EP195: Creating a culture of growth: An interview with Ryan Rigterink

That's actually a kind of a lengthy story, but I will, I'll give you the brief version is I had a kind of a personal I don't know what you call it. I call it a perfect storm, actually, where almost every area of life, this was a decade and a half ago, it kind of came crumbling down and it exposed my own leadership foundations. And there was probably a seven to eight year journey of rebuilding my own leadership and just really analyzing at a real deep heart level. you know, what do I want life to look like? You know, what am I here for? What's meaningful? What's purposeful? And so that led into creating actually a curriculum around purpose management, kind of a new form of leadership, which I guest lectured at a couple of different business colleges at, and then kind of moved over to the organizational side of that. That's sort of the journey to probably about three or four years ago when I started working with an organization for a case study on. on really applying to similar principles, but at a organizational level.

So I grew up in a family business, agriculture. I grew up on a farm, a pretty significant operation growing up. So I literally started working. I was in my dad's shadow by the time I was three, literally working next to him. So I've always had business and leadership, the privilege of growing up really under great parents, learned a lot along the way. But actually, career-wise, I've worked across four different industries. That's part of what I started noticing was, you know, things that are common across multiple industries that I see as sort of opportunities to create a better future for the next generation in the world of work. So it's an unusual career path, but it's it almost for me to come to the sort of the conclusions of of what I'm trying to introduce in the world and improve it. It actually was instrumental in terms of arriving to that point.

Yeah, it's an interesting problem. I do think it's timely, but it's to your point, it's actually a problem that's experienced in both directions, right? You've got, broadly speaking, generational value differences. We've got five generations in the workforce right now, and you see a lot of judgments sort of in both directions. People not wanting to work, well. I actually end up defending, my wife and I have four kids, and I actually think this generation not only wants to work, but has overall a great work ethic. It's just they are not interested in command and control type leadership and their expectations of why they want to work, like what's within them and what they're actually. They want work to be more meaningful. They want to have more work-life balance. It's not work for work's sake. It's, in my opinion, this generation is almost getting some things flipped in the right direction that, you know, do we live to work or do we work to live? And so speaking of my own generation, I think we've moved kind of from command and control to a form of leadership to maybe enlightened command and control, but we have yet to really do a... a full shift to, I think what the next generation is looking for. So,

So, you know, when I had opportunity to work with a call center and came alongside them with one foot in their business world, working with their executive leadership in one foot in academia. And, you know, broadly speaking, distilled it down into essentially four main paradigm shifts that I think definitely apply to recruiting, but they also apply more broadly. You know, currently we recruit based on the past and we manage the present. When what the next generation and I think humanity wants is to build a shared future. And so it's not just a task for a task sake. It's, you know, why am I doing this? And does this serve my future? And so it's no longer just about the relationship in terms of the employer employee relationship for a paycheck. I think what's being looked for is who cares about me and what's. important to me beyond the paycheck. And that I think is can be a huge differentiator. I don't pretend to say that it's rocket science or anything like that. A lot of these things, I think once you see what's possible in terms of some of these things, it's like, well, I've had a lot of people would be like, well, duh, like that's that really should be obvious. But what should be obvious when we talk about it, if it's not actually being done from a leadership standpoint, it's not what people experience. And so I think that's part of the rub in the. in the recruiting and hiring space.

Well, we have our primary method of recruiting in terms of systems is off a resume. And a resume by default is, you know, it was created 500 years ago by DaVinci, and it really hasn't. been updated a whole lot since there's been changes but from a macro like a a significant shift is it's still all about what have you done to date so one of the underlying premises that oh i got you that i actually think is is flawed is We have great data, I'll say partial data on what somebody's done today, but we don't really have great data on where someone wants to go in that hiring and recruiting space. And so that's actually some of the insights that we're introducing with WorkAce because it's, in my opinion, it's a blue ocean and it's more of the human element into hiring from the beginning.

