OFFTERDINGER:
Sure. I'm laughing too, because in the story, Andrew and the team go out to this very successful company in suburbs of D.C., a great company. They're laughing, because he sees these amazing simple values on the wall, but his experience has been basically what you said, which is you see a lot of rolling pictures.
SKOT WALDRON:
I love that, rolling pictures. [crosstalk 00:19:57].
ED OFFTERDINGER:
One of my all-time favorite was on the same list of values was to be focused specialists. Right below, it says one-stop shop. How can that be? I am a big believer in being clear about them, but the more important point is back to the culture, how do things get done. So, if you say you're about being focused to my point, then you need to have something in your system that basically is a way to vet opportunities so that they're very limited and you would actually train on that. So, sure, it's important what's on the wall, but it's more about, "How do you bake in the how-to all of those things into how you do things?" I think that's where it gets lost. It's too bad, like so many things, when the first idea of "Wow, these great companies have these core values." I mean it's brilliant.
When I first read Built to Last, it was 1980, late '90s. He discovered that great companies have done it. And then of course, everybody turns around again, because he spends all his time and money with consultants like, "Let's go do this." It becomes very inauthentic. So, I totally agree with you. But the point really there is build it in into what you do. That's what really matters. It can be done. I'm in complete agreement, and no more rolling pictures or climbing mountains.
SKOT WALDRON:
No more, right? I don't want to see the back of somebody's silhouette over the beautiful sunset. Yeah, and no more eagles flying into a picture of clouds and whatever or soaring. So, I love that. I love the how-to apply to the value. When I was doing a lot of brand strategy for companies in my earlier career, it was always like, "Hey, we want to be innovative." It's like, "Okay, I'll let you have that one, but I want to know what it means for you to be innovative and what does that mean for how you're going to actually execute that and how you're going to live that," right?
So, as an exercise, sometimes I'd run companies and say, "All right, I want you to pick one value this month and I want to figure out how each person's going to live out that value. You're going to think about it. You're going to do it in your team meetings, and you're going to just execute it. I want to see if it sticks." If it doesn't, you need to think about that value. Does it really matter? Does it drive what you're trying to do? Is it that guiding principle that helps you along the way? So, I love your how-to principle that you put behind that value. That's really, really smart.
So, let me shift now the conversation, because this is really timely that we're talking about this. We're talking about unlocking people. We're talking about employee involvement and engagement. We're talking about being intentional. We have experienced the great resignation. In August, 4.3 million people left their jobs. They just said, "Peace, I'm out," and picked up and they left, feeling empowered, feeling like, "Hey, I've got places to go. I don't need this anymore." So, talk to me about this. I mean, I'm throwing this on you a little bit, but it's very timely in the news right now. What's the difference between the successful companies that are not experiencing a huge resignation of people walking out versus the companies that are?
ED OFFTERDINGER:
Yeah, I mean, it is timely. I mean, whether it's 4.3 million or 3% of an entire workforce, I mean, we knew it was there. I've heard people call it The Big Quit. I remember reading an article back in March predicting the turnover tsunami. So, they were right and here it comes. Before telling you what I think progressive companies are doing and we're working on a lot of them and I've thought a lot about this and I've captured it, I think we need to look at why too, right? Many people have questioned everything over the last 18 months. They were thinking about their purposes or retirements or bosses, not just people leaving to go to another employer. They're just rethinking everything. So, where to live? Should I be in exurbs? Should I get out of the city?
I think it's just been a time of lots of introspection. I mean, let's face it, their spending was down because they couldn't do anything. The stock market was doing great and interest rates are low. I am a recovering accountant after all. So, I pay attention to these things. So, they feel a little more empowered. So, I think there's a lot of reasons behind it. And then gosh, politics, everything else, people are like, "Sheesh." So, but here's what I'm seeing and I would boil it down to five or six things that I would recommend everybody.
