How to Create an Impact to Your People and Organization with Rachel Nielsen, CEO of Result Drivers
If you got the culture right, everything else will follow. That line captures the core of today’s episode. It is my honor to have Rachel Nielsen as a guest, the founder, and CEO of Result Drivers. The company designed to train leaders how to be result oriented. Rachel Nielsen will remind us of one of Newton’s laws: Cause and Effect. We will talk about how one person’s actions create impact and why results matter. We will also discuss the importance of having fun at work and with the people you work with.
I had an amazing realization. The company’s core values must be an essential aspect of an everyday operation. This important reminder resulted from a story Rachel will be sharing with us. There was an instance in the early stage of the company when the core values were not practiced. What happened to the employees involved and to the company itself? What relevant lesson did Rachel learn because of that? Let’s all tune in and find out together.
“We are people first. So, we have to treat one another as people.”
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In this episode, you will learn:
1:21 – What Result Drivers as a company does and its background
3:37 – The culture in Result Drivers and what is unique about its language
8:05 – Personal perspective about what culture is
8:52 – An example from personal experience of a toxic culture
13:47 – The process that brought about the culture in Result Drivers
14:55 – Employee awareness about the company’s culture and core values, and the practices that showcase these values
17:45 – A big mistake done in the past and the lesson that came with it
20:25 – An event that resulted from violating the culture of Result Drivers and the realizations that came with it
26:40 – Rachel’s advice to the audience in managing culture as a leader – the importance of soft skills and EQ
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Email: Request@ResultDrivers.com
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Episode Transcript:
Speaker 1: From core values, to valued culture, here is your host, Will Scott, interviewing another CEO about the leading culture in their company.
Will Scott: Okay, well first I'd like to welcome the subscribers to another Cultures Czars interview where we interview CEOs that care about their corporate cultures. We want to help employees the world over, Rachel, like their work, and believe that they are making a meaningful contribution to the work they do, and that they feel valued. And so we do that by encouraging their employer companies to not just have core values, but to truly have a valued culture. And here we're on route to creating 2020 Culture Czars by 2020.
Will Scott: And today we are interviewing Culture Czar Rachel. Rachel Nielson of Result Drivers. Rachel start by telling us a little bit about Result Drivers and how you got started with your business.
Rachel: Well how I got started with the business was that, it was actually in Corporate Meeting and Event Planning. And I saw that our actions had an impact. And what we were doing to control our message or influence people had a business impact. And I've always been in love with business, and specifically other people's business. And I learned the cause and effect and understood the impact of an action. So a lot of what we've done with both the Advanced Events and Result Drivers is team that result that matters methodology of the critical decision making process, and the complex project management, and we're out there just making huge things happen for both non-profits and entrepreneurial sector companies.
Will Scott: Boy that's really exciting. Well congratulations and how long ago did you get into this?
Rachel: Well I fell into it, somewhat by mistake when I was in college.
Will Scott: The way so many businesses start.
Rachel: Exactly. Exactly. I was on track for one thing, and I started following my passion instead of what I was on track for. And eventually I started my company, it'll be almost 11 years ago right now.
Will Scott: That's awesome. Congratulations. And what's the interesting picture you've got behind you there?
Rachel: Well it is an original artwork, not by me, but by a local artist, and it was someone we were doing work with. Thanks for asking. And he really takes the explanation of what our companies are, this is a lot of color, and a lot of activity going on, chaos if you will. And what we do is we take chaos and organization it into a perfect on target result.
Will Scott: I see that. I see that. That's awesome. Well hopefully you'll help me take the chaos in this interview and sort that into something tidy, and message.
Rachel: Yeah we always see beauty.
Will Scott: Okay. Well thank you very much for letting us into the world of Result Drivers there. That's very cool. How would you describe the culture in your company, Rachel?
Rachel: The culture in our company is something that is literally remarked upon. It's not just something that you feel, it's a language here, both internally and externally. And I think the easiest way to summarize that is telling you how many of our vendors and our clients talk to us about wanting to do either more work with us, or work on our team. It isn't just something that we created for a result. It's that they remark on the fun we have while we're doing it. That we seem like such a close team that we really understand and support one another. That to me, means that I'm doing it right. And [inaudible 00:04:20] really unique, what I think is unique is that we're not just full time employees. We have a significant amount of 1099 contract staff. So getting that quickly onboarded to people who align with us is something that we work pretty hard at. So it's definitely a language here.
