Executive Podcast #259: A Leader’s Recipe for Retaining Top Talent

Perry Holley:

Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. Hi, I’m Perry Holley, a Maxwell leadership, facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:

And I’m Chris Goede, executive vice president with Maxwell Leadership. Welcome and thank you for joining. Today we’re going to talk about retention. Boy, this is something that comes up probably right next to communication when we talk to leaders and organizations around the world. We’re going to talk a little bit about that. Before I give you the topic and the title, I want to encourage you to go to Maxwellleadership.com/Podcasts and there click on this episode. And under this episode, at the bottom there, you’ll see a form that you can fill out. Perry’s always looking for new ideas, new challenges to write up a podcast and help our listeners. Also, I want to encourage you, if you’re interested in a new development that we have called Influential selling, to fill out that form. It’s an exciting new opportunity for us to help with a methodology, with a common language that’s tied to influence around sales. If you have a sales team, we would love to help partner and develop them in that way. So fill out the form, let the team know that, and they will follow back up. Well, today’s topic, the full title is a leader’s Recipe for retaining top talent. This is something that no matter how good of a leader you are, we are going to lose people at times. It happens here at Maxwell Leadership. It is just part of the course. However, we should always strive to be the kind of leader that people want to follow, no matter if they step away or not. And so I know this comes up a lot in the coaching work that you do, and some of our executives do talk a little bit about just the importance of this from a leader’s perspective.

Perry Holley:

Yeah, I’ve had two different coaching clients in the last month come to their individual calls, and both of them lost a key person on their team, lost top talent. One told me that I reviewed the person, received an opportunity at another establishment, and I looked at it and I thought it really was a good move for them. And though I hate to lose this person, I really can’t stand in the way of their advancement, and it’s going to hurt us, but it’s going to be good for that person. And we really couldn’t offer them that, and I think it’s good for them. The second one came to the call and said, I just lost one of my top people, and I wish I had done so many things differently. They left. They say it’s because of a little more money, but a little more this, a little more that. I go, well, what happened and I wish I had was the dot, dot, dot is where I start to what do we need to do to give ourselves the best chance of retaining our top people? Even though there are going to be times, like you said, when people get a better opportunity and you want to support them in that, is that for you to grow and you need to go someplace else, I’ll support that, but I want to have the first shot at keeping you here.

Chris Goede:

Yeah. Hello.

John Maxwell:

This is John C. Maxwell. I’ve been teaching leadership for over 40 years. We’re gathering in Atlanta for our 10th Live to Lead Leadership Conference Friday, October the 6th, and I want to personally invite you to join us. Live to Lead is about empowering you to live out leadership, not just learn it. World class leaders Kendra Scott and Marcus Buckingham and Ryan Lee will be joining me to impart wisdom, inspire change, and help you lead more effectively. Hey, bring your team. Groups of ten or more receive a significant discount. So let’s grow together. Because leadership isn’t a solo journey. It’s best experienced in community with others. Visit Livetolead.com today and let’s make leadership a lived experience.

Chris Goede:

That reminds me of something that John has said several times in the past, that where there are two different types of people that come and tell you that story. Right. They’re the ones. And it sounds like from this coaching call, both of these situations were in this category where they go, oh, man, no. Right. And then the other one, well, I’ll let you fill in that blank. Right. It’s like, all right, we didn’t have to make that.

Perry Holley:

Usually say, are you keeping the people you want to keep and losing the people you want to go? Not flipping that around. That’s right.

Chris Goede:

So no matter what the reasons are that they do leave, man we want to encourage you to make sure that you’re doing an after action review, an AAR, to learn why they left. Like, have those conversations. It will make you a better perry said, you know, if it’s for a better opportunity, then I want to know why it’s like I want to encourage them. I’m going to throw in a little comment here, too. Where around Maxwell leadership, one of the things Mark Cole, our CEO, encourages us to do is to be in such communication with those that directly report to us to understand early on what they’re thinking, what are their goals, what are their ambitions, what are the other opportunities that may be out there? And to walk that road with them and kind of coach them so that when they do make this decision, you’re not surprised by it and it makes sense, but maybe you are surprised by it. You need to know why it’s a better opportunity for them. Maybe they’re leaving because the compensation is just a little bit better. It’s for more money. And so I’d want to know and have questions around that, because people rarely leave just for compensation. Now, it’s part of it, or at least people say that it’s part of it, but it’s not the main reason why people leave. And so, matter of fact, according to a survey that was in Forbes magazine, the top reasons why people may want to leave your company. Here are the top five toxic culture. 62% of them that answered said, it’s a culture why I’m leaving. The second one was low salary at 59%. The third one was poor management or leadership at 56%. And then a lack of healthy work life, not balance. Boundaries. Okay, boundaries. And then the fifth one they listed there was and this wouldn’t have been.

