Purpose Over Profit: The Art of Leading With Significance | Joey Havens | Episode 286

Scott McCarthy:
Joey, sir, welcome to the show. It’s so good to have you here.

Joey Havens:
Oh, thank you, Scott. It’s, it’s wonderful to be with you, and I really appreciate the opportunity.

Scott McCarthy:
So you wrote the book Leading With Significance, a And I would like to know, you know, what it what’s leading with significance mean for you in in a summary? Because, obviously, the book Means it all. But rather, if you were to kinda summarize it, what does leading with significant mean?

Joey Havens:
You know, that’s an interesting question because if you told me that was gonna be the title of the book, never ever would’ve guessed that was gonna be the title. But when I finished, it was very evident that leading with significance is what, generating great workplace culture is all about. And what leading with significance means is that leaders are putting others first. They are serving others. Leading with significance is all about the 2 choices that we have in life. One, we can chase success, which is all about more, more, more. More power, more titles, just goes on and on and on. Or we can choose significance and leading with significance where it is about elevating others around us, and that always leads to more satisfaction, more joy.

Joey Havens:
Up. And the great news about leading with significance is when you do that, you are always very successful.

Scott McCarthy:
Yeah. I I really enjoyed the part that you said, and it’s it’s definitely boils down to just Taking care of your people, right, and putting them first and making sure that they, are taken care of because I often talk about, take care of your people because they’re the ones doing, you know, things on your behalf. They’re the ones that are doing the work on your behalf. So we need to take care of them and essentially take care of ourselves. A So now you go down the culture route. So what do we see in culture these days? Because, actually, to preface that question. So I run a mastermind community called the Leader Growth Mastermind. And each month, we hit a, one of my 3 domains of leadership.

Scott McCarthy:
So I talk about leadership in 3 domains. Leading yourself, I. E. The leader, the individual themselves, Leading your team, I e, the individuals, I e, Joes, Joeys, and Scotts, and Janes, and Susie’s, etcetera. And then I finally I wrap it up with which is the institution aspect of leadership, you know, the company, The organization itself. Then each month, we focus in on one of those domains within our mastermind, and literally starting well, not tomorrow, but next week, we’re gonna start focusing on leading organization. And then within there, we’re gonna talk about culture. A So this is a great time for this conversation.

Scott McCarthy:
So my question is, like, what are we seeing in organizational cultures these a because I’m doing a lot of reading, and I reading about, you know, how cultures, organizations are having, like all kinds of, like, video game systems set up. They’re having, you know, meal free meals. They’re having, gyms or whatever depending. But it’s not necessarily deep enough. So I’d like to hear your standpoint there.

Joey Havens:
Yeah. I think if you look at any of the research, and I won’t, quote specific surveys right now. But it overall, it shows that people are very disengaged and disconnected at work. Even with all the freebies and I call them band aids and free things. What people are really searching for is a purpose driven organization that they know cares about them and that they are building something bigger than themselves, that there’s a compelling vision there. And, of course, there’s different building blocks to all of that. But, you know, what’s going on in the workplace today? There’s still millions and millions of people quitting work every month. Like in December 2023, in the US, over 3 a half 1000000 people quit their job, and looking for other jobs.

Joey Havens:
And they’re not finding answers in those new workplaces either because they’re finding more of of what they left before which is, just a a workplace where it’s, not about people first. It’s about profits first. It’s about the, you know, here’s the the goal for the month. Up. And you made a a great statement and observation a while ago when you were talking about people and putting people first. People never care until they know you care. And that’s one of the secrets to growing, a great culture is that you gotta care first. Leaders have to trust first.

Scott McCarthy:
Yeah. I I agree with that last statement, I always say, like, trust is the cornerstone of leadership, and you have to immediately give it in order to receive it. Right? You have to trust your team a Instantly, you can’t just I’ve always hated that mentality of, oh, it’s hard, and you have to earn my trust. You have to earn it. A That’s it. I’m gonna tell you that. Well, what does that say to the individual on the other end? It says to them that you don’t trust them. They obviously, they won’t ever meet up to your expectations as a leader.

