263. Building a Resilient Organization with Lynn Daniel

The secret to building customer loyalty might be hiding in plain sight—within your own team. In this fascinating conversation with Lynn Daniel, founder and CEO of The Daniel Group, we uncover the powerful connection between remarkable customer experiences and dedicated employees who stay for decades.

Lynn's story begins with a resourceful decision in the early 2000s to create a remote work environment long before it became mainstream. What started as a financial necessity evolved into a strategic advantage, revealing that when people are trusted rather than monitored, they respond with loyalty and exceptional performance. Through authentic stories and practical wisdom, Lynn shares how genuine empathy, cultural alignment, and respectful leadership have created an environment where people genuinely want to stay.

The conversation explores several game-changing approaches to leadership, including "episodic coaching" that replaces ineffective annual reviews with immediate, context-rich feedback. Lynn's refreshing philosophy—"I'm far more interested in having you beg forgiveness than ask permission"—demonstrates how empowerment and trust become the bedrock of organizational resilience. His three-part mission of having fun, making money, and creating positive impact for clients provides a simple but powerful framework for meaningful work.

Whether you're struggling with high turnover or simply want to create a more engaged workplace, Lynn's insights reveal that the fundamental human desires to feel seen, heard, and valued lie at the heart of both employee loyalty and customer satisfaction. The leadership principles shared go beyond theory—they've been tested through economic ups and downs, proving that values-driven leadership isn't just compassionate, it's competitively advantageous.

🌐 Connect with Lynn:
• Website: https://www.thedanielgroup.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thedanielgroup/
• Email: LynnDaniel@thedanielgroup.com

Chapters

• 0:00 People-First Leadership Philosophy
• 3:21 The Daniel Group's Remote Work Success
• 9:59 Listening and Empathy in Leadership
• 16:41 Hiring for Culture Over Skills
• 25:36 Building Trust and a Speak-Up Culture
• 34:39 Leadership Development and Episodic Coaching
• 42:53 Final Thoughts and Rapid Round

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:01

If your team were free to leave tomorrow, would they choose to stay? What makes someone not just work for you, but stay with you year after year? What if the key to customer experience lies in how we treat our own people? In today's episode, I'm joined by Lynn Daniel, the founder and CEO of the Daniel group. What makes Lynn's story truly compelling is that in an industry notorious for high turnover, his team has stuck with him for decades. So get ready to take notes and be inspired as we learn the real secret sauce behind Lynn's low turnover. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Lynn Daniel. Lynn is the CEO of the Daniel group, an organization that helps other companies to measure, manage and improve customer experience. But here's the thing, in an industry that typically has a very high turnover, Lin's organization has a very low turnover. So that's what we're going to explore today. What does it take to create a resilient organization with a low turnover, and what is the impact of doing so? So without any further ado, I want to know the secret sauce that Lynn has got here, and I'm sure what you do as well. Lynn, I'd love to hear from you a little bit of your background, and then what inspired you in this area around customer experience and how this resilient organization with a low turnover impacts that business.