First is leaders, you got to be flexible. I tell a story about my wife one time. I wanted to buy her a bathrobe in Nordstrom. I was telling you before, we jumped on it and been married 40 years. So, I'm still not a very good shopper, but I do know the size. I know what her size was. I get into the department and there's no small, medium. There's OSFA. What the heck is that? One size fits all. I say that because right now I am preaching and coaching do not try one size fits all thinking. You have to be flexible right now as a leader, because it's your own peril. Because the companies that are being flexible with where their employees can work, how they want to work, what they want to do, they're winning. That's the number one place that company are not leaving, right?
I also think some very practical things. People are getting crazy money thrown at them. A lot of it is short term sign on stuff. So, if you were ever thinking about long term incentive programs, now's the time to do it. I spend a lot of time in HR people. So, I don't want to say thrown away, but we all tend to think that certain things have to happen in a certain business cycle, i.e., raises and promotions. Who said that's true? So right now, wouldn't it make sense to look at all of your employee comp and benefits? Because the problem is you're probably giving big sign on bonuses and having to pay raises to get people to come join your company.
The thing you should be most concerned about is [inaudible 00:27:05], that somehow you have signed on all these people and then Joe is sitting down the hall and he's doing the same job making 20% less. So, I think that's another thing. That goes back to the flexibility. Listen, that's it, listen. For CEOs and anybody in leadership right now, get out and find out what's going on. Okay, I'm going to give you a couple of stats here in a second. But getting out and listening, third level listening, where you really are listening to what they're telling you is going on, so valuable. I say it this way, if you had a customer problem, what would you do? You go out and talk to the customer. You can't avoid problem.
I have so many CEO clients who are just frustrated. We're all worn out by COVID. They're like, "Can it be like it used to be?" Bad news, probably never was that way, but it sure as heck isn't anymore. So, I think that's it. What I would say too and this ties right into the book and something that we've always believed, that I believe in for 25 years, 93% of employees, we saw from SHRM or some good reputable source, 93% of employers say, "If you would invest more in my development, I'd probably stay longer."
So, when I think about great business, one of the ones that I was fortunate enough to manage and partner, our mission statement was deliver excellence and develop leaders. We published that. People are like, "Well, I know that's a good idea, but to publish that?" Well, that's what stays with you. That builds brand too, your own area of expertise. When people know it's a great place to work, holy smokes.
Let me give you one other statistic and I'll take a breath. It's somewhere between arguably on the low end of 50% and on the high end 200% of an annual salary is what every turnover, every person who leaves cost you. So, do the math work. Andrews got a great scene in the story where he's trying to convince his partner to see all this stuff and the math proves it. If you invest in this development and you lower your turnover just 1%, oh, my gosh. So, if you're only about the economics, believe me, it works. So, let me take a breath, but that's what I'm seeing people doing and what I'm advising people to try.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah, the flexibility is a huge thing, especially with this global pandemic that happened. Everybody's working from home. Kids were at home, and all of a sudden, parents are going, "Holy moly, how do I manage all of this?" Now, we're going back. Some kids are digital learning. A majority of them are back at this point, but some are digital learning. That flexibility of lifestyle of, "Hey, we recognize you have a family. We recognize that both spouses are working and that you have kids. How are we going to treat you now within this environment?" We have a company to run. So, on the one side, we have to get stuff done still, people.
I get that you have kids at home, but I really need this project delivered, because it's a global pandemic and we are freaking out at the corporate level, right? I know you're freaking out on a personal level that you're even going to have a job. So, now you're like, "Do I bend over backwards to accommodate my boss, or do I preserve the growth and development of my children?" There's a lot weighing in. So, again, it's not an easy thing to do and juggle, but again, that empathy and understanding and that listening to each case, right?
It's not a one size fits, all right? It's not a one bathrobe for everybody. It is this idea of, "How does Jane need to be led right now? How does Tom need to be led right now?" It's not how I want to be led. It's really how they need to be led in their own space. You know what? It takes a lot of effort, doesn't it? You got to go talk to each person and understand. Oh, man, that sucks, but it's so true.
