Hi, welcome to another episode of Unlocked, and today we're going to talk about what we always talk about, unlocking the potential of people in order to unlock the potential of our organizations. Today, I've got Ted Vaughn and Mark Miller on the call from Historic Agency. They run a creative agency, and they are not only producers of beautiful work, so go check out their website to see the work that they do produce, but they are also deeply involved in helping align people and create consistency within the organization and the culture, because they understand something that I feel, coming from the agency life, that not a lot of agencies understand or work on or focus on, which is fine for some.
But for some, to understand that, really, inside is where it starts, the internal leadership, the communication, and the people that are driving the external messages, that are carrying those messages to the external world, the clients, the people that they're serving, the customers, and selling those products. It all starts on the inside. So at Historic Agency, they focus a bit on the inside. Now, they've just released a book called Culture Built My Brand. And if you're concerned with your brand reputation, which you should be... I'm just going to say it you should be, then you should also be concerned with your culture that's driving that brand.
It starts with that, and it also ends with that culture is there the beginning, it's there at the end. They talk about the six things that need to go into developing a healthy culture in order to have a strong brand, and we talk about those in this interview. So without further ado, let's get on with this. Ted, Mark, welcome to the show. It's awesome to have you guys.
Ted Vaughn:
Thanks for having us.
Mark Miller:
Thank you. Great to be here.
Skot Waldron:
So, Culture Built My Brand, you run a creative agency, but you don't just do the pretty stuff. It's not just about the aesthetics, and making that thing look awesome, and feel awesome. You have a little bit different, also, service offering within your agency. So talk about that, and why that is such a critical component of your agency. Ted, you want to shoot off?
TED VAUGHN:
Yeah. We have found, time and time again, even when we were much more primarily focused on creative deliverables, that the best work we did was when we knew and understood aspects of the client that swerved into culture. And we would even find as an agency, Mark and I were so hardwired to ask questions about leadership, and culture, and strategy, and vision, and things that weren't classic branding agency, that it was often with open doors and closed deals. We just didn't quite know how to serve clients in that space.
I think we had that idea that, well, culture is organizational health, and that's like Patrick Lencioni, and all that stuff. So we'll talk about it and hope for the best. But at the end of the day, we're an agency that does websites and postcards and identity. And what we found is over the years, bringing those two worlds together has not only been who we are as leaders, but it's unlocked, I think, success within our agency, and it's also beginning, I think, to define a bit of a niche, which is the intersection of brand and culture.
SKOT WALDRON:
Well said. Mark, do you want to throw anything on that?
MARK MILLER:
Yeah. I think we've always been, like Ted said, a strategy-first agency. So over time, we found... And I think anyone listening to this needs to figure out what their sweet spot is. And we found that we're really great at helping clients discover the right strategy for their culture. And as Ted said, over time, figuring out how to package that as a service or product to help organizations really get to the next level, and not chase... what we say chase cool sometimes, where we want that new trend thing, but without any thought about their audience, or product pipeline, or any of that kind of stuff. So that's really been what's made Historic successful.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah, and I feel you because... Early on, in my career as a designer, and at the agency, it is about the aesthetics, and it is about the... getting in that next award book, or getting that recognition of something that you created that was beautiful, and that functioned well, and that delivered a message, and did all those things. And as we've worked with clients... I say we, I'm going to include you in this conversation, as agencies. As we work with clients, I no doubt have no doubt that you have had the experience of working with a client and going, "Seriously? We just spent six months working on this, and now you've had some turnover, and now you're bringing in somebody else? And now there's a lot of confusion and misalignments, and now there's like... now we have to waste time and money redoing something that wasn't agreed upon before."
On the agency side, sometimes the recipients, or on the back end of a problem, a more internal problem, that we sometimes just get thrusted upon us, and it puts us in a bad... it puts them in a bad situation. And so now, I'm how, how do you say, "Hey, hey, we do the strategy stuff and the beautiful work"? Because you do beautiful work, but we do the beautiful work. Whoa, whoa, whoa, will we also do like the human resources culture part, too. How do you how do you marry those two worlds? Because they are not traditionally put together.