Lynn Daniel: 1:43

Thanks a lot. I really looking forward to our discussion today. A little bit of history about us. I started the firm in 89 we were doing market research, strategic planning work, mostly in late 1990s early 2000s we started working with some clients, a couple of Caterpillar dealers, and I noticed several things. One, was not as much awareness as you might expect of customers that were they were losing out the back door, of people walking away. So we started made a pitch to one of our clients and said, hey, we'd like to offer you a chance to get better feedback from the customers on an ongoing basis. So we did they they started with us Blanchard machinery, which is a caterpillar dealer in South Carolina, and I'm pleased to say they're still a client for us. Enjoy working with them greatly, but we started with them, and things basically sort of took off on their own, and we grew through just doing a great job and in letting people talk about what we did for them. As we got started, we had to have people to make phone calls. Because, remember, this was early 2000s late 1990s the use of digital feedback was not quite as large as it is now. So we needed interviewers. We needed people make phone calls with these customers, and so that's when I started hiring, creating a call center. Well, it was a little different call center, because even back then, everything was remote, so people work from their homes. Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. Well, it was a necessity for me, because I, frankly, didn't have the money to rent space to put a lot of people in? Well, it turned out that that was a bit of a hidden strength for us, because we found out that people, one liked to work in this remote environment, and two, with technologies as they evolved, we were able to monitor what they were doing, making sure it met our quality standards and making sure about our productivity standards. And along the way, we, I think, develop this culture around paying attention, listening to our researchers. Are the people who are doing the interviews and trying to help them understand one how to do a better job. And then also, they helped us to in many times, in being responsive to our clients. If there was a sudden problem, sudden issue that a customer mentioned, we they made sure that got back to our clients. So I think for us, it really took a lot of of work hiring the right people. I can't emphasize that enough people have to mesh in well into your culture. You can't have in our case, we can't have those that want to be lone rangers and want to go out and do their own thing. We've got to work as a team. And I think that's one of the things that's been the secret. Of our success over the years and keeping a very loyal workforce where the turnover is, while we still have turnover, you're going to have turnover in this business. It's much lower than any benchmarks we look at for turnover in this situation.

Mick Spiers: 5:18

So first of all, Lynn, I want to say congratulations on your success. If you've got customers that are still with you 30 years later, that speaks volumes. I also love the resourcefulness of you finding essentially what is now the work from home or hybrid experience that we're all experiencing now. You are. You were a pioneer of that, and you were 30 years ahead of the rest of us there as well. The key message I heard there, Lynn, is listening. So in this customer experience world, you've picked up that. Well, if you've got an organization that's losing customers, are they listening to the customers? So are they listening? Why aren't the customers sticking with us? What is that feedback? And what are we going to do with that feedback? But then you're immediately turning that to your team and going okay with our team if we want our team to stick around, are we listening to our team? So listening to customers to make sure you know what success looks like for them and why they would leave versus why they would stay. And to me, that's the same with our people. If we're not listening to our people, they're going to find the exit door. How does that sit with you, Lynn?

Lynn Daniel: 6:29

That's absolutely true. We have several managers, the front line, managers, for this team of 80 some odd people, and they are just excellent at working with the team, working with the individuals, giving them feedback, training them, coaching them honestly. Mick, they have a lot more patience than I would have, but that just, that's just me, that's they. That's why I they're in their jobs, and I'm in mine, because I don't think I would do very well sometimes in their job, but, but it's that listening is it's also goes beyond listening to express some concern. For example, we've got a long time employee now who is battling cancer, whenever we have one of our employees, especially a long time, or who's facing a serious issue like this, we don't just ignore them. We'll do things like provide some meals for the families if they're not able to do anything at that point, we'll do other things, because sometimes the one I mentioned is facing the cancer problem right now, the challenge with cancer is she's one of these active, gregarious, really, really effective interviewers. She could talk to most anyone, anywhere, and get the answers that you're we're looking for. But this bout with the illness and the treatments have really made it very difficult. So sometimes, some of our people, I know, I've heard through the grapevine, they'll just give her a call and say, Tina, how are you doing? Anything we can do for you? How's it going? Now, she's still working part time, but that's an example of concern, and I think in the day's world, just showing that empathy, showing that concern, and I should say, meaningful concern, it makes a lot of difference with your employees.

Mick Spiers: 8:32

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I'm sorry to hear that your staff member is going through that, and now our thoughts and prayers are with them at this moment, what I'm hearing there is is two things. It's empathy and loyalty. So when we're loyal to our staff, when they're going through a tough time, it builds loyalty in return. They'll always remember that. I'm going to double down and say, not only will that person remember it, Lynn, everyone else sees it. And he goes, Oh, wow. The company looks after our people. Well, I'm going to stick around here, because if I fall on hard times one day, I know that Lynn's not going to, you know, boot me out the door. He's, he's going to be there for me when I need it.

