Every workplace experiences change. It can be small, like a slight tweak to a longstanding policy. Or it can be more significant, like an abrupt change to company leadership. Regardless, employers need to understand and prepare for change. But how? Even if something’s necessary, that doesn’t make it easy. Luckily, you don’t have to face it alone.
Mike Paton, host of The EOS Leader podcast and co-author of Get a Grip and Process!, joins the HR Break Room® podcast to walk us through why organizations should embrace change and practical strategies for navigating it. He’ll explore how companies stumble and what they can do to simplify, streamline and, ultimately, succeed through change.
In this episode, he’ll discuss:
- the common mistakes businesses make when implementing change
- how the Entrepreneurial Operating System® can make change easier
- practical strategies to empower employees through change
- communication strategies to help navigate change
TRANSCRIPT
Announcer [00:00:14 – 00:00:26]
HR Break Room is brought to you by Paycom, empowering employees nationwide with HR and payroll tech in one easy app. Learn how Paycom simplifies business for your entire workforce at paycom.com.
Ariana Stark [00:00:28 – 00:01:54]
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the HR Break Room, Paycom’s podcast dedicated to having quick conversations on the hot topics in HR. I’m your host, Ariana Stark.
Change happens in every workplace. Without it, companies stagnate and fall behind the curve. But just because change is necessary doesn’t always make it easy. Whether it’s implementing a new company policy or adapting to an abrupt shift in leadership, change puts an organization’s resiliency to the test. Even the highest-performing, most visible businesses can stumble when facing certain kinds of change.
But you don’t have to face it alone, because today’s guest has built his career on helping employers face, understand and, ultimately, embrace change: Mike Paton. Over the past two decades, Paton has helped thousands of leaders enhance their businesses. He empowers others to implement the simple concepts and practical tools of the Entrepreneurial Operating System. EOS, as it’s commonly called, is a way of operating a growing business that empowers employers and their teams through vision, traction and health. He spent five years as EOS Worldwide’s visionary. He also hosts the EOS Leader podcast and has also coauthored two books in EOS Worldwide’s Traction library: Get a Grip and Process. With that, let’s jump into the HR Break Room. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Paton.
Mike Paton [00:01:54 – 00:01:55]
Thank you, Ariana. Great to be here.
Ariana Stark [00:01:55 – 00:01:57]
We’re super excited to have you.
Mike Paton [00:01:57 – 00:01:59]
Yeah. And I’m really happy to be here. Thanks.
Ariana Stark [00:01:59 – 00:02:17]
Well, great. Well, we’ve really been looking forward to this conversation, so let’s go ahead and get started. I want to start off with growth. So growth brings change, as we know, especially in the workplace. So what are the most common ways that you typically see organizations change through growth and why is that?
Mike Paton [00:02:17 – 00:02:52]
Yeah. Well, you know, growth, the first kind of growth is external growth, where the size of the organization needs to change to match the demand for whatever product or service it’s providing. And, you know, a one-person organization is a lot different than a 10-person organization. And a 100-person organization is a lot different than a 10-person organization. And in order to get from one to 10 to 100, there are thousands of changes that need to happen. And it’s unsettling and uncomfortable for a lot of people. And that’s the space where I tend to spend most of my time.
Ariana Stark [00:02:52 – 00:02:59]
Right. Well, the way a business rolls out the change can also be just as important as the change itself.
Mike Paton [00:03:00 – 00:03:06]
Yeah, and some change, the business is rolling out and some change, the business is reacting to. Right?
Ariana Stark [00:03:06 – 00:03:07]
Yes.
Mike Paton [00:03:06 – 00:03:39]
So it isn’t always, and in fact, in the early days, it’s more often externally driven change. That change happens to you rather than you deciding you’re going to make a change and do that. And so I find that great leaders and great leadership teams need to be good at both those kinds of change management. “How do we react to things outside our control that require us to react with change? And then how do we plan and implement effective change when it’s our idea and we feel we’re in control?”
Ariana Stark [00:03:39 – 00:03:47]
Right. No. Yeah. That. Absolutely. So from your experience, what common mistakes do organizations make when they are introducing that change?
