right so we talk about what's next which countess drives a conversation about how do we get here and when we think about how we got here sometimes you wonder like how did we get here right that this is this should never work sometimes we think we don't get it it was a tax walk but one of the things that we both agree was vital to the success we've had is this place meeting west michigan the things it has to offer this can unity and in that community are a lot of really incredible examples that we have to follow and jeff and his company are one of those we've had the opportunity to work together for a number of years and we've really learned a lot from watching that and other companies we've learned things like build the culture get out of the way which is what we're trying to do so without keep it short and sweet i know we've got plenty of marketing materials all over the place and it does a better job talking about the company probably than i do so without thanks to jeff for taking the time to talk to us today and welcome and sixteen is coming up for renewal and typically you would think this would be a non issue or is going to vote yes and it should be very straightforward but the issue that we're facing this year is that this is the first time these residents are now voting as a district instead of independent jurisdictions and so the milage does not pass on august to then the her district library if you come to know it will cease to exist when the public policy committee studied this and when the chamber board studied this we felt that a vibrant community absolutely has to have a thriving public out grab or check out yes h t m l dot com and yes h b o about work same website but will give you some information about the upcoming milledge you can request yard signs there and really encourage you to share with everybody that you know about and if you care about the library share with them the importance of august second it's a primary vote on august second to vote yes on supporting the millage for the district library with that thank you so much director by quick math we think there are somewhere between upwards of eight hundred nine hundred graduates and our leadership program i know many of your audience and that has just transformed our community this was a shocker to me as we started thinking about how many chamber events he has you know coronated or attended over twenty five years these days a week to two hundred events a year it wasn't that big back when we first started but we believe it's probably i don't know if she's ever missed an early bird some two hundred fifty early bird it all started back in one nine hundred ninety nine when jeff fisher has a dream after spending fifteen years in the automotive engineering world just saw an opportunity to provide a highly collaborative am responsible design for if you want to start a company that problem in two thousand the doors broke that the card tables were set up and the first two who plays were ready to roll over the years the team has grown moved into a modern multi use space and often have a second office in the east michigan and twenty fifteen this year was named fortune's twenty one fast small business workplaces in the u s and the fourth bass to giving back in the workplace and i say jeff has a bachelor of science from home college and a master's in mechanical engineering from the university of i'm really passionate about that other than i'm an engineer and maybe we just like to build things but it's a topic that's near and dear to my heart and the topic is changed over the years or over the months back when jane and i were talking about a topic for today i was in the middle of a two month sabbatical from work a corporate sabbatical those are rare and i found that out because most people that heard i was taking a sabbatical fossum what's wrong with me you know so and the so it's changed since then and good because building a great place to work is something that's going to apply to everybody here where sabbaticals i would apply just a few folks and the good thing is topic is pertinent for today is this award this recognition that alina said the twenty first best company to work for what an honor it is to receive that and it's with fortune magazine it's was a survey that we had to fill out sixty some questions every teen teen a had to fill it out and just attribute to our team for the work that they   very helpful and i would encourage you that if you want to focus on your culture to strengthen your culture look at applying this something like this just because regardless of how you all right so bill you're very pleased we're it's all about culture it starts with culture it's the foundation i believe that everybody at the end of the day wants to feel good about where they work and feel good about themselves they want to feel of a matter of the end of the day that they are valued by the organization and when someone is not feeling one of the other they're probably going to be out looking for work different job and so people feel good about where they were and the benefits are that when they do they're going to they're going to be much more energized at work we're going to give you the best work in your customers are going to feel that they're going to sense that and it's  concepts are crossed simply kind of phrases and some chunks of information so each one of these is a i could deep dive into each one of these and spend some time on it but i'll just him briefly as we go and this talk is i prepared it as i wrote these things down i sat back and looked at it and i just stopped it these are some pretty simple concepts i this is not going to be some kind of intellectual conversation here so how do you make it interesting but i think we're going to realize that if you do see these then you're going to identify with each one yeah yeah i've heard that before them before so so that's the background i have i worked at prince for eleven  culture the first one kind of uncommonly i got a lead with grades leaves and grace and grace is uncommon it's i think it's uncommon in the business world because the the drive to make money is so dominant in the business world that we we might forget about being graceful to people and to lead with greece means to start or with grace that the culture foundation has built our grace and more can i do than what's required of me how much more can i do what's required of me my guess is you don't ask yourself that question every day most of us live off this question which is how much can i get away with and still be legal or how much can i get away with and still feel that every one off and so to think about how much more can i do than the obligation it is i think unique and yet it's so critical for  having a thriving culture so i've got two components of corporate grace is what