So, I love those stats that you pulled out too and that personal development value that that has. Let's talk about that word 'soft skills', because that's what you're talking about, these people. How do we develop them? Sure, we can teach them how to do spreadsheets and calculate numbers and learn a skill. But when it comes to what the world knows as soft skills, which Simon Sinek calls human skills, right? They're really human skills. You have a little bit of a twist on that as well. Do you want to share what that is?
ED OFFTERDINGER:
Sure, that ties back to the capabilities part of the title. First off, one of the things we like to say is that soft skills is in and of itself a misnomer. It's actually nothing soft or easy about learning them. We also tend to think everything that isn't technical, we're going to call it soft. So, when we think of them and I do like the human skills, we've bucketed them into two categories, mind skills and people skills. The mind skills are the ones that are really the brains function things like critical thinking. You sure use a lot more of that when you start a conversation without the answer in your mind already, imagine that. Curiosity, being creative, decision making.
I mean, I do a lot of coaching and I work with the leadership circle. It's really interesting to see that thing that a lot of leaders struggle with, being decisive, largely because they're trying to please everybody, but then, gosh, things don't get done. So, in the book, we defined there's a bunch of those categories, all of which Andrew discovers painfully through the story and not just Andrew, but some of the other characters. And then we have people skills, which we think of as the ones you'd expect, emotional intelligence. I mean, most people are quite self-aware actually. That's good as a self-regulation or empathy. It's all about me. So, you got to have EQ.
So, we've organized different couple ones that we think are important. We actually think kindness is a people skill that if companies that actually act that way and humans that act that way, again, if you want to just think from a business standpoint, think about what it's like to be in somebody's orbit. Kind people, people generally want to hang around. So, kindness.
SKOT WALDRON:
Oh, wait, wait, wait, you're telling me not to be a jerk, right?
ED OFFTERDINGER:
Yeah, real basic stuff.
SKOT WALDRON:
Don't treat my customers like jerks. Don't treat my employees like a jerk, right?
ED OFFTERDINGER:
I don't know. Maybe not too radical.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's brilliant. I love it. I love it.
ED OFFTERDINGER:
It's funny. In the story, you get to see how some other companies have done. Communication, so communication skills are obvious, but you can teach listening. Listening is more important than speaking actually. It truly is. You get a whole lot more. So, we explain these. We talk a lot about how you can embed them into a learning culture in the story in the book, both in the story and then in the back, how to build them into the life cycle along the way. It's all about development.
I would say it's the kind of development that it's not a new term but it's a good one, which is VUCA, right? Volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous. That's the world we live in today. These kinds of skills, with AI, technical skills are needed. AI is taking away a lot of the basic. So, what do we really need are these types of skills.
I like the way Tom Friedman calls it the age of accelerations, where things are moving so fast. These are the kinds of skills that will help people thrive. Punch line in the book, they'll make you better at work. They will also make you better parents, husbands, friends, citizens, governors, bros. Who knows? And then all of that is additive and generative to society. That's the big idea, if you will.
SKOT WALDRON:
Very cool, very cool. So, last little question here. At the end of the day, what does it mean for you to have a great boss or even be a great boss?
ED OFFTERDINGER:
I'm going to tell you a story to get there. So, in my probably late 20s, I had a huge hotel client based in Bethesda, Maryland. You could figure out who it is. I had a big presentation to the audit committee. I was nervous. It was a big group, CFO, Chairman. I'm not sure. The founder was there. Well, my boss was there and then the managing partner was there. It was a big client firm. I think my presentation is like five minutes or maybe three slides if there was such a thing as PowerPoint. I got out of it, but my boss's boss came up to me. He said, "So, how do you think that went?" I'm thinking, "Well, okay." He goes... This is true story. I will leave the profanity out of this. "... They tell me, Eddie, that you're smart, but we would have no way of knowing based on that presentation."