Mike Paton [00:03:48 – 00:05:20]
You know, I would say probably the most common mistake is a, ineffective communication is the big wrapper that I would put around it. And, and there’s five or six different little sub bullets to that. So, so not engaging stakeholders before change is happening to get their input and have them feel a part of the decision-making and the planning process means that a higher percentage of the people in the organization will feel like change happened to them rather than they were part of making a change.
And so that’s a common communication mistake. Not thinking about all of the stakeholders and the way they’ll be impacted by change and assuming that a simple email communication to tell people that their cheese has moved is, is another common mistake, rather than getting everybody in the room, sharing the reason for the change as briefly and simply as possible, exactly what change needs to happen and when, how it will affect people, and then listening and being willing to take some flack and, and hear about the people who are concerned or frightened or whatever.
That’s another kind of communication error where you’re just not communicating enough or listening enough to really understand why people are reacting negatively to change.
Ariana Stark [00:05:20 – 00:05:25]
So, ultimately, it really comes down to clear communication and just communication in general.
Mike Paton [00:05:25 – 00:05:45]
Communication in general and, very specifically, listening and empathizing and understanding and coaching and mentoring and assuring and, you know, that kind of collaborative, empathetic communication with listening skills being the primary driver of effectiveness.
Ariana Stark [00:05:45 – 00:06:03]
Absolutely. I really like what you said about just the empathy and including people in the, you know, in that process. So it’s, it’s not like the change is happening at them; like you said, it’s, it’s being part of the process together. All of us are changing together.
Mike Paton [00:06:03 – 00:06:58]
That’s exactly right. And in that effort, I find that one of the most important things, the, the word we use for this is context. Most people can understand the need to change if they understand why it’s necessary to quit doing something the way we used to do it and start doing it a different way. If the message is simply, “Hey, this piece of software that we used to use to do this job is being replaced by this piece of software that you don’t know how to use. Now get back to work.” If that’s all you communicate, it really doesn’t work so well. But if I understand why we’re making that change and that it’s ultimately, after a little bit of pain and discomfort, going to make me better at my job or more efficient or free up time for me to do other things that are on my list, then it’s a little easier for me to wrap my head around why we’re making the change, and, and it’ll help me get through that messy middle.
Ariana Stark [00:06:58 – 00:07:04]
Right. No, that’s great, because kind of having that reason or that why behind it really can help, you know, buy-in.
Mike Paton [00:07:05 – 00:07:19]
Yeah. And why from the standpoint not only of how it’s going to help our customers or how it’s going to help our company, but how is it ultimately going to impact me in a way that can help me achieve what I’m trying to achieve as an employee here as well?
Ariana Stark [00:07:19 – 00:07:29]
Exactly. So you’ve dedicated your career to teaching EOS. Can you tell us a little bit about how it applies to navigating change in the workplace of a corporate setting?
Mike Paton [00:07:29 – 00:09:55]
Yeah. So, you know, at a high level, EOS, as you said, is a way of operating an entrepreneurial company, a growth-oriented, open-minded, sometimes frenetic, nimble, adaptive organization. And it brings a little bit of structure, discipline and accountability to a company without killing its entrepreneurial spirit, its creativity, its flexibility, etc. And so what we teach is we teach that a great company with a great leadership team is really good at what we call the six key components of a well-run organization.
The Vision Component, being clear on who we are at the core, where we’re going long-term and how we plan to get there and getting everybody to understand and want to be a part of that is the first component. The People Component is the second component. To have and achieve a great vision, you have to have great people. The Data Component is the ability to run the business on facts and figures, on objective information, not subjective feelings, egos and emotions. The Issues Component is the ability to recognize and sometimes even anticipate issues as they arise and then set them up, knock them down and make them go away forever.
The Process Component is the ability to get the most important stuff in the business done the right and best way every time, even when the bosses aren’t there to watch. And the Traction Component is the ability to execute well, to focus on the right things and to follow through on those right things with real discipline and real accountability. And so when we’re teaching all of those things, we’re actually teaching the people who own and run the company to get better at changing the way we do those six things and using strength in those six key components to deal with whatever external forces are making things difficult in the business and to implement any internal changes. And to be candid with you, you have to be good at all six of those things to manage change well.