Lynn Daniel: 9:13

And I think another thing, Mick is, I will have to say I'm not really a strict one about did you show up at eight o'clock, and did you leave at five? I said to people early on. I said, if I have to manage your time, you don't need to be working here. You're responsible for managing your time and getting the work done. So sometimes this means that, you know, some people may take off early, but I can tell you if we're at the end of the month and we've got a crunch that we maybe for whatever reason. You know, there could have been storms in part of the US so we were not able to complete our required quota. They're going to be on the phone, they're going to be working, they're going to be making sure to the degree possible that our clients get what they pay for. And so that's the kind of thing that I see happening. If that empathy, that concern and that loyalty is there, that's what happens. What I've seen happen with employees.

Mick Spiers: 10:14

No one likes a clock watcher. Lena, I can tell you what happens in those clock watching businesses where they're worried about whether someone's clocked on it eight and clocked off at four is people just pretend anyway, they just sit there, and in the last hour of the day they kind of moving their mouse around, or they're doing something that looks busy, but they're they're not fully engaged anyway. But if you have this to and fro, this, this give and take, I tell you what, they give a lot back when, when it matters most, right? So, yeah, really, really good. Lynn, all right. So the other thing that you picked up on before was you making the right hiring decisions, right? So, and the word I heard from you loud and clear was culture. Tell us about hiring for culture instead of, let's say maybe skills and experience. How does it fit with you?

Lynn Daniel: 11:05

Let me share a story with you about this happened about almost 10 years ago. Now, I knew that I needed to have someone to back me up. I would be retiring at some point, and so we need to have someone to run the company, I was very hesitant to go the traditional Headhunter route, primarily because I think you're I'm not knocking Headhunters, but too often it's luck of the draw in terms of the fit that you have between the person you hire in your organization. So I did it a little differently this time, I actually hired a psychologist from Davidson College, and I said, John, I need some help. I want you to go. I want you to talk to the key members of our organization, and I want you to understand our culture, and I want you to find out what kinds of characteristics does a person need to have to be successful in our company? So he did that. And the approach we took, or I took, and then he took, as well, was we will circulate the job description, which came out of this analysis that he did with networks. He had networks I had. Well, it so turned out that he had a student from from years ago that he'd stayed in touch with. The fellow was a senior executive Bank of America, and he became one of the four finalists. Now, Doug, our CEO, brings a lot of really good technical skills, but he'd never worked in our kind of business. He was a banker. He was in product development and various other roles at Bank of America, so he never worked in our business. But what was compelling to me about Doug is he fit so well with the culture that we have? The feedback I got from the employees, because he interviewed with everybody on our management team before we signed the deal with him, what I found was they, they really thought he would be a good match for our culture, and it it's been a fantastic match. You know, I consider Doug just so effective with our team members. He brings some theme, some skills to the to the table that I do not have. So I think we complement each other very well. He's just been a fantastic leader for the company. But I think it took that time, that effort, to say, what are the characteristics that a good leader needs to have in our company like ours.

Mick Spiers: 13:52

There's a few really key things I'm hearing there. Lynn and you finished with one key one, which is time, taking the time to find the person with the right cultural fit. Sometimes we can get into a bit of a panic, and we go, oh, we must fill this role. And maybe we go a bit too fast. If we pick the wrong person, it's going to have a detriment to our team. It's not just that person didn't work out, and that's expensive. If they turn out to be a mismatch to the culture. It can be quite toxic. And it doesn't just impact that one mishire, it impacts everyone around them. But if we take the time and take an extra month, take an extra two months to find the right person, you're not going to do damage. How does that sit with you?

Lynn Daniel: 14:36

That is absolutely true. I've had, we had another situation. It was not the same level of higher as Doug, but it was a senior manager in the company, and I think we've paid a little too much attention to skill set and not enough attention to culture. And he didn't, I think he lasted about six months. But. And the problem was there were two things. One, he, it turned out the skill sets we thought he had, he didn't have them to the degree that he had the state he had them. So that was one thing. But the second thing is, when you get a person in that's not a fit, other people notice it, and they start asking questions. Now I was probably, I probably would have been the last person to have been asked questions about it, but I know there were discussions around the office about this particular person and the degree to which, yeah, could he fit? And could he fit and work out well in our company? And he couldn't, so it was a hit to us for time, for money to hire him, and then we had to go in another direction when we actually need to fill which also incurred more cost. So I think taking Mick, I can honestly say, taking the time just really trying to understand, yes, you gotta understand skill sets. And I think there, we probably didn't get enough information about skill sets in that hire. But also just tell me what turns you on, what what excites you, what brings you joy, if, when in the interview process, because it's, it's these so called soft and tangible things that really do shape that person and shape the way they're going to fit into your culture.