Will Scott: That's very cool. And it sounds like that language extends a little bit, or at least the understanding of your culture extends upstream to your vendors and downstream to your customers, which is really cool. I definitely encourage leaders to not just think of themselves as leading a company, but really leaders which makes you think of the four walls, but leading a culture, where it's really a community for your business, beyond simply your company. And if you can get values aligned with vendors and customers and other stakeholders. I just think you have an awesome aligned cultural community then, that goes beyond the company.
Rachel: It is. It is 100% that way, but it's even more so the way that we lead with it, isn't so much to say, "These are our values. What are your values? Do they line up?" It isn't as structured as that, it's much more organic in, "Let's have fun together. Let's have common good people come together to do great things." And our number one core value, the value that my company was originally founded on before I even knew what a value was, was the old flow meeting management company that I worked for, no longer respected me as an individual. My life was changing. My life was changing and they didn't want to change with me. So that's what I mean by it was happenstance, it kind of happened to me, that I founded the company on the belief that we are people first. And we have to treat one another as people, as whole people. And sometimes your personal life needs a little bit more attention or sometimes a coworker is going to step up because you need a little bit more flexibility for yourself.
Rachel: Or I was a young mother at the time, I needed to sometimes be able to tell people. I'm going to be out during this portion of my life because guess what? I'm a mom.
Will Scott: Yeah.
Rachel: And it was that original attack on my core value that I wasn't a full person. That's how I started the company. Great people understanding and respecting one another can do great things together.
Will Scott: Absolutely. And if you can describe the environment and the values with so few words, than it's much easier to operate within that sphere.
Rachel: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Will Scott: Yeah.
Rachel: That's the structure, right? That's the structure. If we look at my artwork here, hey look at how nice this looks. It's that part of you need to put some structure to the words, the feelings. And that's our values.
Will Scott: Yeah. Absolutely. I was talking to, actually it was one of my interviews yesterday, and they were saying how they didn't feel listened to in a prior place of work. And therefore didn't feel valued. And that speaks to one of the reasons why we do this work at Culture Czar. We want employees to feel valued in their work, and feel like they're making a meaningful contribution. And when you can do that it's just so powerful. But when you're not doing it, people tend to vote with their feet and go elsewhere.
Rachel: Or worse, they vote with their mouth and they can work against you.
Will Scott: That's right. Yes.
Rachel: And sometimes going away is the best thing you can hope for.
Will Scott: That's a very good point. Perhaps I should have started by asking what do you think ... when we talk about corporate culture, Rachel, what does that mean to you?
Rachel: What does it mean to me? Culture is something that you feel, and you can identify. When it's good you can feel it's alive, it aligns with you. And when it's bad you can feel how toxic it is. So to me it's a living, breathing, element. But it's beyond that. Culture is what makes you feel ... like you were saying, heard. It makes you feel empowered. It makes you feel able. At the same time it can be the thing that deteriorates your stability, or your self worth.
Will Scott: Yeah. You mentioned toxic, have you ever worked anywhere where the culture really was toxic?
Rachel: I did. I did. Not only have I worked, but I also work with clients that have toxic cultures. So it's something that we literally almost have to arm ourselves against sometimes when we go into those toxic cultures. But my particular story, was when I was about four years out of college, and I had been there for about two years. Management kept changing, and it was just a strange environment. And what sticks out is my still physical response of when I would go to work, and I'd get to the front door and I would look at my hand, and I would keep looking at my hand saying, "Touch the door now. Touch the door. Twist the knob. You can go in." And I would have this struggle. My body didn't want to go in. And my pocketbooks are better.
Will Scott: Isn't that crazy? And I just wonder how many employers or how many places of work, employees are having that feeling before they step into their work? And how productive are they in that situation? Crazy.
Rachel: I was running a staff of 25 and I was one of nine departments. So that's a couple hundred people who were under that roof. It was tough. It was tough.
Will Scott: If you were able to flip the switch in that particular environment, and make it a culture where people did love coming to work, and did feel like there was meaning and that they enjoyed their work. I wonder what the productivity factor would be for a company like that of 200 people?