i'm calling it a corporate grace is the first part of three and unmerited favor beyond obligation so it's free it's undeserv think about it and grace of grace is why people are generous and give back to the community right there going to be an obligation they don't need to do that graces might be generally happy for another success without and the grace is why you can work with a difficult person and write their day and you don't have to do them as crazy as why disagreements and contracts can be worked out right a lot of times they might go concept across to our team is through what we call them more than halfway principle and i'm an engineer so this is my only graph that i got to get in the presentation so i'm pretty proud of this one  if you get there report for me i got a report for you oh great have a good day ok see you later and when everybody is having a good day things work out right and we've all been there so the next situation is one person is having a bad day  work with people better so that's the grace aspect and then when both are doing it you get this overlap and both people go more than halfway you get a strong trust and this overlap so that's why more than halfway principle that's how we talk about  organization so grace is not a common i think in the business world and yet by itself it doesn't work that you need to have number nine here which is truth know follow the troops you got grace which allows for truth to be heard for truth to be learned from and truth is what you think it is it's being straightforward with people it's being honest with people both in the critique in the feedback but also in the thanksgiving and praised her people doing great work so it's it's that don't beat around the bush approach to our communication this book is a book that we wrote in our going to station and we had an off site that highlighted this it's fierce conversations and that's one of those phrases around work for us that when we say i had a fierce conversation with somebody we all know what that means it means you had a heart to heart conversation with somebody so if that's something that you are an easy way out of this is having a heart harvest somebody i would recommend getting this book readings are great but one of the quotes in there that a lot of it is there is something deeply or something within us their response deeply to people who level with us and i think we thought that we've had somebody in our lives of been honest with us and straightforward and maybe we didn't want to hear it at the time that we're so thankful that they did and that's so true so this concept of truth is so before and as far as communication within the organization so truth is why you might review financials monthly or quarterly many of you probably do that right you hold yourself accountable to the financial goals of the organization so why you might have a heart to heart with somebody that you know you need to instead of gossiping about them or talking to somebody else about that person it's why you might have meaningful employee evaluations instead of just saying you're great you're great you're great you have some real truthful conversation there and that's why you my short appreciation for someone doing a great job sometimes that gets overlooked i think all of us we find very quickly the things that are wrong with stuff and we focus on th and sometimes we forget to thank the people along the way that are doing just a great job and the last one truth is why you might be transparent with your motives in the workplace i'll touch on that one a little bit a little bit later  but that's why we're truthful and the two working together number ten a number one race and truth are huge is far setting the foundation up for what i think a great culture needs and everything else after that i'm going to talk about your would really carry weight without these two so grace without truth so magine are all crazy but no truth is howard's and tolerance if you get what you tolerate and if you just let something happen and go without any kind of corrective measure that's what you're going to end up with and then truth without grace is higher so they both need to work together all right number eight live your mission so this one of the last one are kind of the classic textbook pieces to culture and workplace everybody you could reciting your organization's mission statement right now maybe half maybe even less and that would be able to do that and partly because a lot of times they're written in paragraphs they're written in these last phrase they send it they just go you can't answer the question why are you in the business and they're extremely focused they're not focused on us and our product is focused on who are we doing this for so hopscotch to help organizations grow those three things they're short of the answer to question why they're actually focused our mission statement is make a positive difference it's short we you see the picture there on the wall that's our wall and we have a mission wall and there are simple points underneath at the bottom that give us more definition i don't expect anybody in our team to memorize the book points but everybody on our team can recycle make a positive difference it's easy to memorize and  that's why that's why we have them all right here is an interesting one does mean their mission to make people happy well that was their mission and that was their mission for a long time and this is an interesting  disney missions to and you go to their website and look at the the now mission statement and they have and this is this is what it is the mission of all disney company is to be one of the world's leading producers and writers of entertainment and information using our so i don't know which one you would rather work for but i'd rather work for the company where their mission statement is to make people happy i would know at the end of the day every day if i did there on the site on i would have no clue all right so just a examples so what's interesting to you is you look at some of the mission statements that i showed hostile those hot spots yeah i hope organizations grow good you guys are catching up those words about very inspiring by themselves if you just read those words and ours to make a positive difference bottoms that's a way overused phrase out there you see that everywhere so it's not the words that inspire but it's how you got to them that's inspiring so one homer assignment for all the years you go back to your places of work and dig up your mission statement if it's not on the wall somewhere and check it out and whatever the words are my guess is you can probably live up to them in some way that's inspiring they don't have to be well crafted words and then also try to apply last three things to it if it's a longer paragraph