650 | Hiring for Culture: How Cindy Built a Team That Stays

Today we're kicking off a brand new series called Coaching Changed Everything: Real Leaders, Real Breakthroughs.

Over the next few weeks, you'll hear real stories from business leaders who stepped into coaching and came out transformed from personal to professional.

These are the before and after moments that changed their leadership for good. And we're starting with Cindy, a leader who once hired for skill. But learn that culture always comes first.

All of that is coming up next.

Welcome to The Chris LoCurto Show, where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are.

Today we are kicking off a powerful new series, and we're calling it Coaching Changed Everything: Real Leaders, Real Breakthroughs.

Now this series is all about real leaders who decided they didn't want to keep doing business the way they had been.

And stepping into coaching, that changed everything. And today we're starting with Cindy Taylor. Now, Cindy is the owner of a thriving pediatric therapy clinic, and.

And she's someone I've come to deeply respect. But when we first met her, culture was hurting. She was hiring for skills and holding onto people who didn't fit her values.

I know some of you are aligning with that right now, and it was slowly eating away at the heart of her business.

In today's conversation, you're going to hear how she made the shift to hiring for culture over skill. What happened when she let go of the wrong people.

Listen carefully on that. And how she's now built a team that actually stays because they believe in the mission just as much as she does. So do me a favor and welcome to the show. Cindy Taylor. Cindy, welcome. Thank you. Gosh, I'm so appreciative to be here.

Oh, man, it's so good to have you on. We've known each other for quite a while. God, how many years has it been now? It's been a long time. Eight or nine years.

It's got to be. Yeah, yeah. And it's been a fun process and watching you grow and watching your business grow, which has been taking off like crazy. It has.

And we've had the conversation ahead of time of the overwhelmingness of the growth, but, you know, the difference of what it would have been like if you were growing at this pace eight years ago, you probably wouldn't be here anymore.

Yeah, correct. I wouldn't. I've told you guys that multiple times. I was, like, ready to not do this anymore. It's. Yeah. It is crazy.

So kind of let's start there. Tell us kind of like what you do, what it's like, because what you do is so ridiculously powerful. I think every parent out there is going to love hearing what you're, what you're doing and how you're doing it.

But, you know, what was it like eight years ago? What was business like? What was leadership like? What was all that like?

So, so we, so I'm an occupational therapist by trade and I knew really early on that I wanted to have a business Even before, even when I was in master, my master's program and whatnot, I was like, this is something I want to do.

I'm really passionate about it just because I knew I had some, or I thought I had some really good ideas and things that I wanted to implement for our communities.

But we are, we started off like eight years ago. We were solely a pediatrician private practice where we would see children birth to 21 and it would be for occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy.

But now we have actually grown. We've got, gosh, I want to say 110ish employees. Eight years ago we probably had like 20 something. When I first started, when I first had that phone call with Joel and said, I'm ready to be done with this.

I'm ready to be out of this place. But yes, eight or nine years later, we have 110 employees. We have five separate clinic locations. And now we have, in addition to the OTPT and speech therapy, we have a division where we work a lot with adults.

So we do mental wellness counseling. And we also now have a private school. So we're registered now with North Carolina as a private school.

So we, it's a preschool program and a kindergarten program and then we have like a smaller developmental classroom where kids of all abilities can be a part of.

So yeah, that is where, that is what we do. We do a lot. It is a lot. It is, it is a lot. We're, we have our hands on a lot of things, but our mission is simple. It's changing lives across Eastern North Carolina.

And so, and over the years we, we've changed that because we realized, you know, we do a lot, but it really just comes down to that, which I don't want to minimize that because that's huge.

But at the same regard, that's kind of at the forefront of everything that we do, changing lives.

So yeah, we love always seeing, you know, what you guys are doing and how it's impacting and the fact that it's, you know, so many kids and so much help.

Which today, I mean, you know, without going into a deep dive on how the world is jacking up our kids and you guys are out there catching them and getting them help and getting them, you know, fixed and all that.

So it's just a, It's a phenomenal. It's not just a business, it's not a job. It's a phenomenal mission. So we love that we get to, to partner with you guys and, and help in any way that we possibly can.

But you just mentioned that you're. You have probably about 500 times more team members than when you started here. Started with us. It started with coaching and getting a different help.