Mick Spiers: 16:32

Yeah, really good, lean. And there's going to be people that are listening to this audience that are trying to process that. And I want to play something to you and see where we go with this, because we'll talk about the skill sets versus culture here for a moment. So in some jobs, the skills can be taught, right? So I'm talking entry level jobs where you know what, anyone can learn this. As long as they've got the right mindset, they've got the right aptitude, the right attitude, they can learn how to do this, then there's going to be people that are listening to this, Lynn, and they're going to be going, Yeah, that's okay for entry level jobs, but if I've got a job where there is some kind of qualification needed, it might be an engineering job where the person needs an engineering degree. Now what I'm going to say here, that I'm going to test with you, is, when you get in that situation, the qualifications are the table stakes, but it's not what gets you the job. So if I'm going to recruit for an engineer that that must be have an engineering degree, the engineering degree is just going to be the tick in the box, and then I'm going to start the interview, and in the interview I'm going to look for the attitude, I'm going to look for the culture. What makes them tick. I love the questions that you're asking. How does that sit with you?

Lynn Daniel: 17:47

That's exactly how we look at it. Mick, we have, really, over the last five or six years, started to change even more of what we do in the interview process. So we continue to pay we will always pay close attention to this issue of how they look at the world beyond what their skill set is. Do they have respect for people? I think that's a fundamental in the world we live in now. You know, we we have to have respect for people. If not, we just can't. We just can't run the organization.

Mick Spiers: 18:24

Yeah, spot on. So respect is a great one. And before, one of the other things that I picked up that you were doing when you did this, instead of just going to call it a throwaway line, oh, we want to recruit someone that will fit into our culture. Well, what you did differently is you had your recruiter understand the culture before they went looking for a culture fit. So what is it about this place and respect might be the top of the list for your company? For another company, it might be something else altogether. But if you don't know what those things are, it's hard to go and find out, find the person that's going to fit in beautifully. So take the time to understand what your people experience today. What is it about the culture that with a company like yours, Lynn, with a low turnover, what is it that they love about the plays? Then let's make sure that we recruit someone that's not going to come in and be a square peg in a round hole.

Lynn Daniel: 19:21

Yes, absolutely true. And I think I wish more companies would pay more attention to this question of culture, this question of cultural fit. Some are better at it than others, but I still think that's an area of improvement that's needed for many, perhaps most companies, particularly, I was looking at some latest Gallup numbers about engaged employees in the US, we're now down to about a third of the employees are truly engaged in their jobs, so that, right there is telling. Need to me, pay more attention to the culture. What kind of culture you want to have? What kind of culture do you have? And this person coming in fit with that culture?

Mick Spiers: 20:12

Yeah, well said. And those Gallup results, like, I gotta say, they're not getting any better at the moment, and we need to do something different if we want a different result. All right, so we've gone through a bit of a process here where we're making sure we're bringing the right people in the door. But it can't finish there. Lindy, you've got an organization with a very low turnover, and I've got to say that turnover is very expensive. I don't know if anyone listening to the show has looked into how much it costs to onboard new new staff members. It's very expensive when you when you have someone leave the business and you have to replace them, it's a very expensive exercise to go through, what is your secret sauce? How have you got your your turnover so low? I'm sure the audience will want to know.

