Ron Macklin: Episode 86,
Creating a Culture of Empathetic Leadership with Justin Steinbeck. Welcome to The Story in Your Head. I'm Ron Macklin. And today, Deb, myself, and guest
Justin Steinbeck dive deep into creating a positive workplace culture
through empathetic leadership. We explore how this fosters an environment
that encourages open communication and leads to employees, personal growth. Welcome to the story in your head podcast,
our guest today, Justin Steinbeck. Now, Justin, you own a, an adventure
business and a cruise ship business. Could you, if you would just kind
of do a brief, like a five story elevator speech, like, who are you? Where do you come from? What's your story? Justin S: Yeah, no, thanks. Thanks for having me, Ron. I really excited. I appreciate that. Elevator speech. Yeah, I grew up Duluth, Minnesota,
which is at the tip of Lake Superior. And five minutes speech here. Let's keep it tight. When I was 28, I bought
a excursion boat company. I had worked in management for my
entire career up until that point, and kind of had The bug to had a lot
of accolades and accomplishments as a manager of a large organization
had the bug to create something that was my own through ownership. And so my wife and I actually went
into business with each other. We bought an excursion boat company
that runs out of the harbor of Lake Superior, and that was kind of the
beginning of our journey from there. It was we had two kids at the time,
two young kids, and we went for a third and had two more come along. We grew into a family of four. And so our experience as a family
really started to craft our experience as business owners. And so we identified that travel was
a really important aspect for us. And again, my background
being in hospitality, hotels, attractions, I was always. Wired to find new experiences that
we could create for our customers. And I lived by a motto up until
that point, still to this day, great experiences, create great memories. And that's what we work towards. So as we traveled, it was very easy to. Listen to other people's stories from
these communities and see the different experiences that have been created
out in the world and we would bring them back to our town and it would
start with our, our narrative of boy, this is such an amazing experience. We really hope somebody
in our community does it. And then we realized as business owners,
entrepreneurs, that it was really the responsibility of us to take what we were
learning that our family was enjoying and try to create those memories for
those who traveled to our community. So the community we're in has 2
million unique travelers a year. And so the excursion boat
business was the start in that. And we just started to expand
beyond there, which is okay. What, what else can people do? What's important and how can they
create experiences and memories? So we launched an adventure company
out of, out of the same area, which focused on paddle boarding, creating
sunset paddleboard rides in the morning, which was this iconic, you get a
great sunrise over Lake Superior and. You got to wake up early to do it, but to
get that memory and that experience that you can't elsewhere on a great lake, and
then it just kept rolling from there and into our newest project, which was one of
the issues within our community was that as you seen major tourism destinations,
prices always continue to increase. So our area was starting to become
unaffordable to the middle class. Our middle income folks,
and that's how I grew up. And so our newest project was to find
an old building that was well built and produce a full move experience
that included lodging, retail, and then the experience of the adventure
all tied together with low rates so that folks that can afford four or
500 a night had the opportunity to continue to travel to our community. So. That is that that's hopefully the
five minute elevator speech there. Ron Macklin: Thanks, Justin. Deb Dendy: That's awesome. Yeah. I was thinking as you were saying this
to, you know, I heard you speak about the customer, like how to make these
great experiences for your customer. And I'm curious, like, how do you
create a culture, like the culture of your employees to produce those kinds
of experiences for your customers? Justin S: It's think
it's really rooted in. Understanding, well, it always
starts with building a team, right? That, that's something I learned
early, which was my wife and I had just bought this excursion boat
business and I, I, I tell a funny story cause I ran a larger organization. So I had 300 employees and 10 department
heads and an administrative assistant. And so I would walk around and
you'd, you'd move around in that business and you'd, you'd kind
of have things taken care of. And my focus was managing and
team building and training. And. So I buy a business and it was the end
of December 29th of 2011, and I show up to the first day at work and it's just me
and my wife now, and I sit down and I'm having a conversation with I think the
president of the chamber and he made a request of me, which was, Oh, can we get
a gift certificate or something like that? And we'd love to do a, you know, event