And so that's one of the things that early on you shared with us is that you used to hire by qualifications, which this is me. What other business would you be like?

So you're not focused on qualifications first, right? You're still focused on qualifications, obviously, but that used to be your main focus. And that's really changed. There's. You have a different reality.

When “Qualified” Isn’t the Same as “Aligned” (00:06:32)

So can you kind of share some. A story or a moment that you realize that, hey, this person is skilled, but they're definitely not going to be a good fit for our team or they're not going to last long or whatever.

What was like the cost of not hiring for culture? So I think the biggest thing, I mean, because if you think about it, what we're, we're hiring highly qualified, you know, people who are doing a skilled profession.

So you have to have either a master's degree, a doctorate. And so you think that because somebody. Piece of paper, right. Their resume is beautiful, that you're going to get somebody that is just not only a great therapist, but a great employee.

And I. Now, my favorite saying is, just because somebody is a great therapist doesn't mean they're a great employee. And that basically means.

Is that no matter what is written on a resume, even if a clinician has 20 years experience, it doesn't make them a good cultural fit for us.

I think before. Well, when. Even before we started, the reason why we got into coaching actually was because our culture was a disaster. Our employees were basically running the business because there was no leadership, basically.

And I hired really, really qualified therapists who just wanted a lot of autonomy and felt like their way was the best way. And so there was no cohesiveness. And then, as you can imagine, the culture suffered some.

We even had one therapist, you know, say, I can do this. Once we started coaching and implementing certain things and saying, you know, now we're not doing this anymore type of thing.

Leave and open her up her own practice. Because she was like, you know, no, I like not having accountability. So. And then several people followed her.

So once one person is kind of. Or when you have those people who just don't fit, there's that misalignment.

You, it sets you up for other people to just feel the same way or just kind of fall into that. So that's just like an energy leak across the entire clinic and the entire company.

So yeah, so that's, it's just not. And I will still say too, I'll give this disclaimer is that we still, we're not perfect.

We still often have this problem because like in times of like great need, like, like for example, like most recently we have a wait list of sometimes over 300 kids waiting for therapy.

It's easy to get into that trap of I just need somebody warm body in the sun. And so it's really, it's a constant work in progress of okay, no, let me figure out like what am I really hiring for?

Who is this person? And kind of diving deeper. So that brings me to a great question on that because what you just pointed out, it's so counterintuitive for business owners.

You have 300 kids on a waiting list. And what that screams to most business owners, and I'm hoping everybody listening to this really gets this.

What that screams to most business owners is hire, hire, hire, get people warm bodies in the seats. Get warm bodies in the seats. Because we have all this potential out there and I've been doing this for decades and saying, listen, I want to change those 300 kids.

I want to help those 300 kids as well. But guess what's going to happen? You're going to put crappy people, you know, in those seats. People that do want autonomy, they don't want accountability.

And as you know, as I always say, it's amazing thing when you put accountability and people who don't want it will leave. That's exactly what you want. That is exactly what happens. You don't want people who don't want accountability.

Right. If you went after those 300 kids, you would probably self implode and shut everything down because you would be a colossal mess. Right?

Oh, we can help these 300. Oh, we've got, there's money out there that we could get. There's all kinds of things that comes with that number.

And yet if you don't do it right, you would be just ridiculously you know, overwhelmed, obviously, but I think you would be hating life, right?

Do you agree? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's been so many times that we've hired out of urgency because we wanted to fulfill a need for the community.

And we knew deep down we're like, well, as long as this person is giving really good and skilled therapy to this child, it's going to work out great, and, you know, the parents will be fine. But really, it does so much.

It's so much deeper than that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. It's just so difficult to try and convince people of that to go, listen, the pain that you're going to bring on yourself by bringing more people in is just not worth it.

Please don't do it. So that brings me to something that is vitally important.

The Pain of Holding On Too Long (00:12:03)

We're talking about hiring the right people, but what about holding on to people and keeping people way longer than you believe you should?

You know, talk about when you've, like, had to let somebody go that you've kept way too long? What was that like? How did it affect the culture? How was it affecting the culture? Let's do this two ways.

How did it affect the culture while they were there and you knew they needed to go, and then how did it affect the culture afterwards?

So I think the-- the biggest thing is when we've tried to put things or when we have a culture of accountability, which we have now, and somebody obviously does not like that.