Rachel: I can tell you for certain in this particular instance they'd be winning world championships.
Will Scott: Right. Yeah. So why not? Why don't more people take the investment to really try and create that environment where people thrive?
Rachel: Yeah there's lots of thoughts on that one, right?
Will Scott: Yeah. So have you gone as far as defining core values in your company? You've mentioned one, that right from when you started, so are these written down somewhere?
Rachel: They are. And we have not only identified them, they were identified quite awhile ago, when I was exposed to identifying them. It wasn't something that I sought out to do. I was exposed and thought, hey I better look at that, and just as recently as I had a pretty big instant happen. And then when we were kind of relaunching some things. We reevaluated them using the EOS system, and it turned out that we had one major one that I thought was so important, that we had to change because when we did the always sometimes never activity of who elicited that value, I was one of the main people who violated it.
Will Scott: Oh.
Rachel: So that was an interesting one. But yes we do.
Will Scott: And the employees felt the power to call you out on that? That's pretty cool.
Rachel: They did. And it was something that when we went through the activity. Let me go to what it was called. The core value was "Easy and Fun." That we were easy and fun. We have fun at work. We make it easy. And we are easy and fun to our clients to work with. It didn't stand up to the litmus tests. It did from an external perspective, that we make it easy and fun. But it did not stand up to the litmus test of our own teams. And the value has now been placed with "Laughter Counts" and we have a lot of discussion around that. It was a two and a half day discussion. But it turns out that because one of our other ... what I say is, we take our results seriously but not ourselves. We do work to a very superior level here. And it is an absolute expectation. So when that is being threatened, it is not easy and it is not fun. Because we are getting into it. And we're holding one another accountable to that outcome.
Rachel: And so we had to change when we're in those intense moments, when we have to make things work, laughter still counts. Respect still counts. But it is not necessarily going to be easy and fun.
Will Scott: Yeah absolutely. And it's really cool to hear you name one of the core values as having the word fun in there. Because you talked earlier about how you connect with customers and so on, using that. That's a great example on how you really do live and breathe your core values.
Rachel: We do.
Will Scott: So did you use any particular process for defining your core values back when you did that?
Rachel: We did. We followed Traction, the EOS system. Went through observing behaviors and did the full activities and had everybody involved in it. I went as far to even go out to externally. Because again, I don't believe we operate in a bubble. We cannot be successful without our key vendors and partners. We knew that we liked to partner with some more than others. And we had some great clients that we absolutely loved and people were clamoring to be on their projects, and we had some other clients that they were not, so we looked at it very holistically as to the work we do, the people we invite into our inner circles, as well as our internal staff.
Will Scott: Okay. Very cool. Traction or the entrepreneurial operating system definitely has a process in there for determining core values. And they believe it's a very important part of any companies vision and part of the eight questions as they call it. Yes. how aware are your employees of these core values and would they be able to recite them if stopped in the hallway?
Rachel: Yes. Probably half ... I would say everyone can name half of them. We have six beliefs and six behaviors. And I would say that there's probably a top three that everybody would align with.
Will Scott: Yeah. Yeah. And are there some things that you do to encourage them to use them, or to talk about those on a daily, weekly, monthly basis?
Rachel: So we do a couple of different things. And I feel like I sound like a broken record. So feel free to edit this out. But it's the internal, external portion of how we look at our culture and our values. So we evaluate one another on our values. At some point we even have, so everybody on our staff at some point or another is client facing. And I protect my reputation very, very, seriously. And that worried me. That was something that as a ... I can't be everywhere every time as we grow, I'm not interacting with all the clients. I was looking at how was everybody else always representing the company and themselves? And so we took turns leading our own internal meetings. It rotates. And then after each meeting, each staff meeting. We grade one another on our core values. And what did they bring to that particular meeting? Did they hit it? Was it present? Did they violate it? Is there room for improvement?
Rachel: So it becomes very present in our daily conversations. We also anytime that we are closing a project, we are looking at did we honor our values here? Was there anything from a process perspective that we need to change? Are there things that we can ... so one of our core values is that we "Respect the results." The pretty term for that, we're in love with the outcome not the process. And so to change or throw away process is pretty common here. Because we're in love with that particular outcome given that particular landscape. So again, we talk about if there's something we kind of want to keep, or get rid of, or duplicate, or things like that.
