The Purpose of Employee Development

And so we're gonna be diving into a lot of content with, with Christine and some of the great initiatives Go Studio has going on right now. So that, Christina , thank you so much for joining.

But anyway , um, I am , I'm her number two person. Uh , I'm really over business operations, so that includes hr , um, ing to our IT group , um, operations, finance. That's pretty much, those are kind of the four buckets. Any , uh, external vendors as well. But that's the majority of it.

Um, and also it's, it's basically my whole, my whole charter, you know, in this, sitting in this seat as their inaugural chief of staff is to double our president's capacity and kind of get to do and kind of push initiatives that she otherwise in any, really, any president otherwise just wouldn't have the bandwidth to tackle and, you know, really dig into.

Um, so whether that is , uh, rewriting job descriptions, tweaking, offer letters, sitting in on all of our performance annual reviews , um, tweaking those documents.

Um, strategic financial analysis , um, updating our, our monthly profit plan, billable utilization reports , um, preparing and sitting in, in our monthly partner meetings , uh, could liaising with our bookkeeper, accounts receivable, accounts payable, collections calls, , you name it, negotiating contracts. Wow .

You know, reviewing , uh, invoices every month, making sure that we're paying for what we need, not, you know, and nothing that we don't need. Um, and then also some culture building stuff. It's really, you know, kind of being like the eyes and ears of , um, of the organization. Mm-Hmm . .

And then kind of , um, helping facilitate some communication channel and flow, communication flow to our president, and then cascading some messages on her behalf, sometimes on her behalf or in , um, in collaboration with her. So it's kind of , you know, trusted advisor, BizOps, you know, I the dishwasher occasionally. I mean, it really is just a whole mixed bag.

And that's kind of what being a chief of staff is, especially in a smaller organization like ours. You know, we're 12 people, you know , um, so, you know, we're, we're small but mighty and growing. Um , but yeah, that's kind of, you know, it's a little bit of everything.

And so what I'd like to find out is, so what is the, what is the genesis behind Grow You and what was the driver behind actually starting the program? And where I'd like to find out a little bit more as we talk about where you are today with the program.

Um, and so we, we learned a whole bunch of stuff within one year, but really it's like a, it , it's a $40,000 tuition, you know, kind of like a, a souped up , you know, MBA , but also like psychology and teamwork dynamics. It's just a whole bunch of, a whole bunch, you know, as a rich , um, rich , um, ongoing professional development for, for executives. Anyway, so she went through it a handful of years ago.

I graduated in it , um, in 20, she went through about 10 years ago. I graduated about four years ago. And so we're at the annual reunion in December. Mm-Hmm. and was at the reunion. I think she and I both like independently sitting next to each other at the same time. We were, we were like, we wanna bring, we wanna bring the Stagen experience and the professional development to go studio. How can we best do that?

Hmm . And we thought, well, this would be something that we'd have to prepare and, and roll out and pilot, like at , you know, we can do that. Like within the next , you know, we'll target 12, maybe like, you know, December next year we might be able to do this.

We put together a boilerplate curriculum, and actually we, we work closely with , um, with our coach at Stagen who Sagan has a, like internal plug and play 13 week container, kind of the best of the one year program that's meant specifically for , um, graduates like us who go through Stagen , that we can take it into our internal companies and facilitate it , um, for our, for our people.

So they already have a curriculum. So , um, they were gracious enough to, you know, to basically let us, let us borrow that. We already had some , um, some facilitators, guides and like participant workbooks. So we just, we took that in and , uh, we brought it into Go Studio under the banner of Grow You like Letter U as in like, you know, university.

And , um, so we started that, that intensive leadership program, and we launched it in January, just one month after she and I were at the even thinking, wouldn't it be great to do this? Hmm . So we launched that 13 week program , um, as just one of two tracks within Grow You .

So that was one, the, the kind of like the , the internal stake in program that she and I were very familiar with that we bridged and, and brought internally , uh, that was for everyone, like as an , you know, all, all hands track for professional and personal development. And then we had another track more specifically geared towards our project managers.

So that was like a, a mid-level manager track where we went over , um, more like teamwork dynamics. So stuff like how to have an uncomfortable conversation, like the right way. Like we teach a formula on how to do that , um, and then some other things about, you know, how to kind of, how to hold space as a leader. So that was, that was the idea and kind of how we launched Grow You.