on your boats and yep, of course. And so I. Shut the call down and I go,
Sarah, would you, Sarah's my wife. Could you send a gift certificate to,
you know, so and so from the chamber? And she kind of looks at me and goes,
You know, I'm not your employee anymore. Right? If you want to do something, you gotta,
you gotta do it yourself at this point. And that was kind of my aha moment of if
I want to continue to build experiences and continue to grow our influence,
I have to build a team and a team that has the same passions that I do. So that's really where it started. And where it grew from there
was we really believe in that. Investing in people the way that we'd
want to be invested in, meaning what's important to us, spending time with our
family, being able to travel with our family, finding those new experiences. So part of the culture that we built
is kind of that open honesty of we are looking to build new experiences. We're looking to build
and create new adventures. And in order to do that, you have to
go out with your family and your loved ones and have those experiences, whether
it's camping, whether it's boating, whether it's hiking, whether it's. Just adventuring, whatever, whatever
that is, you have to have time to do that and respecting that as a work culture
so that then we can bring it back as a team and go, okay, what, what, what did
you do with your family and what did you do with your, you know, husband? And what did you do with your partner? And, and what are the things that we
as a team can create and, and create that passion for, you know, young kids
and old traveling couples and families and That's, that's where we work hard
on really producing that culture and finding ways to do it, but it really
is rooted in having a good team and having that openness with your team so
that you can have good conversations. Ron Macklin: Yeah, thank you, Justin. Justin, like, what are some of the
biggest challenges you've come up against with culture in your, in your team? Justin S: It's a great question. You know, right now it's, you
know, we live in a different world than we did five years ago, right? So, finding people that, you know, there's
so many narratives, so one of the issues for us is As the world pivoted towards,
and it's funny, I remember sitting through the pandemic and, and everything
closing and not being able to go out into the world and watching as the corporate
culture changed to remote workers and you can work from anywhere and working
really hard towards that issue, which is. We are very much a in person experience,
meaning what we're doing is real. It's real life. You're going to go out into
the forest and get lost, right? Or you're going to go with a guide
and get on a paddleboard, something you've never done before, or get on an
excursion boat and go under a bridge or be 10 feet away from a large or ship. And those are all in person experiences. And so finding people. For a while was, was a big issue and
also continuing to be attractive to new young people who want to come
in, in a way that they understand you have to be there and in person. It's not just sitting at a
desk and, and, and doing that. Does that make sense? Creating the culture. The other challenge is,
well, what's fascinating. And, and I love talking about
this, our entire leadership team. Besides me. So we have 10 managers, you know,
we're still a small organization. It's, it's, it's all a female led
team, which is a fascinating statistic. So of the 10 of us, nine
of them are females. And so getting and producing, and
then that wasn't even intentional. It was, it's just, that's the type of. person right now that we've, we've
seen that's attracted to our offer and wanting to get out there and adventure. And so my wife speaks this very
passionately and she's working on a side project called rad girls, which
is a program where you can invite young females and go almost on an adventure. Like she's planning something right
now where she's taking a group of women out to Washington to hike
in the Cascades for five days. And it's finding women who love to
get out to the community because it's, it's, it's not as readily available for,
or, or, or some people feel as though it, you have to be an expert at it. And so helping find and create
that culture where you can get together, whether you're, you're,
you're just a beginner or you've been doing it for years and years. Deb Dendy: Well, that's amazing. Yeah. Ron, you might have a daughter
that has done a few adventurous things like that before. It's hiking the Appalachian trail and. Right. Ron Macklin: Yeah. She's, she's also done the
Wachita trail and the BRT and oh, there's several others, but
yeah, she's an outdoors person. Like the adventure, the hike,
the challenge of being on her own that she, she can relate to that. How do you like when you're looking
for the culture or creating the culture, the stories that people
have that are inside their heads. What, what is it that, like
you have, let's say the nine women who are working for you. What, what is it about that culture
that brings them in or what is it you're helping them to create your
