How can leaders put people first while building a stronger, more resilient organization?
In this episode of Exit Coach Radio, Bill Black talks with Kathleen Quinn Votaw, CEO of TalenTrust, author of Solve the People Puzzle, and professional speaker, about the importance of people continuity in today’s business environment.
Kathleen shares insights on how leaders can support employee health, strengthen company culture, and prepare their organizations for recovery and long-term success. This conversation is especially valuable for business owners, executives, and leadership teams focused on talent retention, culture health, workforce planning, and sustainable growth.
Topics include:
people continuity
putting people first
employee health and engagement
culture assessment
leadership during recovery
Special offers:
Take the free Talent & Culture quiz: talentrust.com/...
Learn more about Kathleen’s book, Solve the People Puzzle
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Exit Coach Bill Black interviews Top Advisors for Tips, Ideas & Precautions for Business Owners who want to grow and protect their company value and plan for a successful Business Sale or Transfer. Listen daily so you can be well-planned!
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December 12, 2023 Hi everyone, it's Bill Black, the exit coach from the Exit Coach Radio show. You know, one of the biggest questions I get on the show is what exactly goes into a business exit plan and when should I start creating mine? Well, I always tell people that the best time to start was 5 years ago, but the next best time is now because you never know when you might need it. So we put together a free report that describes what an exit plan is and what you should know. You can get it free by texting exit plan with no spaces to 44222. That's exit plan to 44222. Again, text exit plan to 44222. Welcome to the Exit Coach Radio show, the show for baby boomer business owners who are looking for cutting edge information as they plan their 3 to 10 year business succession and exit. Every week we interview top professional advisors for their best tips, strategies, and precautions so you can be well planned and now. Here's your host, the exit coach, Bill Black. Well, hey everyone, thanks so much for joining me today. It's always a pleasure as usual to have you with me as we talk to top advisers, business owners, and authors today. My first guest is all three. Kathleen Quinn Vota is founder and CEO of Talent Trust, and she's the author of Solve the People Puzzle. And she's overcome challenges ranging from job loss to the 2008 recession to become one of less than 2% of women business owners whose company broke the million dollars mark. And along this journey she's learned an important lesson a people-centric workplace is the key to attracting and retaining the minds who will take your business to the next level. Kathleen recently completed a Stanford graduate school business course focused on strategy, innovation, and organizational design, and she's also received many awards, including the coveted Inc 5000 in 2015 and 2016. And finally she's just honored as a 2020 Enterprising Woman of the Year from Enterprising Women magazine for her work with Talent Trust to fuel lasting change in companies across the nation. So you have people in your organization. Kathleen Quinn Vota, CEO of Talent Trust, is going to talk about people continuity. So let's bring her on. Kathleen, thanks so much for joining me today. Welcome. Thank you for having me, Bill. It's a pleasure to be here. You have a very impressive background, Kathleen, and I didn't do it justice, but I hope I shed some light on who you are. But for our listeners, could you just let them know a little bit more about you and your, your background and your purpose in starting Talent Trust. Absolutely. I started in the recruitment industry in 1985 with a little company called Kelly Corporation, and I was in college at the time, and it's been a really wonderful journey. I've had the opportunity to work with companies like John Hancock, Lotus Development, Great Western, really wonderful organizations, and I really have a love affair with putting people into companies and seeing them thrive. And so my purpose is helping companies put people first because when you do, your company will grow and you can position yourself very strongly for your exit plan. So I'm very passionate about helping companies achieve their goals, but in order to do so they absolutely have to have the right people in the right seats to quote Jim Collins. Yes, great book, and you've helped over 500 companies across multiple industries, so you've got a lot of expertise in doing this. You've seen a lot of situations. And have you ever seen anything like we're in today? This is a very unusual situation. No, I haven't, Bill. It's a very unusual situation and maybe like some other entrepreneurs out there, I'm counting the weeks. I think we're in our 23rd week of the chaos, as I call it, and it's unfortunate. Many B2C companies have just closed their doors. Many restaurateurs have had to close. Many hospitality and event companies are dramatically impacted by some of the decisions that have been made. And it's sad to see, but what we're trying to do is help our clients and anybody who needs help, prospective clients, really understand that relationship between employer and employee and how important it is now more than ever because people are scared, Bill, they're scared. And in the absence of information they make up their own stories and they tend not to be happy stories. So if we as business leaders, business owners, founders can close the gap with a lot of transparency of what we're doing, what we're planning to do, best, worst case scenarios, we will eliminate some of the Stress and fear that perhaps some of our great employees might feel right now, their spouses, their significant others might feel right now, because if you don't retain those players today, they're gonna, they're going to quit you when the recovery starts heating up and it's already starting to heat up as you, as I'm sure you know, Bill. Mhm. Industry by industry, it's it's, it's a, it's a mixed bag out there right now, but let's talk about how in the, in these times, these challenging times, how should leaders put people first? Well, there's a couple of different ways to do so. The first is to be as transparent as possible to establish trust, and at the level of