TED VAUGHN:
Well, it's probably a question that are answered in about a year, because I think we're literally in the throes of answering that now. The book that we wrote was really designed to integrate those. And in some ways, it forced us to answer that question for ourselves, so that we can now do it in ways that are more formal and scalable. But I think it's funny, because the further we go, the more we talk about the book, the more we see it get traction, the more obvious it becomes. It's like, oh, well, this is the most obvious discovery that we've ever made.
Even our own idea of culture and brand, from the very beginning of our agency, when we were chasing, primarily, creative work, culture was always one of the primary and first pillars in our five pillars of brand model. So culture has always been a critical thing, we just didn't have tool and language and process to help our clients address it through the lens of brand. And to your earlier point, we've worked with clients who spent six figures over longer than six months, and had the right answer never get to go to market, because they didn't have the culture that knew how to do it in a way that survived the rigors of conflict, doubt, question marks.
MARK MILLER:
Yeah. I would say that when it comes to our brand identity process, we've really built culture to part of that. We don't wait into HR consulting or organizational design, necessarily. But when it comes to brand... We just did a healthcare merger rebrand. And the thing that sold them on this idea of culture was, obviously, they're merging two different companies, and they realized that for the brand to succeed beyond... and be differentiated and be competitive in the marketplace, they had to not just say that they were different, they had to actually live out their difference. And they were unsure about how to do that, but they resonated with that idea. And so that has been successful in pairing culture with brand strategy and identity work.
SKOT WALDRON:
Okay. Beautiful. So let's define this word brand really quick. I like to define that first for my audiences, just because I've... I think there's a lot of [crosstalk 00:09:42], I guess, misunderstanding about that word, and what it really means. So us brand nerds, how do we define brand?
MARK MILLER:
I think the simplest way to describe it for those who aren't super brand-nerdy, like we are, is the Jeff Bezos quote, your brand is what people say about you when you leave the room. So it's not a logo, it's not the websites, it's not your social media, it's not necessarily PR, it's that internal gut feeling. And we're kind of actually... So that's brand experts, some variation of that. We're actually take it another step forward in that thinking, and saying, actually, we think your internal culture is actually more of your brand than what people say.
The reason is that what people say about you is completely determined by who you hire, what you spend money on, the decisions those people make, how you... the products you design, why you design those products. So every action that leads to a consumer's viewpoint about a product, or a business or a service, or what have you, is really shaped by your organizational culture. When we start thinking that way, I think it starts to unlock like, okay, how do we say we want to be more innovative? COVID forced everyone to figure out how to do things differently. How do we do that?
Well, is your culture one that allows that to actually work? Can innovation actually live within your organization, or are you so risk-averse, and have unhealthy management and relationships with your team, that it stops you in your tracks? In our book, Culture Built My Brand, we're pushing that idea that it goes beyond just what your customers think, to, actually, your culture being the first step of what determines what they think.
TED VAUGHN:
Yeah. I think we would say, your brand is the sum total of how people perceive you, and therefore, who you are, and how you behave is not just as important, but more important than what you create, or how you look.
SKOT WALDRON:
Amen.
TED VAUGHN:
And those matter. But you can survive a product failure, or a bad logo, it's really hard to survive bad behavior and lack of internal alignment or clarity. Those will kill you.
SKOT WALDRON:
So true, so true. And I tell people this, as well, is that people don't love or hate Chick-fil-A because of their logo. Nobody drives by Chick-fil-A, is like, "Uh-huh (affirmative), I'm not going to that place, because that logo is horrible." It's like, they go there because of the experience that they have, and they continue to go there, because of the principles, or the expectation, or the vision, or the alignment, or misalignment. They don't go to that place, because they're not aligned with the beliefs of Chick-fil-A.
It's a very distinct brand that has been defined, and is very clear. And so when you talk about that, it's so true. So what I hear you saying, is that, okay, it's what people say about you when you're not around, when you're not in the room. I totally agree. But that is driven through your people, through your behavior, through your culture. And I also tell people this, that your brand will be shaped more by the person at the cash register than the CEO. Right?
MARK MILLER:
Totally.
SKOT WALDRON:
That feeling of that register person, whether they hate coming to work or love coming to work, is going to be reflected in their experience with that customer, and it's going to drive that experience for that customer.