I guess just to clarify, I'm not saying that resumes should be thrown out or not used. What I'm saying is they're incomplete. And there's a whole other, you know, if you had a half resume, it's not as meaningful. And so in resumes, you know, one of the things that is a limitation of the current infrastructure we have, which is based off of this sort of past present paradigm, is we have ATS systems that are basically a lot of people experience them as a black hole. You apply, they go into this, there's parsing that's done off of that to mine out keywords and whatnot. But it's incomplete. It's kind of a game. Does it actually elevate the best people? Maybe. I would think there's a lot of talent that's missed. And then you've got other recruiting paradigms that I've connected with a bunch of other recruiters. And this I actually learned along the last couple of years working with one is one of the... sort of problems in hiring and recruiting right now is people are hiring for, they want a hundred percent match of experience and skills to the job description. And what that produces is the best worst fit candidate. Because if you think about it, if somebody already has everything that you're looking for, what is that for that person? It's a lateral move. And what else is the differentiator for to attract that person to your company? Well, It's pay and benefits. And so we end up creating by virtue of some of our approaches in hiring and recruiting, we create our own sort of square peg in a round hole where we're literally eliminating a section of great fit candidates right now that maybe there's 10 to 20% or they don't yet have it to the degree that the job requires it. But what is that? That's somebody who might be. really leaning in, motivated and engaged in their own growth, motivated to develop in their career. And how does that person show up after the offer is made? Well, they're probably a lot more interested in all of those sort of extra effort that goes into the job than somebody who's been there, done that. learned how to do it by another company, which may or may not work out, and eliminating many of the primary intrinsic motivators and reducing it down to a pay and rewards motivator for making that switch. And so some of these things I think we need to kind of rethink in terms of are we building the right data and insights and is our paradigm in hiring correct for truly building a shared future with someone? That's some of the thoughts and insights we're trying to introduce into that piece of the process. Wait a minute, Ryan.

Well, you tell me. That's your world. How has that worked out for you?

Absolutely. I agree with that wholeheartedly. And what I would add to that is what's their motivation in that role? Does it genuinely serve as a future that they're trying to build? Because I tell you, somebody who's on their heels doing, you know, checking boxes and doing what's required versus somebody who's leaning forward into the job and it actually. you know, it lights a fire in them in terms of where they want to go, that that person shows up different for you. They show up different for your customers. And ultimately, I think it's the kind of employer employee relationship that is truly a win win and builds more value for all the stakeholders. And so I think if we can zero in on that, I think, you know, character is a piece, obviously experience to a degree is absolutely a piece depends very much on the role. But then if we can tap into. a future someone genuinely wants to invest themselves into, that's another piece of it.

Absolutely agree with all of that. I think currently we're trying to mine out in face-to-face interviews. And I mean, there's a reason why personal referrals are weighted so much more heavily than, you know, a cold application. It's because of some of those intangibles, character. motivation, dependability, all those things are not just skills. They're very much, you know, I like to say soft skills are the new hard skills. It's, you know, you can train anybody the right skills if they show up with the want to. And what I'm also saying is we can actually create the conditions where the want to can be there as well. And that's sort of the leadership side of that.

So, you know, that's, it's a great question. Unfortunately, a lot of that is customized for the particular role or industry. Right. So each of those are going to have. you know, different demands and probably a different strategy that's optimal. But at a high level, I think if we can add in missing insights into creating a shared future with somebody. So career growth fit is one of the insights that we're layering in and understanding before, you know, in the selection of who we're even interviewing, how much value are we creating for the employee? And how can we optimize that? That's a piece. I think if we can both recruit and then manage people understanding how they're intrinsically motivating, it makes a huge impact. We can gain insights into that. So we're actually introducing motivation fit in that same platform, WorkGase, and then team fit. So I think, you know, from the academic research I've seen, like the things that really elevate are really... If I could point to a secret sauce, which is I think what you're asking, it's a combination of the environment, the motivation of the individual, and the future-oriented intent of what they want and where they want to go. If we can nail those three things, in addition to still all the qualification kind of stuff that's done so far, but also... back off of that and leave room for growth to happen, we can, I think we can find a much better sweet spot in hiring.

correct? Yeah. So we're, we're actually developing it right now. We're building a job seeker side and then a employer side. And so we're getting ready for a beta on the job seeker side here and probably about another month. And then we're continuing it. We're actively getting stakeholder input on the employer side from recruiters, from senior leaders, managers, HR folks, talent acquisition teams. So it's already gone through several iterations in the design phase. So yeah, that's. I'm hoping that will launch in January. All of that came out of the training and coaching I did with leaders and seeing the aha moments of how much more value can be created in that relationship. Honestly, I didn't set out to build a platform. I set out to make an impact and through feedback, started to realize and connect some dots that if we can add these insights into that process, we can make an exponentially larger sort of dent in the universe on this. Okay.