transparency you're going to have to decide for yourself. Second, map out best and worst case scenarios so people know what might happen in light of certain situations. It's called scenario planning and in and doing that for your people, you empower them with information versus leaving them in a state of fear. And third, start having the what I call employee intimate conversations. Ask them why they start, why are they choosing you anyhow, because you know they have choice even during these uncertain times. And then second, under what circumstances would they leave because by knowing those factors, whether you're a founder, a hiring manager, whatever you are in your company, however your listeners are, knowing those critical pieces of information give you information to plan but also empower your people to have information for their personal plans because remember their point of view, your employee's point of view, is how do I take care of my family. And so if you can give them those answers or some security through those three factors, then they're going to continue to choose to be with you through this, however long it's going to be and on the other side. Now, great advice, and a lot of owners are kind of timid or or not not real forthright or maybe they're even afraid of putting out something like a scenario plan because, well, first of all, they might not know like we talked about earlier, you know, this, this recovery period we kind of signed up for a 5K run and now it's turning into a marathon. Who knew, but on the other hand, some owners don't know how long this is going to last and they might have some. Uh, bad news in their scenario plan that they might not people, uh not want people to see. Mhm, yes, and, and that is a that could be a reality, but, um, using a case that I know of pretty personally cause it's my company, um, you know, we mapped out our best and worst case scenario and in the event that we don't hit certain targets we're going to have to let people go. Wouldn't it be great if we all could embrace that kind of transparency? So people know what's happening and reporting into them on a monthly basis or even a weekly basis because we're all in this together, you know, hiding the reality isn't isn't in your best interest because people are smart. I believe in the American spirit. I believe Americans are generally smart and I believe that most employees understand what's happening and that it is beyond almost all of our control. This is happening to us. Nobody created it, and there's several factors that have caused our country to go into a tailspin. One, first, first quarter was oil and gas prices tanked. Second, a virus came to visit and won't leave. Third, we had unprecedented decisions by political leaders that caused an economic downturn that is dramatic. Put lots of people out of business and out of work and then third we have civil unrest. I mean, 4th, we have civil unrest, so we have a, we have like a cast of characters we're trying to overcome. It's not just the virus. I think people are talking about the virus the most, but there's really 4 factors. And so everybody is aware that it's not in the owner's control. So the more you can Get transparent and share that with them and that in the event that our revenues don't rise. Then we are going to have to make other decisions, and here's the timing, then they can plan for their, their futures and their family. It's a hard discussion, but it's an honorable discussion. Now Kathleen, you and I have been on many webinars together where I've moderated and you've been done all the hard part, but for Visage worldwide, and I know one thing about talent trust is you have a lot of tools in your tool chest to help business owners. What tools do you recommend for leaders to understand that employee health of their organization? Well, I've created a free tool that your listeners can access, Bill, and it's at talentrust.com, one T in the middle. backslash quiz. You can just go to our website and you'll find it, and it's a free tool to help you understand the nine factors that impact a healthy organization. And also you can buy my book, solve the people puzzle, and also you can reach out and talk to us about what other clients in our portfolio are actually doing to overcome some of these challenges because we're all in this together and I'm so happy you brought up Visage International. It's been a wonderful group for me. I've been a member since 2008 and having that peer discussion. has been really I've been so grateful for it because Vis put together a COVID-19 discussion board. So many of, many people like me, entrepreneurs throughout the country and the world, can talk about the what if and the scenario planning. What if this happens? So I also encourage people to try to look into a peer to peer organization like this International, so you're not out there alone in all of this. Now, um, a lot of people are wondering, you know, uh, when, if, when the recovery happens, not if when it happens, but when it happens, what do I need to do to be prepared for recovery? So what can companies do to start preparing for that? Um, so I, I think what's happening out there is people have a false sense that they're going to have an inventory of people to pull from when they recover. That's just not necessarily the case, even though we still have millions of people unemployed. They're unemployed and. Go back to the particular industry that displaced them, which for the large part is hospitality and B2C organizations. So we still have a huge skills gap. So what people could do now to prepare is really assess who on their team they want to retain and start understanding if those people want to be retained. So there's two factors do you want to retain them and do they want to be retained by you? And there's two people in that equation. Um, and then second, start building a pipeline of talented people. That you can pull upon as you start coming out of this because customers are going to start moving fast. I do not have a crystal ball. I don't know when, but the recruiting industry which I'm in largely recruiting and consulting is kind of the canary in the coal mine when things go south. Well, we're also the canary in the coal mine when things start opening up again. And what I will tell you, we have seen. Need on the recruiting front, which is almost unbelievable for some people for many different industries in the last 45 days, um, so you want to make sure