TED VAUGHN:
It's funny that you say that, because I think you're right, on a very practical level. At the same time, the higher up you are in the organization, the more your job is shaping culture.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yes.
TED VAUGHN:
Mark and I have this conversation all the time. Mark's very talented in a hands-on way with lots of different things. But now that we're an agency that has a lot of people, I see a lot... I don't know what the number is, but we've got staff. We actually have people. So-
MARK MILLER:
And they have healthcare.
TED VAUGHN:
Yeah, right.
MARK MILLER:
Real employees.
SKOT WALDRON:
Congratulations, guys. That awesome.
TED VAUGHN:
And we pay the actual money by bank. The way mark leads is contributing more to our organization than any of his hands-on skill. Now, when we were a boutique agency, bootstrapped, and it was the two of us, with a few other people, totally different story. But the minute you move out of being a lifestyle brand, to actually having people in scale, the more senior you are, the more your leadership matters beyond your hands-on contribution or skill.
MARK MILLER:
That's so true.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah. Leaders drive culture, sub leaders drive sub culture, and it's reflected... I guess I should say it's reflected in that person at the cash register. If that CEO is leading, or that manager or that vice president or that whatever, it's going to be driven from the top down. And that's important, in that it's adapted through scale and whatnot. So I want to talk about the book a little bit, Culture Built My Brand. You talk about these six marquee culture elements inside the book, and you've done this through studying nonprofit clients, for-profit clients, small businesses, large... and they've all seemed to have this same elements. And as you said earlier, Mark, they may not call them the sexy names that you call them, but they all have those same consistent elements. Can y'all run through those six-
MARK MILLER:
Yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
... for me.
MARK MILLER:
So the first one that we found is that every organization has values, they've put them on a wall or in the bathroom, or wherever. But McKinsey did some research, and two thirds of employees had no idea how that impacted their day-to-day work, and just ignored their corporate values. And so a good example of this is Enron. Enron, if you remember way back in the day, most of their executives went to jail. Integrity was one of their core values, and they were embezzling money and cooking the books.
So what we found is that with top performing brands, ones that are spending less on marketing, and are dominating their vertical, is that they had really clear outlined behaviors for their values. So if we value innovation, that means we're willing to take risks, and your hands are going to get slapped. There's some way that that's defined in it behavior. And so we call those principles. So moving from values to principles, where your employees actually know how this value for people dictates how they behave.
So one of our values is people-centered, we want that all of our design and strategy to be people-centered design thinking. But we also want any internal systems and processes and tools that we use and the way we treat each other to also be people-centered. So are we taking consideration of the person, not just the work? And so we have that defined as a clear principle on how to behave. So that's one key thing that we saw across. No matter what size of organization, it was really clear the expectation for behaviors. Ted, do you want to take the next one?
TED VAUGHN:
Yeah. So, in the book, we talked about the six layers to make a marquee culture. First one, as Mark said, principles. Second one is architecture. So that, essentially, is organizational structure, how you make decisions supervision, how power is used. Again, I think classic organizational health would suggest, yeah, there's good and bad, there's right and wrong, there's healthy, and not healthy. We push that and go, just like great design, dislike great architecture, your organizational structure should be built in a way that isn't just going to not crash and burn and kill people, but that is actually built in a design that's unique to your brand. And there's a lot of ways to the organizational structure and organizational health that can be unique to furthering your brand value and your brand differentiation.
MARK MILLER:
We probably all have seen the job market right now, it's crazy. Employer Branding is becoming a big thing, of how do we attract talent? And a lot of times, it's like, "Oh, well, we'll put a cereal bar in our thing, or we'll let people work remotely." But in architecture, it allows you... When you think about aligning it to your brand, what are the things that that make you different and the things that you value, you can start getting really creative, and those things then allow you to attract and retain talent.
So think about your benefits. They don't have to be great healthcare benefits, necessarily. There are other different types of benefits that change the way people experience you as an organization and want to stay, or might want to come and work for you. And so one of those, we have a small one, because travel is required when you work here, when you're meeting with clients and different things. Not so much during COVID, but it's still a thing that clients like to see. So we have this thing called travel pizza, where the first night you're gone from home, we buy pizza for your family, and that's a benefit at Historic, and it helps us, again, think about being people-centered, those who have to leave their families, and it's a hardship, to some extent, to do that, that they get pizza. And that doesn't cost a ton of money, but it makes it... it adds a ton of value, and it says what we care about as an organization.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yes. We recognize you, we recognize your sacrifice, and we want to thank you with this little thing. That's that's awesome. Ted.