Scott McCarthy:
And you’re therefore, you’re not necessarily that welcome per se in the organization. And you have to your way through, feed your way through. Like, who wants to go through that crap? They wanna be an organization that what brings them in says, yeah. We trust you because, hell, we hired you. Therefore, we should trust you. That’s my immediate counterargument. It’s like, if you don’t trust someone, well, you hired them. So if you don’t trust them, why did you hire them? Now my question back to you on all of this is you mentioned the money, right, and profits and all this stuff, and the common argument that we hear is, Well, isn’t the paycheck reward enough? So I’m interested to hear what you what your thoughts are there on on that top

Joey Havens:
well, it it goes beyond my thoughts. There’s there’s credible, very recent surveys around that also. You know, about 80% of the people would actually take a pay cut to have an opportunity at an organization where they had a strong sense of belonging, where they had aligned leadership, and where they had a purpose that they felt like there was meaning to their job. That they were also working in a in an environment where they have the opportunity to reach their full potential. And so when you look at it, if you think about all the people that are thinking about, I wish I was working somewhere else. And, of course, number one thing employers are worried about is a talent shortage, and they’re worried about retaining the talent they’ve got. But people would actually work for less if they had a magnetic culture where they really felt like they belong.

Scott McCarthy:
Yeah. Absolutely. I follow a company that interests me greatly so by day this is my side hustle. Hence, why we record an evening time here. So by day, I’m a senior Canadian army officer, and Oh, coming up on almost 25 years of service now, and that’s our our our retire. We start taking our pension, retire with our pension, all this stuff. I’m Well, I have no immediate ambitions to retire at 25, but, you know, the option will be there then. And I follow this company that’s, local ish to me and so much great work that they do, like so much so many donations.

Scott McCarthy:
You see the president’s CEO constantly posting pictures of him handing checks over to all these great organizations to help them out. I’m like, man. When I get out, like, to work for an organization like that would be fantastic because obviously, you can see the higher purpose is just ingrained in that culture per se. A Does it also help that they had a management retreat in Mexico not too long ago? But all that purpose a Driven things is really what you know, brings me to them. It’s like, wow. That’s awesome. So how does a company start going about driving towards that type of mentality of, like, okay. We need our culture needs to have this a Purpose.

Scott McCarthy:
We need we need to show our people that we’re it’s more about it’s more than just profits here, but we actually care about what we do. We Care about the world around us. We care about our people and so on. How do they, you know, start turning that shit around? Have they been profits first, profits always type of organization.

Joey Havens:
Yeah. And that’s one of the things in in my book, in in our organization, we were always client first, client first, and hit these growth targets. And until we put people first, we were not able to really accomplish exponential growth and have profitability and and talent start to I call it magnetic energy. Talent actually attracted to your organization. But let’s get to your question which there’s oh, there’s 3 or 4 really baseline fundamental things that is you know, everybody’s journey is gonna be unique. But there’s some things that you gotta do. So let’s talk about what and you do them in different ways, and you might be in a different spot on your journey. A but number 1 is getting away from the mindset of good culture.

Joey Havens:
All culture has some bad pieces to it. Up. And, what I found after interviewing thousands of leaders in some of the, keynote presentations and other things that I’ve done is that we think about it like being a good parent. You know, nobody wants to be a bad parent. If you ask, are are you a good parent? Well, yeah. I’m a good parent. It’s the same thing with culture. It’s part of your identity.

Joey Havens:
But, actually, every parent, you scar your kids in one way or another. You make mistakes, and the kid has to grow beyond that, because we’re not perfect humans and we’re not perfect parents. Well, people put the same identity with culture. They say, oh, we have good culture. Everybody wants to be here. You know? Well, step 1 is realizing good culture is not good enough. What got you to the game today is not good enough for an exponential world. And so that step 1 is embracing reality.

Joey Havens:
Step 2 is that compelling vision. People need to know what is the compelling vision, what’s the clarity around that, and what are the core values. Like in our organization, we had 4 very, very clear core values that everything else fumbled off of there were God. We we we believe we honor God with our service and and, honor personal faith because everybody has different faith. We serve our families. We serve our clients, and we have a heart of gratitude. So core values and the the compelling vision, is a a big part. Because people have gotta know where are you going.