Lynn Daniel: 21:00

I think we have an informal understanding around our company. Becomes very formal when someone comes in, and generally I will be other than some of the frontline interviewers. I will interview everybody coming in for a new job. And one of the things that when we hire them, I have a chat with them, and said, Okay, this is who we are. You. You've learned about us, you've decided you want to join us, but let me tell you a little bit more about us and the really two things I say to them. First, we're here on this earth to and in our in this business. To one, have some fun. Two, make some money. And three, make a difference, a positive difference for our clients, not necessarily in that order, but I think we generally live by that. So if we've got to spend extra time on a phone call to get some clear answers for a client. We do that. You know, people don't get in trouble because they spent, you know, more than X number of minutes on a phone call. That's just the way we are. The second thing I say to them, which I think also describes a lot about our culture, is I've always said to each new employee coming in, I am far more interested in having you beg forgiveness than ask permission. Why? I think that tells, that communicates to people that you know you you've got some responsibility that you need to fulfill yourself. Will you make a mistake? Yep, sure. Will I've made many over the course of my career. But you know, you don't make a mistake unless you try. And we want to have an organization in which people feel free to try and at least explore things that people may not believe are valid, perhaps may not believe they're useful. Perhaps, I mean, we've had some things that have come up that from suggestions or employees that have really been very beneficial, but I think the only way that it was to become beneficial is because they felt comfortable raising what, in some people's minds might have been a little bit of a crazy idea.

Mick Spiers: 23:23

Really good, Lynn, I'm going to play back to you what I'm hearing and what I think is going to be a large element of your secret sauce here. So you spoke about having values around having fun, making money and having an impact. And then I hear some of the things that you talk about, what, what do people look for in the workplace? Lynn, they want to feel seen, they want to feel heard. They want to feel like they matter. They want to feel what they do matters. They want to feel that they individually matter. Okay, then, when I hear the things that you're talking about, the ability to ask for forgiveness instead of permission, and the license to go and try a few things that is empowerment and trust. They all feel empowered and trusted to go and try a few things that's fun. The opposite is not fun. To be not trusted to be micro managed to all of these things are not fun. So fun money impact. The impact is, I want to do something that matters. I want to go home at the end of the day. And when my family asked me, Did I have a good day today, I want to say with proud Yeah, we did some really cool things today, that some things that mattered. And then the Speak Up culture. This is when you said that you want people to raise their hand and hey, this might be a crazy idea, but if people don't feel that they've got the psychological safety to do that, they also don't feel seen and heard. So if anyone listening to the show right now, these are their secret ingredients of whether someone has a good time in the workplace or not. Do they feel seen? Do they feel heard? Do they feel like they matter? And that's coming through loud and clear in Lynn's values of Yeah, we have a bit of fun around here, we make a bit of money, and we make an impact. But then it's showing up in the actions, not just the rhetoric, the actions of showing people, yeah, it's okay to experiment. Yeah, it's okay to stick up your hand and speak up with a what you think might be a crazy idea, but the funny thing with crazy ideas, they usually turn into good ideas after a while, particularly if people start bouncing ideas off each other, and they start co creating a new idea that's from that one crazy idea. How does that sit with you, Lynn?

Lynn Daniel: 25:35

Yeah, totally agree. It's, you know, getting them to raise their hand, getting to the point where they feel free to raise their hand is really important. Now, the other thing I will say, Mick, I think as you grow, it becomes harder and harder to maintain that culture.

Mick Spiers: 25:52

Yeah, tell me more.

Lynn Daniel: 25:54

Well, I listened to a podcast about customer experience. It's from a guy named Rob Markey, he was involved in just creating the Net Promoter system many years ago, and so they've done some research on companies that have better CX and one of the things they found is over a third of the Companies that perform well on CX measures also had either family or near family ownership of the business, and he said the founders and the families tend to have the kinds of cultures that need that support this kind of environment where people feel good about coming to work, not true in all cases. But when he when they look at at the number of privately held, closely held companies in these top these are large companies. They're looking at that, he said they are largely either family held or they're, they're the owner is very much still involved. For example, think about Chick fil A and the Cathy family here in the States. Very much involved, very focused on their customers. They do it right now. Not a fast food fan, but I know a lot of people who love Chick fil A, and we've had a speaker from a Chick fil A operation speak at one of our conferences, and he told us about what they do to better engage employees. And I think as I listened to him speak, I was thinking some of this is coming right straight out of the value system of the Cathy family. I suspect so anyway, I think having those values and living them out, and having someone or some group of people there who hold those values is critical to the long term evolution of a company culture.