you have a pipeline of candidates so when you start securing new customers or re-establishing or reinstating your customers, you're ready to serve them better than you did before. That's great advice. That's great advice, and you know it's a it's never too late to to or too soon to get involved with a company like Talent Trust to help you figure some of these things out and really understand what the metrics are. Now here's a question for you, Kathleen. I've talked to a lot of owners lately, and they say, you know, one of the things I have a challenge with is we've been We've been social distancing and out of the office and virtual for so long now. I need to, what I miss is the camaraderie, the quick smile, the high five in the office, you know, that kind of stuff, and I'm, and some owners say I'm not really a touchy feely. I couldn't, I couldn't pull off a funny hat day on Zoom. You know, I, I couldn't pull that off. What are some ideas for what people can do to connect with their employees in a way? And the other question, part of that is I've heard some owners say, you know, in like the we've done a happy hour and I don't think the employees want me on the happy hour. They want to be silly and they want to, they, you know, they might not want me involved in that. Can you give some tips for some of our owners as to how to keep that camaraderie and connection alive during COVID? Absolutely, and you know we all have been thrust into this virtual reality, and I call it a game of Jumanji, you know, that video game called Jumanji, I'm calling it Zoomanji, and so, you know, being connected through video is very different than being connected in person. We all know that none of us who are extroverts really like it very much, including me. I'm sure including you, Bill, but uh, what, what you can here's some things to do one, please be authentic. Don't be in a funny hat thing if you're not a funny hat person. You know, because people will see right through the fake. So make sure it fits you. If you're a leader who is more of a serious introvert, maybe have a 15 minute fireside chat with your people. Maybe record it ahead of time, send it out. Weekly so they can see you maybe bring them into your home so you become more personal, but don't definitely don't do funny funny hats if you're not a funny hat guy or gal. I had a call from a customer in Ohio when we first went into this and everybody was thrust into virtual reality. And um he was so upset with his top salesperson because he answered the phone while he was walking the dog and um and this is a person who's been in business for many years and just thought that was totally disrespectful. um, I coached him to say, I coached him to think about what are the expectations we as leaders have set up for our employees as we are going through virtual reality. And working from home because they don't know how to do it and you don't know how to do it. So I suggest that you put together a task force so you don't, you're not alone in this in your organization maybe pull in some people from human capital, the marketing team, the sales team, the operations team. And realize you're going to be working virtually and remotely for quite some time. What are the guidelines that you need to set up for communication, how people show up, how frequently you communicate with each other? Video on all the time is my key recommendation because almost 89% of communication is nonverbal. So if I can't see you, I'm missing a lot. So really I think it's interesting that people haven't set up any guidelines. They're just, they're just kind of winging it and you don't wing other things in your company. So start putting some this is how we behave, this is how we come together, this is the communication plan internally and externally. And then people over time will assimilate to what we're doing currently. I won't dare call it the new normal because every day I wake up, Bill, and there's a new something new we're thinking about. So don't get comfy that you've overcome anything because more change is coming. Yes, and I think, you know, one point I'd like to emphasize once again is that I think a lot of people just thought we'll do this. Zoom meetings will be fine for the next 90 days. And then, and then we realized, oh my gosh, this is, this is not 90 days. This is 180 days. This is, this might be 365 days for all we know. So it's time now to get more formal with your process better, not winging it, right? So I think, I think we've turned that corner. Maybe some people keep thinking, well, isn't it just going to be a few more months? I mean, how much longer? I think it's based on what you're listening to and what you're hearing as far as how long you think it's going to go on. So those are great tips, and you know it's a time to embrace the fact that things have changed, right, and it's, and it's going to be different and you need to probably change up your policies and how you do it. So you guys have at Talent Trust have great tools. You also have again this free talent and culture quiz which I really like the idea of that. And listeners, I will put that into the show notes. You'll see the hyperlink right there so you can take it right from there at exaoachradio.com. And be sure to buy Kathleen's book. It's got rave reviews. It's called Solve the People Puzzle, and again it's on Amazon. But we'll put the link to that as well. And Kathleen, it's always fun to talk with you, and we've had some great times in the past, and I look forward to every time we get to talk. Is there anything else you'd like to leave our listeners with as far as a couple tips or ideas or precautions? I believe that we will all rise above this. Don't get discouraged. Be optimistic. Lead with as much light and love as you possibly can because everybody's scared, including you, the business owner, the entrepreneur, but your employees and your customers are scared, so. The more we can be authentic, caring, compassionate, uh, to each other, whether we're employees, employers, customers, vendors, human beings that we see at the grocery store, um, a lot of grace and a lot of compassion right now and understanding is what's going to help us as Americans pull through this and rebuild our country to the greatness that it always has been and will continue to be. Thank you. We needed to hear that, and it was really, really great talking with you today. Thanks so much. Thank you, Bill. Thank you for listening to Exit Coach Radio.