culture to help your business thrive? Justin S: It's funny, we have these
principles that we go through every year and two of our top principles of of what
we work to produce as an organization is communication and empathetic leadership. And I think that that
is part of what we do. One of the most important pieces, right? Communication. Anyone could say it, but
what does that look like? And how is that actually done? So I work towards and I've spoken about
this with my key leaders regularly, which is the way that I communicate with you. Is the same way I want you to communicate
with me, which is we're one team working towards very similar goals. And if I'm working and we have
established the right incentives and the right components of this organization,
I'm not going to give you an annual review where we sit down and talk
about your employment once a year. We're going to be having that conversation
regularly, which is if I fail at something, I'm, I'm going to be open
and admitted at it and learn from it. And it's not a bad thing to say
it's a failure, but I want you to be able to do the same thing. Or if you see something where you need
me, I want you to be able to speak that. So being regular with it. Thanks. Communication about where your employees
and where your teams having successes, which is easy to forget, but also having
that open, honest relationship that you can communicate of, Hey, we really
missed the, we really missed the goal on this, what happened and where do
we need to be in the future to do it? Additionally, that empathetic leadership,
I say that because leadership, you know, there's how many thousands or millions
of books written, written about it, but I think a lot of it just comes down to
how can you keep the humans that you're working with all pointed towards the same
goal and happy about going towards there. And so you're always going
to run into bumps, right? We're not robots. We can't work 24 seven. We can't always be focused on work. So. Having empathy in leading these folks. We had a gal who just key part
of our team, we're working on a big part of a project, right? And as a business organization, yes,
this initiative was very important. It was a new line of revenue. We needed to launch about
half a million dollars and she was the key component on it. And she found out that her mom has
terminal cancer and unfortunately her mom lost the battle this summer. Yeah. And it was, it was a terrible path for
her, but understanding as a human, where she's at and what she's going through and
understanding that this new initiative that we're working on is far less
important than her journey in life and her ability to be present in her mom's
life and take care of what she needed to. So we. Put that on hold, we're not going to
worry about that and we will take what we can get from you because we want
you to be here with us when you're able to move through this really
heartbreaking time in your life. Deb Dendy: Yeah, that's amazing. I, when I heard you talk about empathetic
leadership, I was wondering if there is a correlation to if that's why so many
of the people you work with are women. And I don't mean to say that in
a sexist way, but I like how. How did you come to realize
or learn or grow your empathy? And, and how do you, do
you teach that to others? Is it innate? Like, how do you, how do
you look for that in others? Justin S: I, I attribute a lot to, I've
got an amazing wife and life partner, and she, so she has, she has taught
me well over almost 20 years now. I, again, in, in today's world, uh, you
know, there, there, there's things you can say and, and can say, but where I
want to go with this is, is I've always. Found that I can develop really
powerful working relationships with women in the workforce. And so my wife being my partner
in everything and us raising three beautiful, strong, young women. It's just, it's, it's an important
thing for me to really promote, understand, and see how female
leadership can flourish in today's world. And, and from what I've found. They're far more powerful and
better on average than men seem to be in the workforce. And I know that seems to be controversial. And so probably not where we want
to necessarily go with this, but I, I've, I've always found that
when you work to understand. Where someone's coming from and where
they're rooted and where they're grounded and where they want to go and how I
can fit into that story and how we can fit that together into an organization
and create and work something together. That's what really fits under
that empathetic leadership. Ron Macklin: Are you looking to
strengthen your relationships, whether personally or professionally? You want to learn how to build
authentic connections faster. Or perhaps you're looking to beat employee
burnout through the power of connection. My name is Ron Macklin,
founder of Macklin Connection. And in our workshops, we teach
you the fundamentals of how to do exactly that and more. To learn more of the power
of your relationships, visit us at MacklinConnection. com. Deb Dendy: Yeah, go ahead, Ron. I can see why you have a question. Ron Macklin: Yeah. Well, first it was a statement