Perry Holley:

On the list a couple of years ago.

Chris Goede:

Crazy when I saw that not allowing remote work, they’re like, I’m out of here. It’s become a big deal, right? Even the kind of blended side of it. So we just want to encourage you as that happens, and you have that experience. Let’s learn from it. Let’s evaluate it.

Perry Holley:

Yeah. So I ask people, what are you being told why people are leaving? The answer, they tell you, is generally money related. But when the exit interviews are done by professional firms, money is generally rated number four, number five, and number one is really where you’re going is around the culture. But really a high up there is, I didn’t feel valued for what I do here. And so when people don’t feel valued, money becomes more of an obstacle. Now, if your money is if somebody says they’re leaving for money, and you look at the situation and say, yes, we have a compensation problem. We are not keeping up with the industry or the market, whatever, you need to fix that. Of course, and most companies would easily fix that, that’s not an issue. But if most people are not going to leave for an extra couple of bucks, if they feel highly valued, relevant, needed, and known, they’re going to stay. So when I hear these things, I think, what is the recipe? So I’ll start off with number one on how I see the recipe was taking full responsibility for your relationship with others. You just mentioned Mark’s instruction to the leadership team is to stay close, have those relationships. It obviously means the people that report directly to you, but it also could be people that report to people who report to you. So if you’re a leader of leaders, you need to take that initiative. And let me just say, leaders initiate these relationships. Don’t be sitting in your office waiting for people to come see you initiate those relationships. The biggest problem I see is leaders get so busy, they lose touch. And not purposely. It’s not intentionally. It’s just I haven’t talked to Chris in two weeks. Oh, my gosh, what’s going on? And so initiate those relationships and take responsibility for those relationships.

Chris Goede:

That’s good. All right. The second one is you must put a high value on the people on your team. Do your people know that as a leader, you believe in them? We talk about how, even now more than ever, there’s a huge belief deficit that’s going on in and around our world, and our people need, as a leader, that we believe in them. John often says, do you put a tent on their head and then let them subtract from that? Right? Do you have that type of belief? And so I think the question here that you need to ask yourself is, how do I show others that I do value them? What does that look like? And what you need to be aware of that. That’s a great little statement. Okay, great. How do I show Perry that I value them? How do I show Jake or our team? But remember, we talk about that. Everybody needs to be led a little bit differently, right? They need to be led how they liked it and need to be led. And so how you show value is going to be different for each one of your team members. So be aware of just just have a blanket statement of the fact that I want to make sure I put a high value on everybody on my team. You need to do it a little bit differently for each person.

Perry Holley:

I was thinking about that for myself. Anybody listening can do that. What makes you feel valued? And I thought, what makes me feel valued? And I see you have a pen. You may want to write this down. Yeah, I was going to catch a note here. I love that I’ll go slow for you. I feel valued when I feel like my work matters to you, to others. I feel value when I’m doing something important to the mission of the team. I feel value when I’m respected for the work and respected for who I am. I feel value when I feel like my leader is trying to help me, when my leader is trying to care for me. When my leader is building trust with me, my leader seeks my input. These are things that make me feel like I feel valued here. And it really starts to make me want to be around. Who would want to leave when I’m feeling that good about for a couple of bucks? I don’t know.

Chris Goede:

Right.

Perry Holley:

Number I guess be number three. The next component of the recipe is make credibility a focus of your personal development. You the leader, your personal development. How do you make credibility part of your personal development, do you think?

Chris Goede:

Well, I think the two things that come to my mind when you ask that question is credibility is really all about your character. Right. But then also your competency leaders need to know what their teams are doing and have some type of competency around that for you to have credibility, and then you have to have the character. You have to be able to live out what you say you’re going to live out in order to have that credibility. And so you always need to be growing. You always need to be looking for ways to increase and become more competent as a leader and as a leader of your team, of your specific niche, of your business, whatever that might look like. You also need to continue to develop your character, and I think that is back to improving your consistency. Again, we mentioned this on our podcast last week, which, by the way, if you didn’t listen, I encourage you go back and listen to it about the values as a leader and how important that is. But we want to make sure that when you develop trust with other people, you understand it is highly dependent on how they experience you, and they will build trust when they experience you, and that becomes consistent. Well, this leads us to the fourth one that we want to share a recipe for retaining talent, and that is remain. Or maybe for some of us, leaders become, but we’ll use the word remain teachable. Why would being teachable help us retain some of our top talent?