Will Scott: Cool. And I like that respect the result is one of the core values of Result Drivers.
Rachel: Yeah.
Will Scott: That's great. So again just integration of the core values with everything you're doing, including the name of your company. So that's good. No it definitely sounds like that you believe managing culture deliberately rather than letting it come about by default is important to you. You wanted to tell a story about when you made a particular mistake in the business?
Rachel: Yes. Yes, Will. To sort of back up. I pay attention even more so now. I made a pretty big mistake in the beginning of the company and when I was introduced to EOS specifically and the values. I did the work because I wanted to be a good leader. I didn't do it because it was incredibly important to me. Then I made the mistake and now I see how important it is. So I didn't have the ... I have hindsight now. And basically, I'll tell the story pretty quickly here. I had hired someone to run the company. And I was really trying to launch result drivers, it's more of where my passion in strategic leadership and more about consulting work. It was taking me out of the day to day. I wanted to get out of the day to day. So in my eagerness to hire somebody to do that, I also gave them culture. I didn't hand it over, or say, "Here you take it." I unknowingly gave them culture.
Rachel: And because I was so enamored with not having to do the day to day, off and running and I didn't see it. And Will, I didn't see the damage. I lost clients. I lost relationships. I lost key staff members. And over 18 months, it was so awful. So when I finally picked my head up out of the sand, and I started really digging in, I understood you can't give culture away and expect to still have it when you just peek back in. So when I was taking the company back, and I have to name everything. It was called Catch and Release. I was realizing it wasn't just catch, reorganize, release. It was do not release culture. And it was a learning for me. And I'm luckily surrounded by some great, great people who will tell me when I'm absolutely wrong.
Will Scott: So the lesson there is that you as the leader of the company and the CEO definitely need to own and manage, and lead culture in the company. Yeah.
Rachel: Yes. And if you give it up, even if it's unintentional, you've given up the keys to everything.
Will Scott: Yeah. And when you say keys to everything, I mean, where do you think managing culture ranks amongst managing let's say, I don't know, customer development or the pipeline, or the finances of the company? Where does culture rank in all the other priorities of a CEO?
Rachel: It's interesting, because companies can be incredibly successful outsourcing the majority of things. Right? You can outsource your financials, you can outside business development and sales regeneration, you can outsource accounting and quarterlies and reporting. You cannot outsource culture. And so if you look at it as a fundamental operation of the integrity of a company. It has to come before all other things.
Will Scott: Yeah. I've heard some people say if you get the culture right, everything else basically will follow.
Rachel: Because for me I'm being hired for the product. And we're not building widgets, we're not selling a thing. We are selling our brains, our process, and our people. And that perspective, it's something that must resonate or they're not going to buy it. And if I don't want to be a commodity, and I don't want to be a commodity. I don't want to have to get into the pennies and dollars conversation. I want to be invaluable. And that comes from living who we are consistently.
Will Scott: That's really cool. That's really cool. You told us a story about where you didn't enjoy the culture. Do you have a particular story about an employee or something that's happened that relates to core values that you like to tell from your time with Result Drivers?
Rachel: Well this was really more of a holistic, it's both internal and external story. And I think what I would probably come up with is ... I lost an account. I'm sorry, I lost a bid, it wasn't even and account. And that was really painful because I wanted this account. So I spent the next two years pursuing it, fixing some things, waiting for the right opportunity, rebidding. And we won the account. We won the account and then we went into operating. Eventually became a very, very, great client. It was our biggest contract. For us, management fee of over six figures in one calendar year is very significant. And we had a three year contract with them. I had spent the next two years waiting for the right time to rebid the client. We won. We were operating very successfully. At that time we went into the biggest individual contract we'd ever had. It was over six figures of consulting fees annually. And we had a three year contract. So it was something absolutely incredible for us to have.
Rachel: And then I started realizing that absolutely none of the staff wanted to work on it. And it became this hot potato. And I stepped back and I thought what am I asking? I'm telling these people I respect them. I'm telling them that we're people first. Respect result. Make it easy and fun. Count on abilities. Create wild moments and ... nobody wants this. So I started to really look at it, and realized if I looked at all of our values, and evaluated the client as well. And their behavior and their work, it violated every one them. Every one of our core values.