Like how, when we're like really in like grindhouse like work mode and we were just, you know, where it's just times suck and like how to, how to mitigate times of which we're wasting time and like, reinvest that time into restorative and like, and like actual productive time. Um, we also teach something called the Drama Triangle, which is made popular in the book, the Power of Ted.

Um, that's where we teach the triangle of like, of victim challenger, hold on. No , no , no. It's victim Persecutor . Rescuer. And then we flip it and we teach the empowerment dynamic , which is creator, challenger, and coach. So , um, interest , there's a lot of like recovery type language and concepts in there too.

But really it's just about, you know, flip changing our, our perspective and our mindset about how can we turn a problem into an opportunity? How can we see this as I'm the creator of my story and getting outta a situation, I'm not just a, a a victim here. Mm-Hmm . Um, et cetera.

We also go into conscious communication, like telling ourselves stories , um, also teach active listening , um, and you know, how to listen with the intent to understand, not just to thinking about what we're gonna say next. Mm-Hmm . . Um , we do a lot of , uh, practicum and practice. Like we , a lot of like learning and then practicum thereafter. Mm-Hmm . .

Um, and then also we , we teach a lot of committed actions, you know, like personal accountability, you know, what, by where or what by when, period, you know, and like are , do what you say you're gonna do when you say you're gonna do it, and that's it, you know? Um, and then other attention management practices. So , um, just ways in which to kind of, you know, how we can hack our schedule.

Like whether it's time blocking or , um, just other ways in which we catch ourselves, telling ourselves stories , um, jumping to conclusions maybe a bit prematurely, you know, just kind of the psychology of just kind of how we work, but then how we can maybe, you know, assess how, how sometimes where we're, you know , where we're part of the problem, like what's my part in something, you know?

Um, and then yeah, we do a lot of, you know, and then we, we do a lot of time practicing all of that, the attention management, conscious communication, active listening and committed actions. And so we do all of that within 13 weeks. So we spent the first half of it teaching these things. And we do a lot of like partner role play .

The second half of the class is we revisit those and we do really do a whole lot of practicum. And at the end of it, at the end of 13 weeks, we do commencement. And so we just had, we had our commencement at our July, our end of July annual company retreat. And so we had certificates, everyone got , um, like, got an award for something that they had done during the, during the term.

Um, and of course we had fun trophies, so they were totally goofy and totally obnoxious, but, you know, you must have fun trophies,

And this was just, this goes into that, you know, this goes into our culture and our core values of Mm-Hmm . like of , um, go Jo . You know, like our place is special and it's kind of, it's really unique and all in, like even when we , we bring our best, even if our best looks different from day to day , but like, we still, we still do it together.

Um, and connected is one of our core values, you know, not just to each other, but to our work and to our clients and our vendors and our community. And like the Dallas commercial real estate community as a whole, even Mm-Hmm. .

So that's, we figured that, that grow you and this program of, you know, professional development built on the foundation of personal development just totally dovetails and , and blends in really nicely with all that.

And let me ask, so I'm gonna rephrase the question just slightly given what you just said, but how does your, so how would you say, because of course the, the interior design community here, it's, it's very , it is quite competitive. So how would you say that Go studio, how do you say this program has really helped to differentiate because , you know, really strengthen your culture.

How do you , how do you think it, from a cultural perspective, how do you think it really has helped you in Differe rating yourself from the competition?

You know, whether it's you go out externally to, you know, and you pay , you pay for this with training externally, is it , there's, it's can be costly and it's , of course it's costly. These are expensive meetings when you've got like 10, 12 people around a table for an hour for a lunch and learn.

I mean, you know, take billable rates, times all that, that's like, it cost the company somewhere in the ballpark of like $1,300 to have us all there. Right. That we could otherwise be billing. So, but we made the intentional decision to choose to invest in our people and our company, you know, not only is a, you know, it's a potentially retention strategy.

I mean, we've hired a couple, we've had, you know , I don't know, we've, we've hired , we've hired a couple, like two or three people come in since we started that. Um, and they, they came in like, you know, kind of midway through. Um, but that was a value to them.

And I wouldn't say that we've, I wouldn't, I'm not sure honestly how much of the re like, like how much people would be coming to work here because of it. Granted also, this is, this was our first, this is like our pilot run, you know ? Mm-Hmm. . So we, we just started it.