see if you can even at your desk just try and short it down to a phrase or last what it means answer the question why and have it be extremely focused so that your sign up come out here all right number seven so admission and then values the picture here is on the car and it is can be a little goofy analogy but it works in this case so if your culture is your garden you got to cultivate your culture and and and grow and it's if you don't we could speak grow up and disease could come in and it can dry out well if your culture is your car then the values are the plants and flowers and vegetables that you put in there and you have to decide what you want to put in there for your garden row the way that you want to grow so these values are the things that you plant year organization are there it's the language that gives people understanding on how to think and behave within your organization and the values you have to cultivate those you have to spend time no reasonably picky about their people they constantly question the status quo so this is given their team and understanding of how to think and behave and what's important within their organization examples has ten core for us we have twelve column culture characteristics recently and while this we could have had ten we could have had fourteen and we picked while so that we had one for each month and then we can dive into staff meetings identities things and again the words aren't that important but it's the stories and and the examples that you share around each one so for us i'm part of communication that's our truth characteristic that's what else can do for somebody that they didn't ask for and how cool is that and then number four just do it that one of those you know a lot of times we know the things that we should do and we just don't you don't for some reason this is the one that says just do it just get it done take don't wait for somebody to give you a commission to do it so that those are ours those are three examples for you again to go back and see if you can find the values in the organization if you if you can't find them maybe write down what they are for you keep them short phrases and then begin to live in those i'll already number six hire for attitude first this is one that we learn about over time we were not great at this one at the beginning and i'd say six seven years into our business we had some people that had wonderful talent they were rock star tell folks and yet they had marginal bad attitudes and never once has their strength and talent outweigh the damage that i have found that that attitude in the organization to the culture and that's a key lesson that we've learned so now we hire for attitude first we screen for that is the first thing we look at and yes she had to have good talent and that's that's the given but looking attitude versus key and we got to work tight with that i think it's made a big difference in our organization and i would never done that as well number five or no gossip this one and almost feel embarrassed i had even put this one up there we all know that right don't gossip about people but it's so easy to fall into that trap i think we've all probably caught selves doing that at some point and gossip i believe is the number one killer of culture if you see it in your organization apply some truth to that person and confront him and say you know what that just drew talking about joey on his back i think you need to go talk to joe and not other people about it and if you're doing that just stop it just so it's it's just not great for  culture so enough on that number four know politics politics is it's a cousin of our own but it's a little more subtle this is one of the words that when i was talking with people about why they liked workplaces  why they don't like to work places this was one where that came up there's a lot of politics there or i like working there because it's not politics so this isn't a war on for people here's where the politics are hidden agendas internal maneuvering culture motos and self the fourteen and when these things are happening and they're subtle you've got politics and organization and we can all sense it we've  event places where you just you can just sense it and pick up on what we encourage people that organization to do that is to be fully transparent and honest and when you're transparent with what your intentions are what your motives are then you eliminate the politics in the organization so hard to do but it's something that i think's really important as is being straightforward with folks our number three you know cultures about a lot of the stuff i had to throw this one in there because if you don't do great work in a starter in an organization and have enough fun wonderful culture is is not going to last long because now the team is going to get down so you've got to just worry you've got to work hard you've got to do your job well whether it's a service organization or are you produce a product you've just got to do that really well that's got to be a given in this list are you going to celebrate people so you work hard that's number three time in the last five years at dish or some of the things that happen so celebrating people is key and whether it's here or some other pictures whether it's s after our stuff soccer leagues or running flag is huge for people feeling good about themselves that they matter and that they're valued within the organization another way that we catch people doing the good things and we tell the stories  one way that we call ripples of influence on our lives and so here's just some examples we people submit these in and we share these at our staff meeting in front of everybody and it's just a way to tell stories about your team and the good work they're doing so the top on their hair and putting in extra effort juggling six different projects without too much noise nice work here and he's also came up with the design of the make a bottle holder and plaque so we do that often we do that at our families and i would encourage you if you don't have something like this in your organization and there's different ways to do these other things that start something just start catching people doing good work or just live in the missionary particular value that they demonstrated and put that in practice it will go a long way all right the last one be the culture if the first one is the most important the greatest one of that's the most important foundation and that's where you start with this what i would say is the most important  practically so this is the one where there's no other stuff around this of this one other than just do it you just have to be the culture i tell our kids you know if you want good friends you've got to be a friend first and you probably heard if you want love you've