TED VAUGHN:
Third layer in the book are rituals. Rituals are essentially defined as experiences that energize your people. Those experiences can be top-down. I think typically, in an organization, we think about rituals as those staff-designed meetings or staff-designed experiences, we're all going to go out and have fun, and you better have fun, or you're not being loyal. And those-
MARK MILLER:
And then it becomes not fun. Yeah.
TED VAUGHN:
Yeah, right, exactly. So all staff meetings and all staff retreats, and team building and crestfallen, those are great, and those matter, and doing those is important, and doing those well is even more important. What we have found is in great brands, their people develop rituals, organically and independently, that totally further the brand out of the control of senior leadership. And the example that we give is... I think the best example of this is NASA, or JPL. They have a pumpkin carving contest that trumps all other pumpkin carving contests, because these people are just so-
MARK MILLER:
They're rocket engineers.
TED VAUGHN:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:21:01]. So outside of taxpayer [crosstalk 00:21:02] dollars, independently funded, these people do a pumpkin carving contest that is incredibly passionate and invested in, There are blueprints, teams meet for months to plan their pumpkin, and it is totally off the grid, it's nothing official. It's not sanctioned, sponsored, or paid for by senior leadership, it's just these super geeks, who are literally rocket scientists, carving pumpkins. We want to see more of those types of organic rituals from the bottom up bubble up out of people because they're so in love with the brand or know who they are or what they're about.
MARK MILLER:
Yeah. And you don't have to be rocket engineers and make pumpkins fly to flex your creativity and innovation. In the book, we interview a small business that's a barber shop, and they have a motto, look good, do good. And for every haircut, they give a meal to someone in need. And their own hair... All the barbers had this idea that they should just also serve, they shouldn't just pay the... whatever the amount of money is to feed someone who doesn't have a meal. And so they do this ritual of cutting hair at boys' homes, and homeless shelters, and other ways to serve. And so there are different ways that you can do these kinds of rituals that live out your brand.
The next one, which we all have probably experience with, when you think about it, is lore. And lore is the stories that get told about your organization, as this... essentially, the lore, the history, the things you need to watch out for. A lot of times, the lore about a company is negative. And in other times, it's positive. And so what we found is that every high performing brand had a positive lore, a story that got told, whether it's about its founding, its purpose, this key points, this key product, how this was made.
Take Pixar, for example. There was a time where someone in their office found a little door that... little hatch that they opened up, and it went into like a mechanical room that serviced the building. So they'd crawl through it, and they thought it was cool to hang out, and they started decorating it and inviting other people into that space, and then they turned it into a bar, and Steve Jobs, Al Gore and others had visited, literally had to crawl on their hands and knees to get into this space.
And that became a lore about showing that creativity and curiosity and discovery is really important at Pixar, and you can do that. And so there are all kinds of different ways. The negative ones, so I'd ask your leaders to think, is what are the ones that are negatively impacting organization that you might not even know about? So I think Ted, you mentioned-
TED VAUGHN:
Yeah. Like when I was hired onto a staff, the other senior leaders that was on the C suite said, "Hey, Ted, you're just a plane right away from losing your job?" And I was like, "Oh, that's funny. What does that mean?" And they said, "Well, the person that you're replacing was hired because the CEO sat next to them on a plane, and before the plane landed, they had been hired into the role that you're in, and then now you replaced them." And I was going, "It's funny, because I was hired, actually, in a very similar way."
So the joke was, you're just a plane ride away from losing your job, and that kind of echoed through the halls for my first few weeks there. So I just thought, without much concern, "Oh, I think I'll share that with the CEO see what he thinks." So I did, and he said, "I've never heard that before." So come to find out, that had been... this story had been echoing through the halls of the staff for probably a couple years, and he had no clue. Which just, I think, reinforces the idea that typically, there are negative stories, if not toxic, that are shaping culture, that often the more senior you are in leadership, the more clueless you are about.