And to us, we know inside, like, it's. It's like, we know that that's not. It's not a good fit. And we've tried to, like, keep trying to make it work and trying to keep that person too long.

It's cost us way more than we thought because the culture slides downhill. And sometimes other employees left. So a lot of times, too, like good people. Right, Right.

Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, that's the thing, too, is, like, we were so afraid of what was going to happen if we let the wrong person go.

I mean, we weren't thinking about, like, oh, my gosh, what's going to happen when. When we're keeping them, you know, we're. We're paying the price already.

So for us, it was in some cases really bad where we've had one person who felt a certain way, we didn't address it, or on the flip side, we've tried to address it.

They were pushing back, pushing back. And we kind of just kept saying to ourselves, well, we're giving them grace.

You know, we're giving them grace and like, kind of like patting ourselves on the shoulder, like we're just giving them grace. But at the end of the day, it's kind of.

It comes to a point where you say, okay, you know, this is. It's just not a good fit because they're a great therapist. But at the same regard, it's. It's showing other people that we're tolerating things like actions and attitudes that just go against our culture.

And so then in some regards, you know, they have, at that point, some people have like, kind of tainted other people who may be just hearing one side of the story type of thing.

But in other regards, like we had that person leave and then everything was great because now that one person, you know, or. Or there was other things that were going on that we didn't even realize were happening.

And then when that person leaves, they're like, do you realize they weren't even doing this, this and this? And you know, it's kind of snowballs.

So I think just having all of our leaders on the same page and having that clarity and having that accountability in place really helped us say objectively, you know what this person.

I mean, and giving them grace too. I mean, obviously we're not going to just say, oh, you messed up one time, you're gone.

But after a while that we've put systems and processes in place that, okay, this person is just not a fit. And we have these things to prove it. This is what shows that we've tried.

There's been training and retraining or, you know, performance improvement plans. And so we're doing our due diligence on the backside of it as well in the middle of it.

But at the end of the day, it's it --It costs way less to get rid of that person than to keep hanging on to them.

Yeah, the amount, the amount of resources that it goes in to trying to keep a bad team member. And listen, it doesn't mean that they're not going to be phenomenal at some other company doing something else, maybe a different profession, whatever.

But the thing that is so difficult for business owners to get, you know, you one, you feel like a failure if you have to let somebody go.

I should have been able to get them there. Not necessarily right. Always check you first. Is it your leadership? Is it something you're doing wrong? That's always go there first.

But when you understand that somebody is not being accountable, they're not getting done the things they need to get done, you get to this place of the fear.

And every business owner has the same. I can't tell you how many business owners I've helped out with, but if I do let them go, what's going to.

It's going to be chaos. It's got all the things that they're doing. And whenever it's been toxicity. So this is my big caveat here.

Whenever I have worked with a business owner and it's been toxicity, I'm like, I promise you, they're not doing anywhere near as much work as you think they are. Right.

You're going to let them go. You're going to have a few days of struggle, but then you're going to realize the morale in your business has gone up and you're going to discover things they were doing that you had no clue.

And it's not good stuff. Yeah. Every single time. Yeah. Oh, I know. And I mean, I think I finally realized that too, when at one point, you know, Joel and I were meeting pretty frequently and he was like, you do realize that you've been paying me for this.

And out of almost every single time we meet, you keep talking about the same person. When are you going to be done with so you can save some money?

And I'm thinking you're exactly right. You know, I mean, we've just spent so much time coaching the wrong people rather than investing in the right ones.

So it was draining. And it questioned. I questioned my judgment. And I think too, we get into. Our other leaders were affected by it. They get into an emotional state because it's. This is draining.

You know, you feel like you're babysitting grown adults instead of like leading professionals. And so that's kind of. Was that for me, was my wake up call.

When Joel finally said, I was like, oh, my God, you're right. Oh, my goodness, what am I doing? Well, and for everybody listening and listen to everything that Cindy just said.

So you have payroll. Yeah. You have time that could, you know, it's opportunity loss there because you could be focusing on more important things, but then the emotional drain.

Right? It is. I. I had a friend of family that I had working for me once, and it was this desperate situation. And it was one of those of like, okay, we're literally putting food on the table. Literally.

I mean, taking care of this process. And at some point, everything flipped and he just became a terrible team member. And I stressed, because it wasn't just a regular team member, this was a friend of a family.