Rachel: So I had met with our financial advisors and said, can I afford to not have this business. What's it going to take for me to walk away?
Will Scott: So you were considering firing a customer because they didn't fit with your core values, fit with your culture basically?
Rachel: Within 45 days of the contract, we contacted them and offered to transition them to another provider who would fit with them based on their values and ours. It wasn't going to work and we didn't want to pursue the relationship and we would be happy to help transition them to another source. And in all of that, knees shaking, stomach pin in a knot because I don't know if I'm going to pay all my bills. And not only did we replace the work within, it was about five months that it took me to replace it completely. But the response from the staff and the commitment that I showed to them to live the values, that shifted everything. And that's really one of the times that I realized this is much more than an indicator, this is the Bible, and we've got to live these things in order to survive.
Will Scott: Gosh that's awesome. I'm glad I asked you for a story. That's a really good one. Of course people do fire customers occasionally, probably not often enough, but occasionally for, you know, they're constantly late payers, or they just suck energy from the team, and they're just high maintenance. But that's awesome to hear that you kind of figured that out, came to that conclusion based on the values that you have.
Rachel: And based on my team’s reaction. I had to watch them to see how much they were violated. I knew how I felt. But to be able to watch them as people reacting was really eye opening.
Will Scott: And it speaks to what we were talking about earlier where you truly are as a leader, if you think of managing a culture that extends beyond the four walls of simply managing a company. And if you have your customers in line and everything else, things just go a lot more smoothly. Yeah.
Rachel: And happy.
Will Scott: Right. And your employees like working on that account. Yeah.
Rachel: Yeah. Exactly. It's the eye opener.
Will Scott: Well this has been really, really awesome, Rachel. Last question is do you have a piece of advice that you would share with our listeners from your experience managing culture?
Rachel: You know what? And not that I like to give advice because there's always landscape and circumstances. But what's interesting to me as a leader, I'm always looking at how do I either augment my weaknesses or develop my strengths. And what's interesting is that culture is a soft skill. It's an emotional intelligence factor. And that to me is really interesting because being a little bit vulnerable here, let's just say I'm a leader who doesn't make every decision based on her financial statements. Let's say that it's not something I'm incredibly constant about, right? If I'm being questioned on my financials, to me that feels like an attack because I don't have all of my answers. Right? It's something that I'm not strong on. Other leaders are not as strong on emotional intelligence. And I think that might be why culture doesn't rank as high, or values and identifying them doesn't rank as high. It's not black and white. You have to read the gray. You have to be aware. You have to work at it. And for a leader who isn't completely comfortable in the emotional intelligence arena, if you can be open and not feel attacked but feel enlightened, I think that would be a huge benefit for a lot of employees out there.
Will Scott: Yeah. That's huge. And you mentioned emotional intelligence, I think CEOs often don't pay enough attention to the softer skills, or the softer side of business managing people, environment and so on. But if they do, then we're all humans and we have feelings. If they do, then we're likely to tap into those feelings that make us achieve those things that we were talking about earlier. Feeling good about going to work, feeling like you're making a valuable contribution, feeling valued.
Will Scott: So super way to finish our interview today, Rachel. Thank you so much for being a part of the Culture Czar series of interviews, and congrats on your culture and the success of Results Drivers. It's a joy to see you feeling good about your culture and happy and aligned. And I think the success of your business is reflecting that.
Rachel: Well thank you. It's a joy. We talk about having fun at work, and if I'm going to be somewhere besides my family, or near water somewhere, then it better be for fun.
Will Scott: That's great. And the last time we met we were enjoying a beautiful view, a drink with a beautiful view, weren't we, down the Chicago river.
Rachel: Down the Chicago River, see? I was getting good friends, great conversation, and water all at once. So I was probably at my happiest.
Will Scott: Well, let's be sure to do it again before winter comes.
Rachel: Absolutely. I owe you next time. And thank you for this opportunity, Will. What you're doing with Culture Czars it's not an easy undertaking, but I'm sure you're going to be incredibly successful one company at a time.
Will Scott: Thank you very much Rachel. Cheers.
Rachel: Thank you.
Will Scott: Bye.
Rachel: Bye bye.
Will Scott: Bye.