Mick Spiers: 27:56

Yeah, really good, Lynn, The three words that ring really loudly for me when I hear speak the word values, the word family and the word ownership. And if I work on those last two here, the the ownership, it's a big difference the word owner versus renter. Imagine a house. Lynn, if you're the owner of the house, you look after the damn place. If you're at the renter of the house, you do the bare minimum to make sure it's in okay shape,right?

Lynn Daniel: 28:25

And you don't get in trouble with the landlord.

Mick Spiers: 28:27

Yeah, exactly. So you don't get in trouble. That's exactly the metaphor, right? So if you're the owner of the house, you you improve the place. You don't just look after it, you improve the place. And then the word family, the for me, the common thread here, what do families do? They care for each other. They care for each other. So you don't have to create an environment in your organization that, oh, we're like a family. We don't have to go that far. But what they do is they care for each other. And as Teddy Roosevelt puts it, no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. If you show people that they care that you care about them, guess what, they'll care about you and they'll care about the business. How does that sit with you?

Lynn Daniel: 29:08

Completely agree. Again, I want to come back to doing it. It sounds simple, but doing it in practice is a lot more difficult, because you do run into, well, we've got financial things we have to concern ourselves with. We've got a variety of other things that can cause you to lose focus on that. Again, going back to this empathy, this caring, this kind of environment, I think you must have to be successful today, there are other things, if you let them, that can get in your way and get you sidelined. Many, many, many things.

Mick Spiers: 29:50

I think it's in those tougher times that it's even more important, all right. And that's the test. That's the water test. If your company is. Showing that they care more about the quarter end results than they do about the people you're already in trouble. And the word values, what values still exist on that day where it's not a good day, that's the true test of whether a company is living by their values. It's not, it's not in smooth waters. Everyone can live by their values, in their perceived values, in nice times, it's on the stormy days. Do we still live by our values? That's a true test of the culture at that point.

Lynn Daniel: 30:31

Yeah, we've, over the years, we've had some challenging times. And when you're the single leader in a company, which I was for a number of years, or the CEO still am CEO, but did not have Doug in his his role. It gets a bit lonely. And I can remember one time we were we were having some just real big challenges. And one of our managers, whom I know very well. She's been with us for a long time. I came in one day, and then she came into my office, shut door, she said, Lynn, let me give you some feedback. You're walking around here looking like you're about ready to die. It's affecting all of us. So think about that when you come in, it's all she said. She got up and left, and I very much appreciate it, because I never fully realized just how my appearance, how my the way I held myself, if I was down, how that affected people when I walked into the office. But it did, and it does to this day.

Mick Spiers: 31:40

Absolutely people have pick up on that stuff so much. Lynn, the other thing you said there is very true, by the way, leadership can get very lonely at the top, but sometimes we don't let others help us. And I'd say that when she's reaching out to you, she's not just reaching out to you to talk about, hey, we're having an impact on everyone that was out of genuine care for you too, Lynn.

Lynn Daniel: 32:03

And that's a great example of instances I've seen over the years where we've had things like that happen to sort of bring us all back in line where we need to be.

Mick Spiers: 32:14

Now before we hit record. We also spoke about that this all rises on and falls on leadership, and you and I, we spoke about the famous quote that people don't leave companies. They leave bosses. How do you then ingrain some of these things that you're talking about in your leadership? Not not in new Lynn Daniels leadership, I'm talking about in your leadership structure. What are you doing to invest in your leaders, to make sure that they're living these values, that they're creating this empowerment and trust, that they're creating this environment where people can try and experiment things without fear of of being chastised for failure, etc. How are you penetrating that into your leadership structure?