It was all these different, you know, pieces piled on. And then it got to a boiling point. It's like, nope, sorry, it doesn't matter at this point, I can't continue to sanction incompetence.

And the stress levels that changed after that were so fantastic. It's like, I did not realize I would have never done that if it was just a regular team member because there was all this family influence and said, well, you.

This person really needs help. Well, this person needs to help themselves. You know, you got to get to that place. You don't realize how much stress.

You know, you've taken on a ton of stress. But how much came off of your shoulders and how much came off of the leaders shoulders and other team members? Because literally what you communicated to the other team members is, I will protect the culture for you.

Right? Yeah. And it sucks to lose good people. So it just. It's a drumbeat that I have to keep pounding for everybody listening because it's the same thing.

You didn't want to jump in and let somebody go because you. You probably were like, well, if I let them go, how much did I fail? Yeah, but this is the key to accountability. When you put accountability in place, then it's not you who's failing.

You're only failing if you don't do the accountability. But it reveals. You give the person every opportunity to change, and when they don't, the accountability is staring them right in the face going, okay, well, this is where we are. So. Yeah.

So after we kind of started working together, started coaching, you made some pretty radical shifts in your hiring process. You literally went from looking at the resume and started focusing on things like, you know, values.

Do they align with your values or emotional health or, you know, after what we just discussed, how do they fit in with the team instead of just performance? Right.

You're still looking for, obviously you're looking for the performance, but these other pieces kind of became more important.

How You Changed the Way You Hire (00:21:12)

What are some of the biggest changes that you made and what's kind of different now?

Yeah, so I think from just like tangible, you know, wins that we were able to achieve is even just the fact of like putting in like, or creating just really detailed KRAs to really help us align our company values.

And the strategy piece of it saying, okay, what does this position entail? Okay, yes, it's say it's a therapy position or a clinician, you know, that we're looking to hire.

But at the end of the day, how is this person or position going to align with our strategy? And so sometimes, like, when we've put in, like, we've we've created the KRA.

Sometimes we've even realized, like, oh, like, especially for some administrative positions, we're like, actually, we can shift some roles around here and we don't even have to hire for this position because, you know, these couple people can shift what they're doing.

So I think even just putting in the objective piece of like, having that detailed KRA kind of like lines everything up for you to realize, okay, you know, this is really what I'm looking for.

So, you know, that's. That was a big piece. Also kind of moving from that, like, hope based leadership of like, I hope things work out to like, really intentional leadership of like, just making sure that we're testing alignment up front and saying, okay is like.

And now, for example, when we hire or when we're interviewing a clinician, we have so many steps for our interview process.

But it's funny because now we can even pick out keywords that if a candidate says these key words, we know they're not a good fit for our company.

Oh, wow. Just because we've. We've had people who have felt this way and it does not work with what we have going on here.

Yeah. And so sometimes it's even like that, you know, just that. And sometimes we can just dig in deeper and feel like, okay, where is that coming from?

Like, what does this actually mean? But same thing with, like, we have learned and we struggle with this still. I mean, like I said, this is all still a work in progress. So.

But like, emotional based decision making versus, like, having a clear framework to guide our decisions.

So just also having that realization that, you know, leadership's not just about being nice, it's about being clear. Like, clarity is kindness, you know, like, that kind of transparency and, you know, clarity and communication is so important.

So, like, just having that detachment from liking somebody and really focusing on, like, leading them well type of situation and saying:

Yeah, I might like this person, but is this person I like and I just want to, like, hang out with them, or is this person who really aligns with our culture and what we're looking for long term because we can.

So many times we've all experienced it where you sat down in a conversation with somebody and they were so nice and they laughed at your jokes and, you know, they were so personable and you could see yourself working with this person.

You're like, oh, gosh, this is who I need to hire. And then you put them in place and they're a colossal failure. Yeah. And you're like, well, I don't understand.

And I think that's what people don't get is if you don't adjust your hiring process to get to that, or like you said, some of the words and I want to ask you what they are, but I also don't want to give those away.

Oh, yeah, well, I, we can, I, I can tell you some of them, but yes, because some people find like, some people's. Other companies might find those words, like, pretty valuable to them and that's what they were looking for.

But for us, it just doesn't align with our culture. Right. Yeah. Like, one of the things that in my early days of hiring folks like event core, we used to do these 10,000 person events and bringing somebody in.