We've had one commencement class , um, and, and we figured we're gonna, we're gonna keep it going, but, and we could , we could see this taking shape in the same format, you know, maybe once every couple years or something like that. We can kind of graduate another, you know, class of new hires that come in right . In the interim. Um, but in the, the next iteration of it is gonna be , um, trade-based training.

So, and we've, we've already started hacking that out, so it's gonna be formalized curriculum as well, led by Breta, our studio design president. We figured there's no better person to do this as our primary corporate trainer than her.

Um, and so we, we are just like, in real time , we are putting together that plan and dispersing her workload to the other project managers , um, so that she is not responsible for any client work, which will be a first for her in her career. Mm-Hmm .

So it's a big, this is a big sea change , um, to , but it's important to her and to all of us that she can impart her wisdom as a wonderful designer, mentor and teacher to not only our junior designers who are responsible for production, but then also to lean into and mentor our project managers. 'cause they need her too .

And now she can be really somewhat intentional about starting to work on the business and doing some strategic and really helping from that perspective around doing the professional development on the technical side of design.

Um, interestingly enough, 'cause it's funny 'cause my daughter works for a design for , she works for a architectural firm, so I kind of understand, she's a designer, so I kind of understand where , um, a a little bit of what she does.

And so I have a , so I have a little bit of a better appreciation for the, the , the technical side of what your firm does, because there's so much technology and computer work that has to happen to come up with this, all this, this beautiful space doesn't just happened by accident, by by sitting there and people thinking about things.

Like interior design is basically, it's kind of like a, it's kind of not too dissimilar from being like the interior architect for , you know , for the building, like inside the walls. Um, you know, it is licensed and there's, you get to renew your license every year and all that. Um, but there's lots of codes and just company standards and clients have their design standards.

There's just so many rules and something else that, that we're, that we're kind of trying to, that we're challenging ourselves to get better at is, and part of the training is, is teaching critical thinking. Like, you know, thinking beyond the template. Right. Right.

And which can be hard because like, we live in a red line world, you know, there's, we're a highly critical industry because we have to be by design, you know , there's lots of peer review, you get a lot of scratch outs and you know, like literally redlining your work. And, you know, I think it's building people to, to be thick skinned.

And also it's just, it's highly critical and like, you know, it's uncomfortable and no one likes having their work criticized. Right . Especially in front of their peers. But you've gotta , and so it, it could be potentially stifling to think, right . To teach critical thinking.

'cause like , I don't, I don't wanna veer fear , you know, far off from, from from camp here, but I don't wanna, I don't wanna, you know, get, get blasted for this. But, you know, there is also, there's opportunity for us to teach that critical thinking and, and to think, okay, there's lots of different interpretations for building a space plan.

And like, if you've got four different designers who would be doing it, you'll have four different designs, and they're all right and they all make code , but they'll look different, you know?

What are you gonna be doing in maybe changing your messaging and marketing, your markets marketing persona around using this as a recruitment strategy around investing in your people so heavily when you are a firm that's, that's rather small, but you're, you've probably got lines of sight on significant growth.

Now we wanna try to reduce that, but we wanna make sure that we're, we're , we meet our commitments and that the designs are of highest quality. Right. Um, and so continuing to do that as well as teaching training, equipping our people to be the best designers they can be, you know, to meet high quality standards to be, and ultimately, I, I envision us being the employer of choice in our industry Mm-Hmm .

Of office tenant development in North Texas. And I think that, I think that grow you is, is a, is a wonderful arrow in our quiver to help with that.

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So when you think about what are some of the things you do to reinforce the , reinforce the culture you have within the organization, and where do you really start from a company that doesn't have a , a really good culture like you do?

and companies have a culture, whether they realize it or not, whether the leaders realize it or not, the culture exists. And, you know, there's a, there's a quote from R Stagen who runs the Stagen into the leadership program here in town. He says, leaders get the company they deserve, or leaders, leaders get the company they deserve. That's great.

And it kind of , you know, if , if you've got, if you have kind of a lackluster culture, you know, if you're unhappy with the company you have, that can kind of sting. But also it's, you know, perhaps another way to say it is wherever the leader is, so goes the company. Mm-Hmm .