Lynn Daniel: 32:56

First thing, something I've talked about earlier, is you got to hire right? You've got to hire people that understand, or at least you think, may understand your culture. Secondly, you've got to provide some coaching. And I'm not talking about annual reviews. Yes, they're needed, although I'm as I've gotten older, I think annual reviews are a little bit of a waste of time, but that's my own opinion. But what is needed, more and more in companies is episodic consulting with an employee. Hey, let me, let me give you some feedback on how you handle that. You know, I've got a manager. He tends to like to talk a little too much, sometimes in presentations, so I've been giving that kind of feedback to him, and it's getting better, much better, actually. So I think it's a matter of coaching Mick a lot to create the kind of culture. And it ultimately starts with me. I've got to be the one who can do that coaching. I think, secondly, there are ways to get some training for people, especially those that, hey, they've got the real good skill set. Maybe they're a little rough on some other things, if, for example, not someone that may not be able to take constructive feedback very well. That kind of training can really be very helpful to people. Don't need to overuse it, but it needs to be used where needed, because I found it to be very, very effective. And I think the employees appreciate it as well, because, hey, they realize you're trying to help them be more effective, more productive employees.

Mick Spiers: 34:46

Yeah, really good, Lynn, two things there, episodic coaching. You've given me a new term, and I love it already, and talk about that in a second, and then developing your leaders. So on the episode of coaching, you now got a fan. Base of two that tells you that the annual review doesn't work. And the problem is is feedback doesn't age well, then it's unfair. It's completely unfair on someone to pull them side once a year and say, Hey, here's a list of all the things that you did right this year. Here's a list of all the things that you did wrong this year. Episodic coaching. And I'm going to say it's not just the constructive stuff. It's also the positive reinforcement in the moment at the end of that presentation. Here's all the things that I thought went really well, but here's where I also think that you could do better next time in the moment, because it's fresh in their mind, telling them that 12 months later, hey, do you remember that presentation that we did 11 months 11 months ago. That doesn't work. Linsa, episode of coaching, I love it, and then develop your leaders. And if you know listening to the show, take these two away for sure. Episode of coaching, and then developing your leaders. If you have a high turnover in your business right now, it'll be because people are leaving their boss, not because they're leaving the company. And if you haven't developed those leadership skills in your leaders, expect that you're going to have a revolving door in the organization. How does that sit with you, Lynn?

Lynn Daniel: 36:13

Completely agree, both are needed. You've got to really work on developing your people, and I think you one of the tools, or frankly, is other two sort of tools I think about. And one is that episodic coaching. Because, again, to your point, I do not think people remember three or four or five, sometimes two weeks after, after an episode of something. And then secondly, you know, as a small company, is sometimes very hard to say, I'm gonna spend eight or $9,000, $10,000 to send someone to a training course on, you know, helping them develop some of their non technical skills. Sometimes I've that's one of the worst mistakes I made early on, I think with me is I probably should have done more of that as a young manager coming up, because once I actually did it, I discovered it was very helpful for me, and it was, it's been very helpful for some of the employees that we have sent through training.

Mick Spiers: 37:18

Yeah, really good, Lynn. All right, I'm going to bring us to a close now with some of the things that I've heard, and then we'll go to our Rapid Round list of the same four questions we ask all of our guests, Lynn, so we've spoken a lot about, how do we stop the revolving door? How do we build that low turnover that you're experiencing? Lynn, and it started with the recruiting. Started with understanding your culture and then recruiting for cultural fit more than anything else. So what is it about this place that makes it special? And is this incoming person going to fit in, or are they going to destroy what makes this place special, then going deeper on the culture and the values, then giving people what they want in the workplace so they want to feel seen, they want to feel heard, they want to feel like they matter. And do your values match up to that? Do your values stand the troubled times, the stormy waters, or do the values go out the door in a panic because you're worried about quarterly results instead of caring for your people, listening to your people, listening to your people, just like Lynn talks about listening to customers, listen to your people. They're going to have great ideas, but they're also, if you give them the right environment, they'll tell you what they like about the place and what they don't like, and then act on those things. And then finally, it all rises and falls on leadership. So if you're not giving this episode of coaching and the development of your leaders, you're going to have people leaving because they're leaving their boss. They're not leaving the company. Very powerful discussion. Lynn, I really appreciated it. Now we're going to go to those four questions. So what's the one thing that you know now? Lynn Daniel, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Lynn Daniel: 39:02