I was always looking to see how they would handle day of stuff. And whenever somebody was like, oh my gosh, I'm phenomenal at putting out fires day of, I'm like, okay, interview is over.

Yeah, what's the matter? I'm like, I don't need somebody who's great at putting fires out day of. I need somebody who's so great, no fires happen day of. That's exactly right.

Yeah. I mean, sure, I'll do that too. And I'm like, no, if you're an expert at putting out fires day of, that means you're not an expert at preparing. Right.

And people don't get that. It's like you should be interviewing and finding out those emotional responses.

You know, I'm a hero day of. Well, I don't need a hero day of. I need a hero behind the scenes, you know, getting to that information.

But I think one thing you shared that I think people probably aren't getting enough of is if it doesn't fit your strategy and what we're saying, the definition we use when we say strategy is, is the, the roadmap the steps of getting to the next destination, whatever that next destination is.

And you literally realized you could save yourself resources by aligning the KRA with the strategy. Oh, crud. We don't even have to hire a person for this.

We need to make some adjustments because we're doing some things we probably don't need or it's not that important. And I think that's huge. Where we, we tend to just look at, we need this person here. Let's just go hire somebody.

And then years later, what you find out is what we call the shotgun approach. You have 17 people going in different directions. Yeah. And you're wasting all your resources.

So I think everybody needs to really grab hold of that. That's so important that you shared that.

So one of the most transformational things you did was to involve your leadership more in the, in the hiring process. And a lot of business owners think it's all on their shoulders.

They've got to figure this out, they've got to get this done. And something else I want to point out as we go through this. You're a phenomenal doer.

Like, you get things done, you make things happen. And so safe to say in your brain is, well, so does everybody else. Everybody else is going to just be a go getter like me and everybody else is going to just go make things happen.

I'm assuming that's your early day thought process, right? Absolutely. So as you're looking at somebody. Yeah, not anymore. No. Yeah.

But as you're looking at those early resumes, oh my gosh, they've done this for 20 years. Like you said, 20 years. They're going to be the most amazing person on the planet. And it just.

What it really could mean, and this is why it's so important to check this stuff is they couldn't.

It could mean that they worked for another business owner who didn't let them go. Right. Or who had a crappy culture. Right. Yeah.

Involving Your Leaders in Hiring and Culture (00:28:22)

So what are some of those big transformational things like involving the leaders? How did that impact the-- this process?

Yeah. So like I said, I keep saying this over and over again, but truly it is still a work in progress. Because I don't want people to hear this and think, oh, Cindy Taylor, she's got it all together.

Or she's an expert in hiring. You know, when you guys first talked to me even about hiring, I'm like, am I qualified for this? But I think the biggest thing for us is really just.

And for me is that now I'm rarely part of the hiring process unless it's somebody they really cannot get a good gauge on. And then I'll kind of step in at the last minute to see.

But our leadership team has really stepped up.

And even with just with them getting the coaching and going through strap plan and that kind of stuff, but really leading from a place of not having the emotions attached to it, being a little bit more objective and saying, okay, they're, they're taking ownership of it basically.

So I'm able to trust them to be able to say to, to do the whole entire hiring process and know that this person is going to be a really good person.

And if not, then we, we're going to know that within very soon because we're going to be implementing things quickly to see how they, you know, react to them.

But yeah, our leadership team has really grown in just being able to take ownership in this type of. In the hiring process. So for me, it's really. I've kind of moved away from a lot of that, which has been so nice.

So. Yeah. And just having trust in my team to be able to do that is, Is amazing. It does create such a strong responsibility for the leaders of going because, I mean, think about it.

In the past, you hire somebody and the leader doesn't like the person. Well, I wish Cindy wouldn't have hired this person. Great, let's get you involved. Yeah, you get to be a part of this process and then you get to learn how not to make those same mistakes.

So I, yeah, I don't, I am never involved in the hiring process anymore, I don't think. Yeah, yeah. I think like you said, if there was something that was like, hey, we just needed you to get your, you know, get your feelers on this type of thing.

But yeah, I think that's so powerful.

The Result: A Team That Fits, Stays, and Thrives (00:30:50)

So let's fast forward to today. There's. This is a kind of a multifaceted question here.

What's different now with your team compared to a few years ago? And again, I want to point out, you have 500 times more people on your team.