And so I know we’re going to talk specifics, but the one thing I want to make sure everybody understands is if you’re good at those six things, whatever the world throws at you or whatever you decide to go do from a change perspective is going to go a lot better than if one or two of those components are weak.
Ariana Stark [00:09:56 – 00:10:05]
I really like how you broke that down. Thank you for explaining each of those. And it really just, that’s, having that strategy, it just covers all the bases, right?
Mike Paton [00:10:05 – 00:10:26]
Yeah. It, again, we’re trying to bring a little bit of structure, discipline and accountability but not change the fact that when you’re running a small business, you got 20 pounds of manure and a 10-pound bag. And, and you need to be able to flex and, and zig and zag as the world demands. And that’s the fun part of what I get to do every day.
Ariana Stark [00:10:26 – 00:10:27]
That’s awesome.
Mike Paton [00:10:27]
Yeah.
Ariana Stark [00:10:27 – 00:10:33]
Well, I want to talk about process for a moment. So how crucial is process during change?
Mike Paton [00:10:34 – 00:12:53]
Yeah, it’s as crucial as the other five components. The reason I wrote the book Process is because in an entrepreneurial company, it is the one of the six key components that owners and leadership teams tend to rail against the most, to be perfectly candid. And as a visionary entrepreneur myself, I didn’t love teaching process in the early days of my career as an EOS implementer. But, but process is getting everybody in the organization to the point where they’re able to do the most important things we do, maybe hiring and retaining people, maybe building a product or service, maybe managing AP, AR and other finance and accounting responsibilities, those building blocks of a successful business.
Let’s do the basics consistently well at every level of the organization, not just the leaders and managers and supervisors. But is it possible for us to teach somebody in their first week on the job how to do most of their job really well? We call it a 2080 approach to strengthening the Process Component. And the reason I’m so passionate about this and how it impacts the ability to manage change is when leaders and managers and supervisors aren’t spending any time helping their employees master the basics, cleaning up messes when they’ve made a mistake or dealing with unhappy customers because we haven’t delivered on the basics well, it frees leaders, managers and supervisors up to implement initiatives that make positive change in the organization.
And most of the time, change management becomes an issue, what you’re going to hear is, “Well, I’m too busy.” And if you don’t have time to engage people before change, create a great plan, communicate well and then follow through because you’re so busy in the basics, gosh, if you don’t do it right the first time, when are you going to, because you don’t have time, when are you going to find the time to fix it? And that’s a great John Wooden quote that we talk about in Process a lot. So that’s the role process plays in this whole thing.
Ariana Stark [00:12:53 – 00:13:06]
Well, I really like, in your book Process, you talk about how it doesn’t have to be this complicated, you know, super-detailed thing, you know. It can be pretty simple and straightforward, but really effective.
Mike Paton [00:13:07 – 00:14:02]
Yeah. And, and what I say is, you know, “Progress, not perfection. Progress, not perfection.” Winston Churchill. You know, let’s teach the very basic steps, the six things we should do in every sale opportunity that is created for us. We should do these six things this way, because those are the things that are going to increase our chances of being successful. Now, if you’ve got a sales team of 20 people and they’ve already mastered those six things, then maybe you’re layering some nuance and some one-off and some ad-hoc stuff on top of it. But can we just get to the point where every one of those salespeople is doing those six things the way our organization wants it done every day?
Now the manager has more time. The sales manager has more time to coach and mentor and get involved in the most important deals, etc. That’s the teaching philosophy here. Start with the basics, then build from there.
Ariana Stark [00:14:02 – 00:14:09]
That’s great. And also another point you mentioned of just what’s out of our control. And this is something that is in our control, right?
Mike Paton [00:14:09 – 00:15:02]
Yeah. And, and when you get pushback to process, you’re going to hear a lot from your employees, “Well, it doesn’t always work that way. So this process is stupid.” The people who do a great job of this are able to take that kind of pushback and just say, “Hey, I know it doesn’t work that way. You’re 100% right. All I’m asking is for you to do your level best to do these six things this way every time. And when it’s impossible, that’s when I want you to come to me and let’s talk about the right way to zig and zag when it needs to be done.” So it’s also important to be a little flexible as you’re managing through this process.