Ooh, I think I wish I knew at 20 to be a little more confident about my own capabilities. No need to go into all the background, but I think it's sort of hard to develop confidence as a young person that you need to go forward, especially, I mean, I came from a I grew up on a farm, so my parents didn't know, they didn't know anything about sort of the world I was moving into great parents, but still didn't know much about well, you're going to go to college now, and you're going to go to business school, and then who knows where you might Go. So I think that I wish I'd I wish, in hindsight, that I've had a lot more confidence in my own abilities when I was in my 20s, although no regrets. I mean, I just look back on it, that's what I wish I'd done. But confidence only comes with hard knocks.

Mick Spiers: 39:59

That's it. You got to try come to come to that.

Lynn Daniel: 40:02

You got to try.

Mick Spiers: 40:03

That experience thing. Yeah.

Lynn Daniel: 40:05

You're going to screw things up, but you learn if you, if you got your eyes open and your mind open, you're going to learn from the screw ups.

Mick Spiers: 40:14

Yeah, brilliantly. What's your favorite book?

Lynn Daniel: 40:17

Actually, I can mention too. One is winning on purpose by Fred Reichel, who developed the Net Promoter Score. It's a really good book that starts to even delve deeper into some of the economic benefits of better CX and Fred is a leader in this whole CX industry, and someone I greatly respect for what he's done and what he's doing, continuing to do. And the second one is, I can't remember the title of it, but it was a book on Nikola Tesla, fascinating character he was.

Mick Spiers: 40:54

Yeah, we are very good. If you, if you remember the title, send it to us and we'll, put it in the show notes. Uh, what's your favorite quote?

Lynn Daniel: 41:03

It's not over until it's over. Why did I say that? You never can tell what's going to happen. Sometimes you make assumptions that this is going to happen, and you get there and, well, it didn't happen quite that way. So making assumptions, it's really not over until it's over. That applies to closing a deal, that applies to doing things that sometimes people think are impossible or hard to do. It's not over till it's over.

Mick Spiers: 41:36

I like that. You put that in both frames. One is the complacency frame of, ah, we've got this. It's a done deal. And then the other one is the this is a lost course. Is it really or or are you not being resourceful enough to work out what you can do with with with where you are? Right? Really good. Finally, Lynn, how do people find you? People are going to be listening to this, going, Yeah, this is really interesting, both on the customer experience side, but then the employee experience and getting that low turnover. How do people find you?

Lynn Daniel: 42:06

Sure Our website is www.thedanielgroup.com. That's thedanielgroup.com. I am Lynn, Daniel, LynnDaniel@thedanielgroup.com love to chat with anyone, anytime, about most anything.

Mick Spiers: 42:28

All right, brilliant, Lynn. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom to that your experience and giving us lots of actionable tips on how we can lower the turnover in our team and create an environment where people love to show up and do their very best work. Thank you so much.

Lynn Daniel: 42:45

Thank you. Mick, I appreciate it. Great job.

Mick Spiers: 42:48

What a rich and meaningful conversation with Lynn Daniel, he reminded us that loyalty isn't built through policies. It's built through people feeling seen, heard and cared for that customer experience starts with employee experience, and that when you hire for values lead with empathy and trust your people. You don't just build a team, you build a legacy. So here's a question for you today. Are you creating the kind of culture where people choose to stay through good times and tough times? And if not, what small change can you make today to better listen, better support and better lead? If you found value in today's conversation, be sure to follow, share and leave us a review. It helps more leaders around the world find and benefit from these insights. In the next episode, I'll be sharing my own reflections on what I learnt from Lynn and how I apply it in my leadership. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project mickspiers.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP. Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo and my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel, where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.