So the question in the book becomes, how are we building a culture that is seeking to find, discover, and address those stories in a way that I think neuters the bad or redirects or challenges or just names, and then says, we're going to correct this, we hear this, we get it, we're going to fix it. And then how are we seeding or telling good stories that help propel the brand and tell the story in a creative, sticky way that we want, and shaping the culture that we want through stories that are positive, that reinforce our differentiation or our health?
Okay. Next two layers. So there are six layers, we've done four. We talked about principles, architecture, rituals, lore. Next one would be vocabulary, just the fact that words create worlds. These layers all do work together. So in many ways, your rituals, your lore, your principles are all going to have language, and we believe, as much as possible, creating sticky vocabulary that helps people understand unique things about your brand is helpful.
Great example is Netflix, they use phrases like talent density, sun shining, they have almost, kike Starbucks, their own manual of language, and those words have very intentional meaning, many of them tied back to some of the cultural differentiations that make Netflix such a great organization. We want to see every organization have sticky language that helps its people understand certain things in code, not everything has to be a paragraph, there are certain things that can just be intuitively known and felt and understood and embraced through a simple phrase, or a key idea or a word.
MARK MILLER:
The last layer is the... For any designer who actually might be listening, this is the fun part, it's what we call artifacts. And artifacts are the tangible expression of the brand. So a lot of organizations will do really bad corporate swag. Here's your polo golf shirt, go golfing. But what we found [inaudible 00:27:24], yeah pins, who doesn't need $2 pin? But what we found is that these great brands had other more meaningful, again, artifacts that aligned to the brand, and aligned to the culture. It's not just about our logo, it's done in different ways.
And so Keep, which is a CRM company here in Phoenix, where our office is, has a AstroTurf, a little football field, with all the lines drawn on it, and that's where they hold their meetings. And that is to reiterate the value of leaving it all on the field. That's their way of expressing that. And so it could be physical like that, it could be... A lot of times what we'll do for clients who are in the middle of a rebrand and repositioning messaging or values, we'll create custom decks of cards. Instead of playing cards, it's a deck of cards with their values on them, or with behaviors or messaging points, or other things that become a guide for who they are as an organization.
So there's lots of different ways you can do this, it doesn't have to just be T-shirts, and mugs. Not that those are bad. When we do our staff meetings, we call them staff camps, and we fly everyone who's remote into Phoenix. And it's a few days, and each person gets a patch. And so every staff camp, there's a new patch you can collect, like the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, and that becomes a reminder of tenure and what they learned, and it just makes things more sticky.
TED VAUGHN:
On year, we did custom Legos of all of our people. So here, I still have my Lego, and it's holding large wine glass, which I won't discuss in detail now. But I think that's an example of [crosstalk 00:29:11] that we took the time to custom make Legos to match our people who were on staff at that time.
SKOT WALDRON:
I love that. We had some similar... I even forgot who did this, it was years ago. But you could go on and digitally create like your staff, whoever you wanted to, and I created all these ones for the staff. And they ship them to you flat, and you actually build them. They're like these paper boxes, and-
MARK MILLER:
Oh, yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
... build the figure of yourself and put it up. So that was fun, too. The Legos is brilliant.
MARK MILLER:
Yeah. Again, it's just highlighting we're people-centered, that's one of our principles. And so we want people to know that, and those are the things that reiterate those values, so that people feel cared for. I think the more people feel cared for have joy in their work, the better their performance, the longer their tenure. And in so that just, eventually, ends up to the bottom line. And what we found is these six layers don't directly translate to a P&L, they don't show up in a P&L in the traditional sense of like, here's a line item for the Christmas party. It's these things, working together, add tremendous value to your brand.
Because your employees are now acting on brand, they're able to make better decisions, we're keeping in front of them, the values, the purpose, the key types of decisions that they need to be making, and in doing so, that they actually do that, they start acting out and making decisions as owners and as stewards of the brand.
TED VAUGHN:
In some ways, culture is difficult to do a one-to-one correlation. It's like asking the question, I need to measure how much water goes into growing my grass. So my grass has grown across the board by this percentage because of this much water. Nobody does, that nobody could do that, it's not possible. But you know if you don't do this, it will impact whatever you've planted. So culture is soil work, and soil work is often messy, but so important to the above-ground growth. And if you don't tend to the soil, you're not going to get stuff above the ground that you want.