If your expectation is the day after you send an email, everybody’s going to start doing things the way you want them to, your expectations are unreasonable, so that flexibility and patience really helps as well.
Ariana Stark [00:15:02 – 00:15:05]
That’s a really good point. Yeah, I think we all need to –
Mike Paton [00:15:05 – 00:15:26]
Yeah. I mean, people need to hear it seven times to hear it for the first time. And then once they’ve heard it for the first time, it still takes them a while to quit doing it one way and make the new way an automatic habit. And if you’re not patient as a leader, manager or supervisor, you’re going to have a long, frustrating career.
Ariana Stark [00:15:26 – 00:15:48]
Well, so, you know, some people, like we’re talking about, are more open to change and others, not so much. So what are — I know you talked about empathy, but what are some other strategies that leaders can use to make employees feel empowered and included when maybe they necessarily can’t accommodate every employee’s needs?
Mike Paton [00:15:48 – 00:17:45]
Yeah. I’d use an example from what we teach to strengthen the company’s Vision Component. So what we’ve tried to do is clarify and simplify the vision for the leadership team so that when they’re communicating to the rest of the organization about who we are, where we’re going long term and the things we’re prioritizing right now to get there, they can have those conversations regularly and in language that makes sense to the front-line employee. And so that’s a technique for getting people more quickly to understand why change is necessary, is translating your 75-page strategic vision and plan into a set of simple questions and answers that everybody in the organization can associate with and appreciate.
So, and then the other thing that that does is when your vision is crystal clear and you’re repeating it every quarter or, even more often, when you’re communicating with your employees, the people who don’t want to be a part of the organization that you’re working so hard to build and manage, they can make the choice to leave, not because of change, but because what you want to accomplish and what they want to be a part of are completely different things.
And I don’t think there’s any harm in that either. If your core values as an organization, the culture you want in your organization is different from the kind of culture I want to plug myself in, I believe the sooner the two parties can figure that out and reach agreement about a way to end this relationship so it’s a win-win, that’s better. And so that’s a form of empathy, is understanding that no matter how hard you coach someone to want what the company you own and run wants, they might never want it, you gotta let them go. You gotta let them go.
Ariana Stark [00:17:46 – 00:18:03]
Well, so kind of going off of that, part of what influences how people react to change is the way it’s communicated. Right? So what steps can leaders take in HR departments to be transparent and effectively communicate that change to employees?
Mike Paton [00:18:03 – 00:19:30]
Yeah. And, you know, back to the things we talked about earlier, context, you know. Are we clear on exactly why this is important and what our expectations are post change and why that’s a better reality for our organization or for our department or for you as an individual employee, understanding that before making the decision to change and engaging the rest of the organization in the conversation. I think the more conversations that are had around change, the better. I think a lot of people to save communication up until they’re able to dot every I and cross every t, and as a result, change is sprung on an organization rather than evolving into the organization. So early and often, communication about this.
Humility is another thing I find really, you know, not acting like you’re the expert and there’s no possible way the thing you’re announcing right now could ever work out poorly. It’s okay to say, “Hey, we believe this is the best thing for the organization, but if all your fears come true and this is a terrible thing, we want to run a successful organization with a lot of happy employees, and we’re going to be listening, and we’re going to be monitoring, or we’re going to be doing everything we can to make sure this goes well. But we screw it up sometimes, too. So we’re listening.” Hopefully that helps.
Ariana Stark [00:19:30 – 00:19:36]
Absolutely, because there’s a lot of trust that goes into that, you know. And so having that vulnerability just makes sense.
Mike Paton [00:19:36 – 00:19:49]
Yeah. And, and just not feeling like you need to have all the answers or you’ve got all your stuff figured out and, “You should listen to me.” That, I mean, that just doesn’t work anymore. And, arguably, never did.
Ariana Stark [00:19:49 – 00:20:00]
Right. So I love looking at change through the lens of growth. So how can things like perspective allow for better adoption and buy-in of change?