So we're building on some proprietary data sets that have already been proven out in that space, but then the rest of it's all first party data, which means that it's all actually informed by the job seeker candidate themselves. And so it's all about these, how are they motivated? How do they fit with the team and how do they fit? terms of future growth path direction. That's all based off of sort of machine learning, as well as the candidate data that they provide. And then we've got some other things built into it so that they can't gamify the system like how resumes are tailored right now to sort of put out a certain picture to each application of who they are. We've got some things built into it so that. You know, it removes bias. It removes that sort of game that is played in hiring. And but ultimately, hopefully serves both sides at a higher level.

There's a lot of different academic research out there that. One that I gravitate towards because I think simplicity equals scalability on some of this stuff in terms of just it being usable is really boiling down to four key areas in like an employee value prop and motivation. People are generally motivated towards an external like impact in the world. So like a mission orientation of the organization towards their own personal career growth or professional growth towards the physical rewards, which is one of the four. as well as connection with people. And so that's the academic research that we've built upon to identify what are people's primary and secondary motivators for why work matters to them. I've got four kids, and I think each of them might actually be in one of the four categories. I'm not 100% sure. I haven't done that. But I see so much variety in my own family in terms of how people are just designed and who they are and how they're motivated and what matters to them. And so some of this has been my own pattern recognition. of parenting kids and working with other young adults in terms of helping them find careers that they'll thrive in. This is kind of an extension of a father's heart, if that makes sense.

So there's some general trends right now in terms of the labor market. And there is differences, obviously, depending on the industry and sector. But the top half of the labor market versus the entry level, there are very different dynamics at play. You've got probably. more demand than supply at the top and the reverse at the bottom. And so I think one of the things that employers do that have like entry level to early career kind of jobs is employers have probably never experienced this and they're probably frustrated by perceived work ethic or not caring about the job. But the reality is, is that in the world of supply and demand, these students or young adults have options and they don't need you as much as you need them if you're an employer. And so I think starting out with that mindset of. how can I show up to not only attract, but retain? needs to, it might be a bit of a hard pill to swallow, but I think the employers who are stepping up and are investing in employee experience and trying to build more value, like they recognize the reality of the industry and the market that they're in, the labor market that they're in. And I see that missing. I see a lot of leaders, business leaders that still believe like, hey, I'm the one writing the check, therefore. I get to write all the rules and, you know, the value exchange is in one direction only. And I mean, you could do that, but puts you at a major disadvantage.

So unfortunately, there are a lot of people in leadership positions, management positions that have had absolutely no leadership training. And that is so first off, anything I say, like there are lots of industries and positions where people are sort of set up. I don't want to say set up to fail, but set up to maybe not. even know what needs to be done, right? So I think investing in leadership, even if it's on the job leadership and application leadership, where it impacts immediately in terms of the circumstance as an organization, recognizing that there's value there and it's needed. is kind of step one. Once there's probably some leadership acumen in those positions, part of that, and this goes back to more about the question you're asking, is how do we create a growth culture where there's continuous growth and rhythms of the business that it's meaningful to the individual? And so in the call center, what I'm a proponent of right now and recommend is a weekly or if you can't do a weekly every other week where it's not an accountability kind of conversation, but it's a growth moment where, okay, what are you working on? How can I support that? Who can I connect you with for everybody that's on your team that you're in charge of right on down throughout the organization? And so when that happens, it sounds like a small thing, but three to five minutes of a leader. not talking to you about what have you done and have you gotten this in and accountability kind of conversations, but investing in the individual and having that over the course of time, it actually builds a culture that's of people leaning into growth. And it's not just, you know, a mission statement on a business card. There's authenticity behind, you know, we care about you as a person backed up by action, not just, you know, I think some of the. distrust that exists right now in the workplace is because there's a lot of people who have experienced words without actions that have followed through and made people think, okay, that was authentic. And so I think sometimes there's an authenticity gap in actions. And then employee voice, like it's in that conversation, but even beyond. creating systems and integrating systems where employee voice is not only heard, but personally, I believe it's a huge opportunity for a continuous improvement and innovating the business itself. Anybody who's on the front line has the most direct conversations typically with customers, depends again on industry and whatnot, but they have the most firsthand knowledge of of what are the complaints from the customers, what are they experiencing that's not going so well. And so hearing the voice of the employee, but then actually taking action on it. Again, that action piece is so important because I think there's survey fatigue. I'm going to take XYZ assay and then nothing is done with it. It's a both and kind of thing on that.