SKOT WALDRON:
Wow, that was good. That was so good. I love that. The thing that's great about what you're doing, and I'll just speak from the agency side, is that there aren't a lot of agencies' staff that goes to MBA schools or even leadership. They don't get their MBA and go into business and do all these other things. There's a few that are out there, that have done that, but a lot of them go from the trade into this field. And what's great about what you're doing in the agency world, everybody does, as leaders, is that you are being the example, you are developing, intentionally or accidentally, intentional or accidental, you're developing your people and teaching them to become leaders through healthy behaviors or poor behaviors.
They are, one day... I don't know if you guys anticipate your people staying with you for the next 20 years, or whatever, but they're probably going to branch out, they're probably going to either start throwing thing at some point. Some may stay as staff members, but they're going to, one day, lead. And do you want them to lead through having had a good example or a bad example? So your multiplication of that health that you're teaching them right now is doing everybody a ton of good.
MARK MILLER:
Yeah. Again, people-centered stewardship of our people is really important at our agency. So we want people to come in and grow, we want to be good stewards of just not resources, but of people. And so when people leave Historic, they're better off. And so we've had people come in as entry level and leave to go be managers at tech startups, product managers at SaaS startups, and lead in a bunch of different contexts. And so we've started to grow this reputation of, if you want to actually succeed in your career and grow, and get to the next level, you'll learn a lot at Historic. And so people have started accepting jobs, just purely because they know they'll learn it, which is another employee branding model.
TED VAUGHN:
I was actually helping the CEO of one of our clients called the Streetlights, he asked me just, "Hey, I have to leave this executive retreat, and I want to ask a couple of questions. What's a good question?" So I came up with this question, hey, who's... when you think back about your entire working life, who are the leaders that have had the most positive impact, and why? Who are the leaders who have had the most negative impact? And the CEO said, "I actually can't remember any leader that I've been under or worked with that had a... All the things I've taken away from them have been negative. So I don't even know how I would answer that." And he's like, "That's probably why I became a leader and screwed up for the first 25 years."
And I think it's true. I think input output. I think when it comes to leadership, if you haven't been able to sit under be alongside good leaders, it's really hard to know what good leadership looks like. So I think that's why we're so committed to modeling it, because we want people to have that experience. I was on staff at a place where I had some amazing people. And as soon as I left that place, all I talked about were all the things we did, and I realized, shortly after, actually the legacy, because most of those things have unwound. The legacy or the people.
My direct reports have all gone on to do amazing things that are way beyond what they were doing at the time, and that is what matters. And all of them are in contact with me, and I think reflect aspects of my leadership to them and their leadership today. And I think that is the type of legacy that you should seek to have, no matter how large, successful, profitable your organization gets.
MARK MILLER:
Yeah. And to model that, we don't get everything perfect, we're far from perfect. But one thing I do as I... So I onboard every new employee, and I walk them through what I called my user guide, which is a PowerPoint deck or keynote deck of my default operating mode as a leader, good and bad. So here are all the bad things, here are all the good things, and I'm giving you permission and setting the expectation that you speak into the things like, I can be hands-on when you need help to... Something is happening really quickly, and you need you to help, I can help you. Sometimes things don't need to move really quickly. But I like to see things move really quickly, so then I still am hands-on, when I shouldn't be. So things like that.
And then I set that expectation. And then in my one-on-ones, I also set the expectation that you're going to give me feedback, and I'm going to give you feedback. And if you don't come to the table with feedback for me, then that's going to be a problem. And sometimes I'll hijack the one-on-one, and just make it about feedback to me, and not give feedback to the employee, to make sure that they understand that there's a real expectation, so that we can grow as leaders. And so as we grow as leaders, then our people are growing, that kind of thing.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's fantastic. And it is that legacy, because it is... It's the investment in people that we're all making. And that's why I talk about, on the show, calling it Unlocked, it's about unlocking the potential of people. If we can do that, the work will take care of itself. We've got to have talent, we've got to have good work, we've got to have training programs, and developing skills and whatnot. But really, if we develop... unlock that potential first, of those people, that is going to be able to unlock our organizations as we move forward. And that's where-
TED VAUGHN:
Right.