that for me, empathy is like understanding that I'm afraid and
you're afraid or we're all afraid. Right. And being able to hold that as we're
dancing, like whatever the dancers, it's in work or actions or storytelling
or in a podcast like we're doing right now, but to understand that we're all
afraid and that there's nothing wrong with us, that we're afraid and that
the fear is never going to go away. But what we can create together because
we can be free and bold and curious and open and dancing, that shows up as
what you're creating with your team. Now, my own interpretation is, I think men
can have more of a shield against that. But they can be just as open and just
as curious as, as what you would call what your experience is with women. So, so I don't know that it has to
do with the, whether we're X and Y chromosome stuff, but maybe history
or tradition and like our stand is to be able to create that for people. That's why we create the, the
podcast, the story in your head, which the main story we all have
in our head is that we're afraid. And we also have a story that there's
something wrong with us that we're afraid. We create these stories that we
spend our most of our life figuring out like how, how to hide our fears. And one of the people we hide
it from the most is ourself. So we don't, nobody else knows that
we're got these fears in this space. So when I hear you creating this
empathetic leadership style, right, how does it show up? Like, how does it show up for
your customers when they see it? How do they, when they bump into
it, what, what do they notice? Justin S: That's such
a great question, Ron. So I live by this mantra of great
experiences, create great memories, right? And. Where I believe it shows up
most is that it's the, it's the Maya Angelou quote, right? People will always forget the things
you do, but they'll never forget the way that you made them feel. And we're all walking
around, as you said, afraid. We're all walking around with,
with different experiences. We're all walking around trying
to accomplish different things. But where we fit in and what we try
to create through experiences, Is something that I understand your life
is hard and you're here to breathe these experiences, whether it's with your
partner, your family, whoever it may be. And I want that to be an experience
that you will always remember. And what that comes down to is, yes,
the experience is important, but it's how are the employees, how are we. Making you feel while you're here, right? And, and that started, I, I, when I
was 15, I got my first full time job and it was in a hotel and I realized
I had the ability just through being working hard and going just a little
bit extra of being nice to everybody. As simple as, you know, some of, one
of my first jobs was as a bellman and I'd run, you know, things to door and
you knock on the door and here's your toothpaste and it would have been very
easy to just drop the toothpaste off. Right. But is there anything else
I can get for you today? Is there, how, how is your state? Are you guys having a nice time? There's so many people you run into
that they aren't asked these questions that they're almost taken aback. So it's taking that extra moment
to really get to know somebody. Or really just be pleasant and a
good experience in somebody's life. They're going to remember
that and how they feel. And it's, so it's not really difficult. And maybe that's a little bit of
the Minnesota nice in me, right? I grew up in Minnesota. I lived here my whole life. And, you know, they, they do say there's
something to that, but I just found throughout my whole career, whether it's
with customers, employees, or, or working with employees to interact with customers,
it, it just, it's how you make them feel. It's just a little bit, even
if I'm having a bad day. Your customers don't need to know they're
having a bad day because guess what? They're here on vacation. They're here to step away from their life. They're here to have this experience with,
again, their significant other, their partner, their family, or by themselves. They're not here to take my baggage. They're not here to to live in my story. They're here to. Have fun they're here to have an
experience in there and they're spending their hard earned money to be able to
do that and a lot Of it just comes down to that quote for me, which is they will
always remember the way you made them feel Deb Dendy: Yeah, I agree and I
appreciate the Midwest nice, too. I think that does go a long way, too
You know, even just a smile to someone that may not see that in their, either
they don't see it because others aren't doing it, or they are just so busy
that they're not noticing it either. Justin S: My wife and partner laughs
at me because we go on these hikes and, and it's just built in me. Every time we walk past another person on
the trail, I have to smile and say hello. And. You know, so we were in Canada, we did
about a hundred miles of hiking and I'm saying hello to all these folks
and most of them don't speak English. They speak different languages,