Yeah. And there's ways to do that. Structuring. I think what I've heard from leaders, I'll put it that way, is a concern of like. If we crack that door open, it's going to turn into a giant gripe session and it's going to like be in a ditch and it's actually going to have a negative impact. But if you structure it correctly, either through technology or through just even structuring the conversation, that that can be a hotbed of massively. valuable innovation and improvement in the business. And so approaching it that way, I think in a lot of companies, it's a lot of untapped potential to not only listen, but to take action and listening to understand and not dismiss. And then if they see action being taken, to your point, even the doubters will start to... start to believe like, oh, wow, like they did something with what we recommended. And so that's huge for employees not feeling like a number and feeling like action was taken based on what we're experiencing and what we're saying. Again, it's saying sounds so basic, but. they're missing, broadly speaking. And so it's a huge opportunity.

Yeah, absolutely. I think the, what you just said about. the military versus 180 of that in corporate America is a really astute observation. And for good reason, we've derived a lot of our leadership paradigms, a lot of our leadership training has come out of the military. And there's a place for that. But I think what, I mean, that's called command and control now, right? That's how a military needs to operate. But it's not how an organization of people who are essentially deciding whether or not I mean, nobody's enlisted in your company. They can leave whenever they want, and they have options. And so the leadership paradigms that work in that are, in a lot of cases,180 degrees from that. So I think that's a very astute observation you made. And it's, yeah, I didn't know you were going to go there. I was thinking that earlier when you said military leadership experience, that that's actually part of what doesn't translate well now. Um, that's, you could probably write a book on that.

Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, probably familiar with psychological safety and, and how that's kind of taken root. We've done, I mean, it's an incredible tool to measure it, but the bar of creating that kind of culture hasn't really moved a whole lot. So we, and that I believe starts at leadership in terms of. designing the culture they want to have and layering some of these things in that actually create the conditions for, for that psychological safety to happen. And, and the tough thing is, is, you know, we all have to look ourselves in the mirror about, okay, what am I getting right? And what am I getting wrong? And without feedback, honest feedback around us, like we just, we just have blind spots, all of us do. And so none of us are. without the capability of deceiving ourselves from, you know, what do they call it? Drinking our own, what do they call it? Punch or whatever. There's an expression I can't remember, but reading our own headline, believing our own headlines, right? And so position-based leadership is, if we can view the organization as the inverting the pyramid, that I'm here to actually serve everybody who's below me. And I want to know that. Like, actually, I think it's a core strategy and responsibility of leadership is to. not just understand our people and the objective, but what's getting in the way, like how can we remove barriers and how can we, you know, empower, serve for, for you mentioned that decentralized decision-making, obviously we need to sandbox that appropriately based on, you know, the person and the role in terms of what decisions they can make versus not. And that's all very situational, but the more we can move that, you know, To decentralize that throughout the organization and create the psychological safety to speak honestly, I mean, that's a huge competitive advantage because cultures are hard to replicate. And cultures that do pull that off, they move faster, they innovate faster, they create more value, they serve customers at a higher level. Because of that, it turns into, you know, they can charge higher margins. So there's kind of a cascade of benefits that come out of doing that.

Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. Sort of made up a new term called pre-productivity. And that's, you know, leadership's about creating the conditions where productivity happens. It's not just about the task and checking things off the box. But as leaders, we can create the conditions and the environment and then personalize our approach to the individual with that EQ like you're talking about. It translates downstream into absolute. impact, positive impact on productivity.

And that book you recommended, Extreme Ownership, is great. From my perspective, not only is the book great, but leadership boils down to how much responsibility are we willing to accept. That's sort of foundational on our own growth as well as leading others. So we can't have influence over anything we're not willing to take responsibility for.

And just to add on to that for a listener's benefit, it's, you know, how we react as leaders to like, again, what we give lip service to versus how we act and follow through on things. You know, what came to mind when you were saying that is, yeah, we say we want people to experiment at, but how do we react as leaders when they do that and it fails? Well, we are literally training them whether or not they're ever going to do that again. And if that's actually something of value to the company. And that's better seen on a failure than a success.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, that's right.

It kind of is. Some of what comes out of that is fit insights, but there's also, it really empowers individuals to be in charge of their own career and create personalized career paths are one of the features on that. And so what we use in hiring insights actually becomes the foundation of continued growth over time. that we really put in the hands of the individual to drive. And so that's, it creates unlimited personalized career paths, which means it can scale down and help mid to small companies who maybe aren't large enough to have, you know, predetermined company career paths as well.

Oh, so I'm in launch phase right now. So obviously Awesome is kind of a brand marketing book that I've read recently, and it's very, very well done. I believe it's April Driscoll. That might not be right. Obviously Awesome is the book title, and it's orange, but I forget her name. Okay.

Well, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this and I appreciate the time and the conversation. So thank you. Thank