Joey Havens:
Number 3 that you already drilled in on, Scott. And I knew you were having listened to some of your podcasts, and some of the things that you teach about leadership. You’ve got to trust first. You don’t earn trust, and you don’t ask people to earn your trust. Leaders have to be vulnerable and trust first. And that’s what starts to generate a sense of belonging. That’s what starts to generate, more trust, which allows you to move faster. And then the 4th basic building block is helping create that strong sense of belonging for each team member.

Joey Havens:
It’s unique to each team member. Each team member has their own unique problems, their own unique goals and aspirations. And it’s not that 1 leader has to know or in a big organization has to know everybody’s, but you do have to connect on a personal basis. And 2 words that I use over and over again, you have to be intentional. In other words, be intentional to show you care. Be intentional to connect. Be intentional to trust first. The benefit of good intentions.

Scott McCarthy:
That’s a great framework, actually. I I enjoy that. A I’d like to dive into each one of those a little bit more per se. So we kinda hit the wave tops there, 30,000 foot view. Let’s kinda bring it into, like, a 1000 foot view. So you were talking at the beginning there as, recognizing that good culture is not good enough. Now Immediately when when I hear of these types of things. I just foresee people going, woah.

Scott McCarthy:
Why? What’s wrong? It ain’t broke. Why why should we bother fixing it? Like, it’s good, so we’re getting the job done. What’s what’s what’s wrong here? How do you go about or let me rephrase, actually. How do you help leaders go about, you know, changing that mindset, of those peoples, they know. Like, we can’t accept good. Just good. Let’s let’s go after great. Let’s go after amazing.

Scott McCarthy:
How do you go about changing that mindset in that people?

Joey Havens:
I think there’s 2 big leverage points. 1 is getting a real confidential feedback from your team to understand. And what you’ll find is that people are having different experiences. People are seeing the organization differently. But rarely do we build the trust up in an organization enough to where we can get that feedback. So you have to begin to get that confidential feedback, so that you you can show that, you know, not everybody sees sees the world, through sunglasses, like the CEO usually does. Sees the best side of of everything. And the 2nd piece of that is in good culture, you generally just have good results or mediocre results.

Joey Havens:
You’re you’re you already know well, we’re profitable. We’re we’re not as profitable we were 3 years ago. Our turnover was 15%, but now it’s 25%. We’ve not been able to do double digit growth even 1 year, much less 3 years in a row. You know, I say I think 10% plus. That’s what we explained it to our organization. We wanna do double digit growth every year. And to do that, you’ve gotta have an awesome team that’s on fire.

Joey Havens:
And so it’s embracing that, you know, 1, our results are not outstanding. A and 2, we are now it’s not we’re going to be. We are in an exponential world. And it is only gonna speed up. Up. And, there’s actually a book out called Tomorrow Mine that came out, last year. It does a great job of anticipating what you need, in an organization to succeed in tomorrow’s world. Up.

Joey Havens:
And it comes back to culture and a sense of belonging because what happens when you’re in exponential world, you have to experiment more. You have to take more chances. You’re not you’re not on this slow change curve anymore. You’re on an exponential straight up curve. And so when you look at the environment you’re in, if you educate around that, if you if you get the right confidential feedback and notice the difference in experiences, and if you look at deep at what your actual results really are and where they’re trending. You’re gonna find good cultures delivering very mediocre results.

Scott McCarthy:
Yeah. I I I like that exponential growth, curve that you’d mentioned because You’re right. The world is ever changing, and it’s changing at such a rapid pace this day and age. Like, I think I saw an article there earlier today. I believe it said 20000 years. We’re gonna experience 20000 years of change in the span of the next 20 years, as in, like, previous, you know, the the amount of growth, how exponentially things are gonna change. It’s gonna be equivalent 20,000 from I forget when they based it on. But that’s just to help back up what you were just talking about, that existential growth.

Scott McCarthy:
And with that, obviously, it goes to your next point of vision. Right? We have to, as leaders, have to have that vision for the future. Staying the status quo is only good for so long. Things need to change. We need to have a culture that supports that change and That enables people to bring those ideas forward and feel part of the team and all these great amazing things. So I’d love to get your points on vision and how leaders can, one, develop that vision for the future, but, most importantly, I would suggest is communicate back to their team.