but I'm still doing it every single time, which is hello. Good morning. How are you doing? So it's, it's just kind of, you know,
it's, it's built into me at this point. Deb Dendy: But that is also a way
to take down other shields, right? To notice that they can
be peaceful in the world. Justin S: Absolutely. Ron Macklin: That's great. So just at this time in our, our podcast. We open it up for you. Do you have any questions of us? Justin S: Ron, what, what
stories do you see in people's head that hold them that back? The most, Ron Macklin: what I notice
working with folks, right? Is it, is they have this story and
they made it up somewhere when they were really young that they're not
enough or there's versions of that. Like I'm not enough or
I'm not smart enough. All right. Not fast enough. Not strong enough. Not, I didn't come from the right
family or the right state or the right city or the right whatever it is. They have this space that it's like
they have a story that they're not enough in some way and that it's
fixed and permanent like that is fixed and permanent inside of them, right? And the space of, of letting them
discover, helping them to discover that that's just a story they made up
that we are as plastic as a organism as we know of in the, in the universe. And we can modify and change and create
ourselves to all different spaces. The beauty is we can do that. The frustrating part is it
just takes practice, right? It's not like a switch. You go, Oh, I can change that switch. No, it's, you came from an environment. If you stay living in that
environment, you're going to go back to that environment, right? So you have to practice and practice
and practice and practice, and then it will come to you and then you'll,
it'll feel like just a part of you to be able to talk about your fears, right? To be vulnerable. To share that space to notice
that other people have fears too. And when you can talk about your fears,
then you can create, because if you have this space where you're saying,
Hey, you know, I'm, I'm scared over here and I'm not going to share anything. You're not going to put out
in the world, something that somebody else could build upon. You're not going to put out what you may
say, well, that's not a very bright idea. I won't put it out there, but that
could be the stepping stone to a new creation that is beyond anything
you could have done on your own. Or even the group could have
done on their own, but together. And so putting those fears that they're
never going to go away, but putting those fears out there so that they don't
have you, you have them, and that's a space where it keeps people two ways. They like two major
ways people hide, right? They quiet or they talk a lot. And both of those are just
how they hide their fears. When you're out there and they're
talking all the time, they're going on and you listen to them. They're not really talking
about anything about them. They're just talking about
everything else outside of them. But we're going to say, no, I can
remember when I failed at doing this, I'd run this experiment and I failed. And you know what the results were,
I got fired and that's what happened. And you go, you mean it
didn't work out perfect? No, but I'm still here and I learned
from it and I'm getting better. I'm still making those experiments. I'm still trying it. You're like, Oh, that's me. And now we started to drop
all of our shields down. And that's the story that
we all have in our head. I was actually somebody who's now, uh, a
friend of mine at a conference with Bowen White and he wouldn't, it was like the top
100 executives from the Kansas city area. Don't ask me how I got in there. It's, it's a different story. And I was only 31, 30 years of age. And he was talking about, I
thought it was going to be about how to become an executive, right? And he's talking about fear. And he's talking about how it,
the fear is affecting executives. And I'm sitting there going, Oh
my God, he's, he's picking on me. Like he's talking just to me. And he said, something I always remember. How many of you in this room are afraid? Raise your hands. And do you think there's something
wrong with you that you're afraid? I vividly remember sitting in the front
of the room and I'm looking at him and I'm like, No, he's got a red nose
on cause he's dressed up like a clown and I'm looking at him and I swear
to God, he's looking right at me and he's about to point his finger at me. And then he says, look around. And when I did, cause I was sitting
in front of the room, every person in that room had their hand up. Wow. At that moment I shifted from
me being like, there's something wrong with me that I'm afraid
to, Oh my God, I'm really normal. This is normal to be this way. Now, what, what I noticed was when,
after I discovered that I could talk to people about other stuff, I could talk
to other people and create new spaces and work and take chances and take
risks and do all kinds of other stuff. And my fears were still there. And if it's me, I don't think I'm special. I think it's everybody. And so far, everybody I've worked
with, coached, led, managed, followed, it's all the same. Justin S: That's powerful. What triggered me there is