Mike Paton [00:20:00 – 00:21:09]
Yeah. Great question, actually. You know, perspective is the ability to see things through the lens of people other than yourself. And when you’re wandering around an organization with blinders on, it’s just kind of silly. And Tom Peters, who wrote In Search of Excellence and recently “retired” was a big influence on me early in my career. And he coined the term MBWA for Management by Walking Around. How about you walk around and talk to the people in the organization? Patrick Lencioni talks about how much you can learn from a brand-new employee. What if you ask somebody 30 days on the job, as the owner or CEO, to teach you something?
You know, first of all, you might scare the heck out of them. But, man, if you’re really there to listen. So I believe really working hard proactively and taking initiative as a leader, manager and supervisor to seek out the perspectives of people who have differing backgrounds, opinions from you is going to make you a better leader. Couldn’t agree more that that’s pivotal in this process.
Ariana Stark [00:21:09 – 00:21:10]
That proactive is really key.
Mike Paton [00:21:10 – 00:21:40 ]
Yeah, it’s your job. And, and again this goes back to the process thing. So most leaders, managers and supervisors who don’t feel they have time to do that, they’re feeling that way because they’re spending too much time in the trenches with the basic stuff. Or they’re, they need to get better at delegating and, and as an organization grows, the number of people who just don’t have the time to do stuff and be great leaders and managers need to figure out how to cross that bridge.
Ariana Stark [00:21:41 – 00:22:03]
Exactly. Well, now, with that in mind, most businesses will use technology to stay ahead, right? As you know, the world is changing and evolving. So either maybe for recruiting purposes or for defining their processes. So in what ways does tech drive change sometimes in the workplace?
Mike Paton [00:22:03 – 00:23:38]
Yeah. It, it happens a lot. And in the book Process, you know, we talk about the importance of identifying your handful of core processes, documenting and simplifying those processes and then packaging them so they’re easy for the people who do the work every day to find and use when they need access to the process, not putting it in a 750-page manual that’s tucked in a bookshelf somewhere and nobody ever looks at. And so technology is used to simplify process. One way to simplify a process is to take a manual task and automate it. That’s a great simplification tool. Technology is used frequently to give people access to information. They used to have to go find that 750-page manual and dust it off and open it up and find the right page.
Today, most of the people in most of the organizations I’m working with have access to that kind of subject matter expertise on the supercomputers we’re all carrying around in our pockets. And so if you think about the simplification that happens when a team of people has access to that kind of information, and when they’re stuck, they don’t have to go talk to their boss because they can review a video or the way we repair, a, a break on a 1997 Chevelle, man is that a powerful way to accelerate the speed with which everything happens in the organization and especially change.
Ariana Stark [00:23:39 – 00:23:52]
Well, speaking of tech, we know that automation, like we’ve been talking about, is really a hot topic. So how are other ways that it can be leveraged to streamline during change in the workplace?
Mike Paton [00:23:52 – 00:26:16]
Yeah. You know, an example I was talking about on the way over here, my driver happened to have some history of helping change happen in an organization. So we were talking about what I was doing in town, and, and, you know, what he said was when somebody whose job is getting simplified hears about that, and especially when they hear the word “automation,” they hear, “You are eliminating my job.” And so one of the things I think it’s important for us to just be open and honest about is it is natural for a human being to kind of initially resist any kind of automation or simplification.
But the example he gave of how you can work through this, as he said, he was doing some consulting work with an organization, and there was this piece of information that had to be entered by three different people into three different systems and a total of six different screens in a big organization with about 10,000 employees. And none of the leaders told him about it, and none of the managers told him about it, but when he was facilitating a discussion group of the people doing the work, it came up like 40 times. And he was able to then go back to the leaders, and managers and supervisors and say, “Hey, the people doing the work have identified a thing we could change where we’d enter this piece of data one time and it would just send itself to all of these things.” So the line level people are now excited that they’re not doing the same job five times.