Perry Holley:

Man it’s one of my favorite words, and I think that teachableness can be a leader superpower. I think that it’s a form of humility that expresses itself by not thinking, I know everything. And when you work for a teachable leader, you feel valued because they seek your input. They learn from you. They’re open to learning from you. I think if you combine this teachableness with something we talked about a few weeks ago on the miracle skill of curiosity. If I’m curious and I’m teachable, then I’m probably going to provide an environment where others feel they can grow and learn. Just a good formula for retaining talent, where we have a growth mindset on our team and nobody’s expected to know it all. But we learn from each other, and I think it adds to the momentum. Feel on your team is that we’re moving in a positive direction and we’re feeding off of each other. But the leader has to set the tone on that. If you’re the leader that says, I have all the answers, you don’t say that. Nobody uses those words. I’ve never heard a leader said, I have all the answers. Nobody does.

Chris Goede:

That right.

Perry Holley:

But they act like they have all the answers by being a little more vulnerable, a little more open, that teachable spirit shows out. You begin to ask questions, you get curious, you learn more things.

Chris Goede:

Love that. The fifth component of our recipe for you today for retaining talent is be inclusive. So I know that you developed a course for us that a lot of organizations have already taken advantage of. I delivered it yesterday around inclusive leadership. I love this. This is great. It’s fresh right off your mind into the studio. And I know that leaders don’t ever purposely go, I’m going to be exclusive today. I’m going to exclude Perry in this decision making process. Right, but what should a leader do? Talk a little bit to our listeners about how they can purposefully be inclusive.

Perry Holley:

Yeah, the way I define it in the class, and we did have a great session yesterday. I’m so excited about how leaders receive this because, like you said, nobody wants to be we talk about diversity, equity and inclusion. And you have this diversity on your team that you’ve done work so hard to build a diverse team, but you’re not inclusive. Makes people feel like they don’t belong, that they have to fit in. And it’s just safer to be more like the leader than it is to be myself. So you lose all that diversity by them assimilating to be like you, then you’ve lost the entire reason you did the diversity part.

Chris Goede:

Right.

Perry Holley:

So I love the definition I use for inclusion is that people feel that they belong, that they’re welcome, they feel safe, and they feel valued. And this feeling of belonging is so incredibly important. It’s a human need that we have to feel that we belong to something. And so when people on your team, if you’re not an inclusive leader, then it is probably the worst thing you can do when it comes to retaining talent, because people will not feel like they belong. They feel like they have to fit in. Belonging. I can be myself fitting in. I need to be what you need me to be. I don’t feel safe, psychologically safe. I don’t feel like I can say things to you, so I just hold it to myself. I salute and stay mute. I don’t feel that I’m very welcome here. I just feel like an outsider, not an insider. And this whole idea of valued we were just talking about that. How do you make somebody feel valued that they’ll most likely want to be a part of something you’re doing if you value them for what they are? So inclusive to me, covers a lot of stuff, but it is such an important thing. And you’re not excluding on purpose. You’re doing it by being busy, not paying attention, not initiating, not building relationships, not talking to people, not asking their opinion. You’re doing it because of the drive of business, not because of personality flaw, I don’t think.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, no, you just get so busy that you forget about the most important part about leading, which is the people. And I do think you want to avoid favoritism. I think you want to be collaborative on some of the decision making. Now, listen, as a leader, you have to make the final decision. It’s your responsibility. But, man, they want to give their input. They want their voice to be heard. And so we need to listen to their ideas. And so as I wrap up today, a couple of thoughts for you people. Join our team. Top talent or not, they join our team for one reason. There’s something that grabbed them that they’re like, man, I want to be a part of this. Now, there might be a couple of other ones, but there’s a main one I want to be a part of. This is what my calling is, and this is what the next opportunity is. But they don’t stay for that same reason over time. And I think if you want to retain your top talent, retain talent, period. You go back over the things that we listed here in the five areas. These are ways for you to continue to add value to them. For them to want to stay, you have to continue to develop additional reasons to be able to retain them and add value to them so that they go, you know what? For a couple bucks, to your point, I’m not going to jump over here across the street because of everything that’s encompassing around this. My last point here is, man, Perry talked about he was doing it yesterday. For an organization, Inclusive Leadership is a tremendous course that we offer that Perry created that will walk you through what it looks like. We have diverse teams. Do we need more diversity? Absolutely. I think leaders need to even double down or it’s even more important for them to understand how to inclusively lead their team. And so I just want to encourage you as you listen to this, if you go, man, that’s something that I need as a leader or my team does. To go to our website, Maxleadership.com podcast, click on this podcast, and then in that form, just fill that out and let us know you want to learn more about Inclusive Leadership.

Perry Holley:

Fantastic. Well, thank you. And as Chris said, that website is available for you to leave a comment, a question, look at our other offerings, and look at our family of podcasts that are there. I hope you’ll take an opportunity to do that. Leave us a comment or a question. We love hearing from you, and we’re very grateful you’d spend this time with us. That’s all today from the Maxwell Leadership executive podcast.