Joey Havens:
Yeah. On the compelling vision, you know, it’ll be it’ll be something authentic to that organization that really resonates, that has a a purpose more than being the biggest or, being the most profitable. You know, it’s it’s a a purpose beyond that. You know, in ours, we actually had, the vision of building the Wise Firm. And that was based on the biblical parable of the wise man and the foolish man. Wise man built this house on the rock. Foolish man built his house on the sand. Storms came.

Joey Havens:
Wind blew. Rain melted down. The water flowed, and it washed to foolish man’s house away. And so what we did is we built a foolish firm up with was built on the foundation of me and self interest. And we compared it to the wise firm. It had the building block of we in service an empowered people and positive energy. And the foolish firm had politics and rigid structure. And and so we showed that compelling vision, to our ownership group.

Joey Havens:
We said, where are we today? We’re over here in the foolish firm. We’re over here. We’re getting growth but it’s following the profession. We’re getting what everybody else is we’re not getting anything exponential. Our turnover rate’s going up. We’ve got low trust in our partner group. We got low trust in the firm. And so however you deliver that vision, that’s just an example of of the vision that we delivered.

Joey Havens:
Our team then knew that our vision was to build a wise firm. To have a firm where flexibility was offered to everybody. To have a firm where everybody had a path to their full potential that started with a sense of belonging. That started with leadership trusting them. And so when you get that vision and you can come, pack very passionately deliver that, and then leaders line up. And it no one person no one person changes the culture. One big vision is not gonna change a culture as, I know one of your guests, trying to think of his name, Mark Devine. He said, you have to have a bias toward action.

Joey Havens:
And, in your compelling vision, the leadership, one has to be aligned with that vision, and they have to have a bias toward demonstrating that alignment. There’s a story that goes along with that about the fishbowl. And if we have time, I’ll tell you about Leadership Fishboat.

Scott McCarthy:
That’s awesome. And, yeah. Mark was a great guest. A Absolutely. Actually, repeat guest. But I liked what you talked about there in that you said something so true. And that was no 1 person changes the culture of an organization. I would offer no one person changes for the better.

Scott McCarthy:
1 person can change it for the worse.

Joey Havens:
Oh, great great great point. That is Scott, that is awesome.

Scott McCarthy:
Sorry. Because I lived a I 100% lived it. I I was at a I was at a unit, and, the culture was great. Organization was moving forward in in a in a in a positive way. Everything was going good, and, you know, military terms, we change over every 2 years. Right? People change jobs every 2 years, so a new person in charge of the unit shows up, and it was like a mock five nosedive. Like, You wanna talk about everything going wrong? Like and it was literally 1 person. I’m sorry.

Scott McCarthy:
It was 1 person changed that organization a And and drilled it right through the ground. So, yes, you’re 100% right. No one 1 person will change it for good, but 1 person can definitely change it for a Bad first aid.

Joey Havens:
Yeah. 1 toxic 1 toxic leader can, kill you. And, you know, that’s something else I talk about culture is that culture will never hit your aspirations. It always settles in at the level of behaviors that you tolerate. Just think about that.

Scott McCarthy:
Yeah. Absolutely. A 100% like to as I coach, I was coaching, and someone was saying, oh, we keep having this issue with, one of my people and my people. Okay. Well, have you, addressed it with them? They’re like, no. I’m a well, to say nothing is condoned the activity. A So much of what you said, like, it’s the tolerant part of it. Now, Joe, you’ve you’ve mentioned it multiple times, a A sense of belonging.

Scott McCarthy:
You know? People belonging. Kinda like to keep on the topic on the positive culture side, like, get away from the negative because we have too many examples. We’re here all night talking about negative call. Let’s talk about positive stuff. So sense of belonging. So what’s it mean to, you know, have that sense of belonging? To how do leaders go about establishing it within their organizations?

Joey Havens:
Well, it, the hard part is it happens 1 conversation at a time. Every conversation matters. So that’s that’s the hard part. But, you know, it you get that going when leaders are aligned with the vision. When they are trusting their team members, they’re being vulnerable enough to trust, giving people the benefit of good intentions where they’re connecting and demonstrating that they care like if Scott’s on my team. I care about what’s got going on in his life. I care about what Scott’s aspirations are. And so all of those things are part of of how you get that psychological safety going.