So, but given your background, so in your experience level, in mid, mid market , maybe lower middle market size companies, how well do companies that are, I'll just say a hundred people and less, how well do they really do about creating an intentional culture?

And that that founder and the ultimate, the leader who, you know, either grew up at the company or has been with it for a while , um, we can also start and stop things and kind of pilot stuff and, you know, we can, you can strike up ad hoc committees or like grow you for instance. I mean we, we piloted it for the first time earlier this year and it was good, but we're already gonna making some tweaks with it.

Um, we can, you know, we can pivot quickly and easily and just kind of like do a litmus test of, of what's working and how we would change things. It's much harder with a lot of bureaucracy to, to make quick and agile changes like that.

But with a small organization, it's, you know, we're, it, so I think the under the under a hundred employee size has a real advantage over setting and maintaining , um, and tracking culture changes for everyone.

because a speedboat, you know, very quick agile, speed up speed, you know, slow down , be able to move very quickly.

Whereas a super tanker , it's , um, I used to, I grew up on Lake Superior, actually the northern shore of Lake Superior and the , and the, the, the ocean going cargo vessels that came in, they would actually stop their engines at 10 miles away from the port because they had so much momentum to bring them into the port that they actually usually then when they got closer, they had to start reversing the engines to

slow them down a little bit further. But it just shows you, especially if they're carrying a full load of cargo, just that momentum. And it's so hard to change a Fortune 500 company. That's why some of them really struggle, especially when there's, when they have to make that paradigm shift and they do need to pivot off of their core strategy because it's really difficult for them to do.

So that's kind of a fascinating con uh , concept. So, so back to grow you , just real quick, how are you going to be doing anything intentional about kind of trying to position yourself as an employer of choice? Because you do have a program like Grow You ?

Um, we are , we've very much care about continuous improvement and we walk that talk , um, as I mentioned, I mean, it's not, it's, it's not nothing expense-wise to produce this kind of a , this kind of a program. Um, but we find it's, it's important and it pays for itself.

Um, I mean, not only does it show and model that leadership, I mean, Beretta and I produce this thing and like we're sitting shoulder to shoulder in the classes. I mean, Beretta, our studio design president and our founder, she, she came to the vast majority of the meetings like of the, of the Grow You session. So it's not just a mandate from, from the CEO suite Mm-Hmm .

And like everyone, you know, do for the , but not for me. I mean, she is, she's in the rooms with us too. So , um, she, she acts like a peer in that regard. So I think that that's, that's attractive, you know, that's attractive for , um, for potential employees and for current team members.

And we've got a really, we've got a really tight crew here, so it's definitely been part of this , part of the culture building.

If they were looking to create a program and their respective company industry around something similar to grow you , where do you think the logical place would be to start from?

What kind of a product do we wanna give? Um, what's the purpose of, of starting a program like this? And I think that people see the value of professional development in , in any form it takes, right ? As what , you know, just the , the spirit of continuous improvement.

Um, I , you know, as a Christian, I see it as anything I can do to help, to help mold someone and help fashion someone to become more of the person they were created to be is a natural byproduct of, of professional development. Right.

Um, just kind of like living, living self more fully , um, and all , you know, and full expression of self, you know, and maximizing strengths and understanding how to , um, you know, how to manage our shadow side. Um , and just having awareness. So I would say for, for senior leaders who are looking to start just understanding really what do we want to solve for?

Or what do we want, you know, what's our desired outcome? Mm-Hmm. , if this is , you know, provided this is successful, provided this is successful, what's the desired outcome we want from this? Right. If you can answer that and let in one sentence, like one blurb Mm-Hmm . , then let that be your North Star and just build it out from there and keep it simple.

I mean, it's, especially when it's a pilot, keep it simple.

So any, any final thoughts before I ask you a couple, a couple kind of fun questions about yourself?

So Outlive was wonderful. Um, and then , uh, hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance.

, I've said this so many times to people recently. Um, . Oh, crud. , yeah . Um, he, he also believes in the , um, oh, like maximizing the human experience. Oh , okay . And I'm , I'm a , I'm a big fan of that too.

And then , um, a couple of my buddies have a, a Christian podcast , um, for Christian men called the Beata Dudes. Um, but I'm, I'm in a small but growing faction of women that also listen to it and enjoy it. It's a , um, interview podcast, and they