So my whole point about this is automation is a way to make everybody’s lives better, not just drop profit to the bottom line. And if you take the time before change happens or before technology is implemented to engage the people at the front lines about the potential of this technology making things better and ask them to help you find ways to drop profit to the bottom line or serve the customer better, most of the people who fit your culture and are good at their job are going to love being a part of that initiative. So again, I come back to when you’re talking about technology, talk to the people who are doing the work, get their input, and then everything becomes easier.
Ariana Stark [00:26:16 – 00:26:38]
That’s great. Well, also, I like what you said about just being available for questions or things like that during times of change. Can you speak a little bit more about that and just how, you know, having the technology and the support that’s ready, that’s available, you know, for employees to use and be able to reach out quickly and effectively or get the answers they need?
Mike Paton [00:26:38 – 00:28:00]
Yeah. This is where I often talk to my clients about the differences in their approach to their children and the people that work for them. And I’m using my own example here, but with my children, because I love them and I care about them and it’s my job and nobody would ever convince me otherwise, the fact that I’ve had to tell my youngest 7 million times that when he’s eating a burger with ketchup dripping all over it, he probably should lean over his plate, for some reason doesn’t frustrate me. But at work, when I’m telling somebody something for the third time, I’m like in my mind, picturing the firing conversation. I’m way less patient at work than I am at home, and it’s just silly. Both my kids and my employees are humans.
It’s hard for people to change their ingrained behaviors or their natural tendencies. Your job as a leader, manager and supervisor is to tell them seven times. I’m not asking anybody to lower their expectations. I’m just asking them to invest more in the regular repetition of the stuff that needs to be done the right and best way every time. And if you just adopt that same approach you have at home to work, things are going to work out a lot better.
Ariana Stark [00:28:00 – 00:28:01]
Yeah, the empathy, right?
Mike Paton [00:28:02 – 00:28:03]
That’s, empathy and patience.
Ariana Stark [00:28:04 – 00:28:05]
The patience, yeah.
Mike Paton [00:28:05 – 00:28:37]
And patience, that’s, your job is repeating it often. Too many people who are delivering messages blame the inability of that message to land and change behavior on the recipient rather than themselves. And communication is always two ways even though a lot of communicators like to believe it’s one way. And so you’ve got to take responsibility for the failure to deliver a messagethat changes behavior, own it and get better yourself ,or nothing’s ever going to change.
Ariana Stark [00:28:37 – 00:29:00]
Absolutely. Well, I like that example you said that the driver gave of all those, going back to that, just the different, you know, all the different legacy systems and all these different passwords and areas that, you know, and having that all condensed and combined into one streamlined process, just that single solution is really going to take a lot off of someone’s plate.
Mike Paton [00:29:00 – 00:29:38]
Well, that’s right. And that, what we talked about earlier about engaging these people on the front end, so now these five or six people who came up with the suggestion, now they’re champions of the whole change initiative. Right? And they’re going to be talking to their co-workers about how they had a hand in crafting the way we’re going to implement this new piece of technology. And now the people that are perceiving themselves as negatively affected by the change are starting to be influenced by peers that actually, this change is going to bring some good, too. And so it just everything becomes easier when you get that level of engagement with those front-line folks that are affected most.
Ariana Stark [00:29:38 – 00:29:57]
Yeah, absolutely. So, Paton, we’ve talked about different strategies that companies can use to effectively implement change, but none of that matters if they don’t have a culture of growth. Right? So what should businesses do to create an environment where employees can embrace that change?
Mike Paton [00:29:57 – 00:33:44]
Yeah. So, so when we talk about culture in an EOS company, we’re talking mostly about the Vision and the People Components. And so, you know, the eight questions on a tool we help leadership teams build called the Vision Traction Organizer start with, “What are our organization’s core values? What are the attributes or characteristics or beliefs of the kind of people we want to surround ourselves with in this company? Because coming to work will be fun and we’ll be kicking the butts of our competitors. And, and, and I’m going to love being surrounded by these folks.”