to think about, I found. Which maybe fits into this a little bit. By the way, I had that same story. Not enough, not doing enough. I mean, you could probably directly
see it when I started talking about my story, which was I was manager and I
felt like I wanted to go out on my own. There was a lot of, am I doing enough
in life in that, in that story, right? But I've noticed what your story
triggered for me around what I noticed is that it makes my team or people that
I'm working with feel more at ease. Yes. When I don't take myself so
seriously, meaning I talk regularly about how we have a retail branch. So we also have a retail brand, a
couple of them that, that we manage. And I spent a couple of years thinking
that I would be really good at picking different types of styles of. You know, clothing or what we're going to
produce or designs and every single one I ever picked failed and we just sat on
inventory in our stores until the point that my wife said, listen, I'm just, I'm
going to handle this side of things and, and our numbers went, you know, we're,
we're, we're tremendous after that. So I, I try to, you know, I, but
I find talking about that with whether it's new employees or new
people to my leadership team or. Or existing ones of talking about
how, Hey, remember how I got fired from our team by not being very good
at, you know, doing this and this and not taking myself too seriously
puts them more at ease and, and not necessarily as afraid to try new things. Ron Macklin: One of the, the
real powers of being vulnerable, talking about your failure, talking
about where you're short, right. Tell them about your weaknesses. Is it lets everybody else put down their
shield so they can talk about theirs. If you have a bunch of authentic
people, which means they can just say what is inside them coming out. Now you can create, now you can have fun. Now you can play with each other because
there's all those social pressures that were there inside you are out
in the open and now you can just be you and that's a fun place to be. Deb Dendy: I think too, Ron, it allows
the people around you who also have that story of I'm not enough To, to notice
they are enough, like if, if I'm working with someone who never shows that are
afraid and has their shields up, I'm thinking to myself, Oh, my gosh, like,
why am I so different than that person? I'm really not enough. And it kind of just opens up the
whole team to being generative now to being like believing in themselves. Ron Macklin: You say generative. I love that word. Like, tell me more about that. Deb Dendy: Yeah. I mean, the way that we create worlds
together, like you mentioned earlier, how maybe someone will spark an idea, right? And, and all the other people on
the team can contribute to that and generate something new into the world. I mean, that's what we do as humans. We create. But if we're so afraid If we're
so afraid to look stupid or this idea, no, one's going to like it. If we hold ourselves back in that
way, we can't be generative, right? We're looking for maybe one person
to have a good idea and that's it. So that's how it, it strikes me that,
to, to generate a new world, to create that new world, we really do need people
to be all in and dropping those shields, like you said, Justin, allowing people
the space to see your failures allows them to, to laugh at their own too. And, Ron Macklin: and when you have a, a group,
a team, organization that is all open to talking about things that scare them
open to talk about their past failures open to create a world where it's like. We're going to try new stuff and yes,
we're going to throw ourselves all in. And if we fail, we're going
to learn from it and go on. Now, everybody there is a creator. That's great. Is one of the things, one of the
things that bothers me is when you, you're in a meeting room
with a bunch of people, right? And is that one, one or two people
in the back that don't say anything. And those are the ones that they
may have the best answer, the best idea, or something that can be
built upon to be the best answer. And we're not getting them. We don't get to, they don't get a
chance to create and add to what we are. And if you ask them, I have
all my ideas, aren't that good? You don't, you don't know. Nobody knows that. Nobody knows where the good
idea is going to come from. And that's my stand is I never know where
the good idea is going to come from. Justin S: That's a great stand run. Ron Macklin: Well, Justin, thank you
for being on our, on our podcast today. Thank Justin S: you so much. This was great. That was an honor. Ron Macklin: It was, it was a
great recording and I appreciate your time and take care. Justin S: Thank you. Deb Dendy: Thank you nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Thanks for listening to the podcast today. At Adklin Connection, we believe
making authentic connections with others can literally change your world. We invite you to share this podcast
with one person that you care about. Maybe it's someone you haven't
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and we'll see you next time.