SKOT WALDRON:
... the premise of all this is all about. And it's not that I'm going to remember... And my Angelou said this. People don't remember what you said or what you did, but they'll always remember how you made them feel. And it's all about that... yeah, that project. Remember that great project we worked on years ago? Yeah. But the legacy that Ted left with me has had more of an impact on me as a person than that project will ever have.
TED VAUGHN:
Well, and the irony is that most of those projects that I was super stoked on have all crumbled, unwound, or failed. So-
SKOT WALDRON:
Exactly.
TED VAUGHN:
... ironically [crosstalk 00:37:44] the projects... Yeah. It's like, oh, well, all that stuff doesn't exist. Like, oh, I built the television program from the [inaudible 00:37:49], and I had no idea how to do that. It lasted three years. So now what? Oh, but the people... I think it was a convicting moment for me, because you realized, right, it keeps going back to the people, the people, the people.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's right. So Culture Built my Brand, brilliant, I love it, I love the title, I'm excited to get my hands on it. By the time this show launches, your book will be out, and people can get that on Amazon, I'm assuming. Anywhere else, y'all want to plug in?
TED VAUGHN:
Well, you can go to culturebuiltmybrand.com, just one word, no spaces, no hyphens, culturebuiltmybrand.com, and learn more about the book, pre-order. There is a launch team for another 10 days, so pre-launch, and Amazon. And then our agency is historicagency.com, and then you can follow me at Ted Vaughn, T-E-D V-A-U-G-H-N on all the social channels.
MARK MILLER:
And I'm on LinkedIn at Michael Miller. So-
SKOT WALDRON:
very cool.
MARK MILLER:
... yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
Guys, this has been awesome. I love talking brand, I love talking leadership, and I love talking about both of them more. So the way that they are married is so, so integral, and it took me a long time to realize that. So kudos to you for making this such a central part of what you do, and helping organizations become healthy, and hopefully remain healthy in the future. So well done.
TED VAUGHN:
Thank you, Skot.
MARK MILLER:
Thanks.
TED VAUGHN:
Thanks for having us.
SKOT WALDRON:
I love what Ted was talking about, that culture is that soil, the thing that we see over time, that we foster, that creates the grass that we want. And just expecting quick return on that investment is not realistic. It's something that happens over time, and it's something that we nurture over time. Now, going back to the six things that we need to concentrate on, number one, those values. And I also love how Mark was talking about the actionable side of the values. A lot of companies will just put the values out there. But how do we put each value into action? And I encourage a lot of clients to focus on one value per month, take that value, and how are you going to display that value? How are you going to put that value into action for that month? Just an exercise, just an idea, but something you can take with you. So that's number one, values.
Number two is that architecture, and the structure that goes around that organization. Number three, rituals, creating healthy rituals, good rituals that foster... that help build off of those values, but that foster goodwill, and a healthy culture. Lore, those stories, that's number four. What stories are repeated? Are they good stories? Are they not really good stories? What are the stories that surround the culture that you're trying to build? Number five, consistent, steady vocabulary that everybody can use, that's sticky, that is there for the long haul. That we all get what it means. We can use it, and we understand it, and we can build each other up with that vocabulary.
And then lastly, is artifacts. Wat are we using... What are we using, and what are we producing, in order to help us remember and to bring to the attention of us, internally, but even externally, with customers and clients, those things that are reinforcing what we're all about as a culture as a company, and ultimately, building that brand that we all want and desire?
So I am super grateful for Ted and Mark, and for their insights, and for being on the show. So good luck, guys, on the launch of the new book. And if you want to find out more about me, you can go to skotwaldron.com, I've got a lot of videos, I've got a lot of free resources there, some assessments you can take to evaluate your own culture and leadership style. And if you want to go to YouTube, that's where you can like and subscribe and comment on these videos. I've got a lot of free resources there, as well. So find me on LinkedIn, we'll connect. And until next time, I'll see you on another episode of Unlocked.
Want to make your culture and team invincible?
You can create a culture of empowerment and liberation through better communication and alignment. We call these invincible teams. Make your team invincible through a data-driven approach that is used by Google, the CDC, the Air Force, Pfizer, and Chick-fil-A. Click here or the image below to learn more.