And so once you define those core values and then you define your company’s core focus: “What kind of work do we love to do and are best at? What’s our purpose, cause or passion? What’s the niche? What are we trying to dominate the world in?” When those kinds of things get clear, when I know what we’re trying to accomplish in the next 5 to 30 years that’ll be a sign we’ve really built the kind of organization I knew we could build, I’ve got the building blocks for a regular communication to my employees that will help them understand who we are, what we love to do and are best at, and where we’re going long term.
And when my clients are repeating that simple message over and over and over again, they’ve got the first part of a strong Vision Component. The second part is getting everybody in the organization to share that vision, to understand it and to want to be a part of it. And sometimes they do that through regular communication, but sometimes they do it through what my business coach Dan Sullivan calls addition by subtraction. Sometimes they say the vision over and over and over again and somebody says, “Yeah, I don’t want to be part of a 10,000-employee company. I liked it better when we were a 50-person company. I’ve gotta leave.” And so that’s, again, empathy. Empathy is saying, “Hey, if this isn’t the right place for you, we want you to be happy in your career. I’m going to write you a letter or recommendation. In fact, I’m going to introduce you to my friend who runs a smaller company. I want you to be great.” Okay? And when you do that, man, even the people who leave appreciate and respect you as a leader and manager.
And so that’s the first part of the building block. And then the second part of the building block, and the People Component, to strengthen the People Component, you need right people, folks who share your core values, in the right seat. And you need to be willing to communicate about your core values and your company’s vision and be clear on the expectations you set for your employees about what you need from them in order to be a great team and a great organization. And you need to hold people accountable to a common set of standards or rules of the game so that everybody in the organization sees, “Man, if I don’t fit the culture and I’m not great at my job, I’m going to probably need to go find somebody else, someplace else to work.”
When you have varying standards and people see that, then it feels personal and it’s really difficult to build a consistent culture. And so that’s our thinking about the role of culture and really anything, but especially change. Because what change does is change tends to bring out the stress cracks. And if I’m already sitting here, feeling like I don’t really fit the culture and I don’t really want to help the company grow to whatever number of employees you want or however many customers or become a global organization or whatever your vision is, when change happens and my job gets harder for even a brief period of time, that’s when bad stuff happens. And so that’s why it’s so important to build those building blocks early on.
Ariana Stark [00:33:44 – 00:33:48]
Absolutely. And have that culture and the empathy and patience.
Mike Paton [00:33:48 – 00:34:16]
Yeah. That and just repeat over and over and then listen. You know, a counselor for young people once told me the best way to deliver tough messages is tell the truth, use as few words as possible, and then shut up and listen. And I’m way better about at telling the truth as I am the other two. But I’m really working hard at the other two, and, and your listeners should do the same.
Ariana Stark [00:34:16 – 00:34:21]
Yeah. Listening. That’s a really great key part of, of change, right?
Mike Paton [00:34:21]
Yeah. Yeah.
Ariana Stark [00:34:22 – 00:34:29]
Absolutely. Well, you know, we covered a lot of different things here today. But is there anything else you’d like to add that we didn’t quite mention?
Mike Paton [00:34:30 – 00:35:21]
No. It’s just that you as a business owner, a business leader, a manager, a supervisor, a team leader, anybody who’s taking responsibility for the well-being of an organization and a group of people and helping them become their best, it’s important to hear that that job is really, really hard, and it’s always going to be really, really hard. And there are lots of other people out there struggling with the same things you are. And my advice is always look for help, go get help. You know, I’m passionate about helping people. I know you are and Paycom is as well. Because this stuff is hard, and there are resources out there to make this stuff easy or easier, and I just urge you to not feel like you’re stuck and look for somebody to help.
Ariana Stark [00:35:21 – 00:35:22]
That’s great advice.
Mike Paton [00:35:22]
Thanks.
Ariana Stark [00:35:23 – 00:35:30]
Well, Paton, thank you so much for joining the HR Break Room today. We really appreciate you coming here and really enjoyed having you.
Mike Paton [00:35:30 – 00:35:32]
Yeah, I enjoyed the conversation a lot. Thanks for having me.
Ariana Stark [00:35:32 – 00:35:43]
Me, too. Well, thank you. And thank you, listeners, for tuning in to our conversation today with Mike Paton.
Announcer [00:35:43 – 00:35:58]
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