So, in that moment and I've told this story 1,000 times, you're thinking worst boss ever, but it's what happened next that made him the best boss ever. He said, "But you know what? We can do something about that." Within two weeks, they had me in Atlanta to Speakeasy, which was a four-day program all about effective presentations and public speaking. So, that's what a great boss does. Great boss carefronts you, not my term. Joe Currier is the guy that taught me that. Tells you what you need to work on and then helps you learn. A bad boss, the guy in the middle, never said a word to me. He never said it was bad. He should have said [inaudible 00:37:46]. No, it was the boss.
So, to me, that's what makes a great boss is someone who cares enough to tell you what you need to work on, but also helps you because yelling at you and telling you stink is just as bad as ignoring you almost. So, that's what I think are great bosses.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's awesome. In my world, I call that high support, high challenge, right? High challenge, high accountability, pushing you to be uncomfortable, telling you the hard things, but that's high support too. I'm going to offer this training for you. We're going to build you up because we see the potential that you have. We're going to call you up to be the person that we believe that you are. So, that's a fantastic story, because yeah, when you first hear that, you're like, "Ah, I can't imagine what you said to me."
ED OFFTERDINGER:
I've used that pregnant pause for a long time like I used to do at manager training and they go, "Oh..." Hold on.
SKOT WALDRON:
Hold on. Yes, yes. Oh, that's really, really good. I love it. So, Conscious, Capable, Ready to Contribute. Where can we get a hold of that?
ED OFFTERDINGER:
It's available on Amazon, et cetera, but the probably easiest way is to go to consciousandcapable.com, which is a website dedicated to it. It'll take you to all of the things, including bulk purchases, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, et cetera. But you could go to Amazon and you'll find it very quickly as well. So, I appreciate you asking that great question.
SKOT WALDRON:
I do my best, man. I do my best. So, thanks a lot, Ed, for being on the show. Continue working to unlock those people out there, those leaders that are hopefully unlocking the people that are working with them and for them, because it's all about multiplying, right? We can't do this one at a time. It's got to catch on, so that we're able to do this in mass quantities. So, thanks for being on the show and sharing your insights.
ED OFFTERDINGER:
Thanks for what you're doing.
SKOT WALDRON:
There's a lot of good info in that interview. We were jumping around just in different topics, because there was so much that I wanted to hit on based on some of the things that he had filled out in the questionnaire for this interview that I hope you were able to take with you. A couple of those things, right? At the end, he gave us a couple of stats. 93% of people said that "Hey, if you invest in my personal development, I'll probably stick around." In the midst of this economy that we're in right now and the employment situation that we're in right now, can you afford to lose anyone? Think about that. Can you at this point in your career as running an organization or leading a team, can you afford to lose people?
My guess is that no, because it's hard to find good people right now. It's hard to find good people that want to come work for you right now, because they're being sought after by everyone and it's costly. So, 50% and 200% of compensation to reemploy someone, that's what it costs to lose somebody. Can you really afford to lose that many people right now? Again, my guess is no. So, a few things we can do. Flexibility, right? Think about your compensation plans. It doesn't have to be so stringent that it's on January 1st of every year that they get a raise or they don't get a raise.
Think about your compensation plan. Think about what it takes to be a good boss, that story he shared with us at the end. What are we doing to be a good boss, to bring high support, high challenge? What are we doing to hold people accountable, make sure that they are pushed, growing, but also that we are investing in them, that we are being supportive and that we are doing the things that we need to do to develop them as people, not only people, but also as employees in our organization?
Thanks, Ed, for those insights. Thank you for being on the show and good luck with the book launch. If you want to find out more about me, you can go to skotwaldron.com. You can go to my YouTube channel. I would love it if you would like, subscribe, and comment there. If you have any questions for me, again, I am available. Contact me on LinkedIn. I'm there all the time. We'll see you next time on another episode of Unlocked.