got to be loving first if you if you want to you got another and so this be the culture is a phrase that we use as well just to tell people look if if everybody waited for somebody else to make the first move to live the culture oh nobody would do it but if everybody felt that it was their job to be the first one to do it then everybody would do it and it would take care of itself and that's what this one is saying so you show you've probably heard that phrase before so if you encourage someone you get a culture of care if you gossip and you get a culture of distrust and if you apologize to a customer or coworker when you've let them down they get a culture of trust and integrity so you've got to be the example you've got to live it out don't wait for somebody else and it starts with you another phrase that we use is carry your own weather right appropriate right now if you like that  carry your own weather into the situation we're all contagious people meaning we rub off on each other so don't let the downers that every dollar's robot you rub off on people in a positive way superior whether us put those in there because then you will do them you'll get into that rhythm to get into that habit and so these are just some of the ones that we have in our organization right so that's why a top doing the right things and following some of these one last story and then i'll be done so this picture is of me if you can't tell  i'm still alive which is a good way to look at the picture and there's really nothing really inspiring about a cartoon evil from home you know the sweater that's written our mission statement make a positive difference and back then it would just was four words and it only meant something to me and so it was one guy living in that mission and all the little things of that day and that first week in that first year and that's where it started and the biggest aha for me in sixteen years of starting and running a business the biggest lesson i've learned is how powerful those four words for us have become i do and just do it and i don't so this was friday this is our team person we had an office on friday and we were in the get of team picture and and for me to look at each of those logs and i know that each one knows our mission each one can tell you multiple stores and a lot of values and each one feels good about coming to work and they feel good about themselves and and that has been the biggest lesson for me so for a year with your organization what is your mission what are your values put those into practice start living them out and maybe awkward at first and maybe harker's but unless you just do it you won't get to where you want to get so that's my that's my story one of those old boys that had that bad attitude and i kind of took that person as my project to try and change his attitude and we kept him on too long and we tried and tried and tried it i was n applying truth very well i was not good at confronting him like i should and at damaged our organization for a while and still for me i think that was the biggest one that i can think of you know there's other financial things and operational things that we've learned lessons along the way but for me personally as far as picking your team and focusing on attitude about how critical that was that was came out of that mistake that i think i just i think we all felt it and i think the one thing that helped us through that was a mission that we could fall back on and say ok we're going to go through this tough time how do we make a positive difference in this difficult time and it challenges you thinking i mean that's kind of like how do you have you know these two offset things and make it work together but it drove us to make decisions tough decisions at drillers to make  that and prince said when i was fortunate to hear him talk he said his only regret that he ever had was he didn't spend enough time with his family and building his business and i remember that and you know right off the bat kathy and i had a conversation that i was going to start a company that you know this could be consuming and yet what's important to me is time with the family and for me i need to protect my weekends that's when my kids are home that's when i can be with them and so we pegs thursday nights as the night where just don't plan on me coming home thursday night is the night that i can just stay and she's not going to expect me for dinner i don't have to call him i'm not going to be home tonight and then you hear the big sigh on the other side of the phone  so we set that out and i think it worked really really well because it set the expectations for us as a family and one of our culture characteristics if you don't remember them this was rejuvenation and rejuvenation  one where we talk about that balance in life you've got to work hard but you've got to give yourself time to recuperate right you don't run a machine twenty four seven and never give me that's where you never run your car without changing the oil so that part of our culture it doesn't mean that you don't have seventy hour work weeks when you've got a project that needs that but on the backside of that you've got to be taking some time for yourself and your family so it's it's a piece that that i've learned from someone else  do i extend this about michael principle throughout the organization yes we just started doing that so yes and i to us about a call that i took and i'd be happy to talk to people if you're curious about sabbaticals on the back end of this but so i maybe was out of guilt i have all of i did this i got extended so we do we have a four to six week range for people after a fifteen year anniversary so we wait fifteen years and then they're going to go off and do what they want to do and there's got to be some purpose to it but it's that thank you for people to say look you spent fifteen years you know so yes good question thank you scratch off in a culture standpoint versus changing something that already exists i've not had to do that so i can only speculate that it's starting with this list and and it's and the leadership has to be a part of that  and walk through it and start to clean out things that maybe aren't there and it's going to be hard it's like changing the direction of the titanic in some cases depending on how big the organization is or how  to do and for those of us that are and i'm i'm one of them that really did have a hard time or that that book is just as helpful if you're still research and there's another one called crucial conversations a lot of times we're comfortable because we don't have the tools we've never done it before we've messed it up and we've done it so i would start with some of that and the other is i think people want no matter how awkward it is people will value that you took the