Joey Havens:
Where a team member says, you know, I am gonna be be be vulnerable and trust this leadership team. I do feel like I can reach my full potential here. I feel safe enough that I can take risk. You can never reach your full potential if you never take any risk. Right. You have to take risk to reach your full potential. And so, that is why a sense of belonging is so important. And once somebody has a strong sense of belonging, they help each other.

Joey Havens:
They help somebody else, established that same psychological safety.

Scott McCarthy:
Yeah. Psychological safety is definitely something crucial to develop a sense of belonging. I and I speak about that. I had a guest on a long time ago that I referred to as the 4 stages, author by name of Tim Clark. Fantastic guest. Very well. I refer to him often, and it’s definitely helps with exactly what you’re talking about. And, like, people need to feel safe.

Scott McCarthy:
They need to feel be able to contribute to the team. They need to be able to take those risks. They need to be able to make mistakes and not get absolute demolished for them and and and challenge, you know, challenge organization to the status quo. So I I I love that because when they’re able to do that, then they’re like, okay. A Not only am I putting in, but the organization as a whole is invested in me. They’re allowing me to invest myself into it completely a And vice versa because as you talked about, it allows for that growth for them to be able to move along and go after their hopes and dreams and Wishes and all those things. So that’s that’s all great stuff.

Joey Havens:
Learn fast. Learn forward. Learn together.

Scott McCarthy:
Absolutely. Absolute. Now the final thing you’ve talked about, and that was, trust. Now we hit about trust. Hit on trust a bit. Now is there anything else I trust that we need to dive into to kinda make the a Holistic picture for listener out there.

Joey Havens:
No. But I don’t know that you can say it enough that, you know, you don’t earn trust. I mean, you can be trustworthy, but if I’m gonna trust Scott, regardless of how good or bad pattern you have, I’m always have to take personal risk to trust you. It’s always my decision. And I’m more likely to do that if the leader if my leader has demonstrated trust in me over and over again. Last night I watched just a thrilling basketball college basketball game. Up. And they interviewed the point guard who had an amazing, game that night.

Joey Havens:
And he hit 2 huge shots in the last 50 seconds. And as they were interviewing, they said, how do you have the confidence to take that shot. And you know what he said, Scott?

Scott McCarthy:
They trusted me with the ball or something to that effect.

Joey Havens:
The coach told me he believed in me. The coach told me that he believed in me. And my teammates believe in me. And even if I had missed that shot, my teammates would’ve been there to pick me up. But it was all around the coach has drilled into them. Hey. I believe in you. I trust you to execute our game plan.

Scott McCarthy:
That’s a great a story to start wrapping this, interview up with Joey. That’s a nice way to put a bow in it. Before we do wrap up things here. I got a couple last questions for you. The first being a question asked all the guests here at the Moving Performance Leadership podcast. And that is according to you, Joy Havens. What makes a great leader?

Joey Havens:
What makes a great leader? A great leader it’s someone who understands it’s not about them. It’s about, his people, her people, and caring and serving them. You know, many times when you get into leadership, you’ve been collecting stars or badges. And what I, I teach people in leadership classes is that when you become a leader and you move up in leadership, your job goes from collecting badges and stars to giving them out. And the more you give out, the more people you elevate. That’s what makes you a great leader.

Scott McCarthy:
And the final question of the show. Where can people find you, follow you, be part of your journey? Shameless plug. Have at it.

Joey Havens:
Yep. Probably the easiest place of all is joey havens.com. That’s my website, and you can email me at joey@joeyhavens.com. And, I’m out there on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. So joey havers.com is the best place to start.

Scott McCarthy:
Perfect. And for you listener, it’s easy as always. Just go to the show notes. The link is there in the show notes, and all the links for Joey will be in there. So, again, Joey, thank you for taking time in your busy schedule, sir. Appreciate you. Appreciate your time, a And appreciate this conversation. It’s been fantastic.

Scott McCarthy:
Obviously, super important for the listener.

Joey Havens:
Well, thank you, Scott. It’s been a pleasure, and I really appreciate your leadership and, sharing with with people what it takes to be a great leader. So thank you for

Scott McCarthy:
that.