So if you were continuing to do the same thing you were doing back then, then obviously. Right. You would not be in a good place. So kind of compare, you know, you made those shifts and you grew to 110 people. So what's, what's the difference?

What's, you know, name some things that are, that you see that are different with your team. So I think before I would say we were as leaders especially, we were nervous to have tough conversations.

Meetings kind of felt heavy. Accountability was kind of forced at times and it just kind of felt tense because we were kind of like ignoring the big picture stuff and you know, or ignoring like the elephant in the room type of thing.

So now we have more ownership. Meetings are more productive. I think the energy is a lot lighter. So we are constantly, constantly talking about culture, teaching it.

How do we live out the culture? What does it mean? It's just not a writing on the wall. How does. We've implemented so many individual one on one checks ins. So basically our leadership is like tiered. So we've. You have to.

When you have 100 and some odd people, you have to have so many different levels of support. And so that way your people don't feel like they're on an island or they're, you know, doing it on their own.

And there's accountability at all levels. So we implemented team leads. We have clinic managers, clinic director, we have whole clinic directors.

So we just have a lot more points of contact in place where leadership can really sit down individually with teammates and say, okay, how can I support you?

Let's look at. We're looking at KRAs quarterly to make sure everything is smooth. People are being not only productive, but at the same time, like their goals are being met.

They're fitting in with our culture. We're. We're kind of tackling problems before they even begin to arise. So a lot has changed. We're definitely taking our time with hiring. We're more way more specific with hiring the right person.

So those kind of things. Are those the kind of things that you're looking for? Yeah. So, like, in my mind, is it safe to say, like, what's the difference in your stress level with the old processes with 26 people and the new processes with 110?

Well, before, everybody was coming to me, so 26 people coming to me was really nerve wracking. And I think that's why I wound up saying to Joel, I really just want to be out of this place and be done with it.

But now I have two people coming to me. And so with the levels of support and accountability and leadership that we have in place, for me, it's easier. So. Easier with 110 people. It is. And 26.

That's so profound. Yeah. Because a lot of times too, I don't even hear about some of these things that are going on because there's kind of taken care of at like such a.

I'm far removed from it. You know, obviously things still come to me that need my help, but at the same regard, you know, the accountability process is taking care of it.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. That's so good. Gosh, that's so powerful. It is. So I'm, I'm like trying to think of the. The average person listening to this today and wondering, is that legit? Is that a possible thing?

And the changes are not doing it the way you were trained. Right. I mean, if we break it down to what the big changes are, it's.

It's getting out of what you were trained to do from previous jobs and things that you had done and watching leaders do that and finding a better refined way, getting that coaching in there and plugging in those pieces that has changed it.

Because it would just seem that. I say 500, I guess, 400% growth, whatever it is. It would just seem like that would bring. It would compound the stress.

But because you've put the right things in place, you are less stressed, and you've got a great leadership team, obviously, that's just rocking and doing such a good job.

So I love it. I love it. Is there anything. Last thing you want to share with folks that are considering, like, maybe in that situation and going, do I get help? Do I not get help? What do you tell them?

Well, I. Leadership is lonely, so I. And that's the thing. You don't. You don't just need, like, good content. Like, you need that perspective and community from other people.

So as far as, like, coaching goes, absolutely. I. I would not. I would not have this business, I'm convinced to this day, unless Joel Fortner would have told me, hey, helped me, because I was ready to walk out the door and I had 26 people.

And like I said, I feel like it would be impossible now for me to lead the way I was leading and. And have 110 people. I don't think it would be physically possible unless I had really good quality leaders that we constantly pour into.

And that's the thing, like, the coaching piece of it helps me to. I'm not the only one doing the coaching, you know, and I'm not the one they're always coming to all the time.

So that's really helpful for me. So. And I wonder how many more kids you've affected. I always. I always go to the kids because that's just. But you're helping all ages.

Yeah, but. So right now, I think we're. We're treating over 300 kids a day. That's just insane if you think about that. Yeah, it. If you put that into perspective, just the amount of lives we're able to change because of it is. Is incredible. Yeah.

Yeah, that's doing it right. That's having the heart to do it right. That's having the drive to do it right. That's having the intellect to go, I can't do this all by myself.

I need my leaders to step up. I need to put right stuff in place and not fearing that and going from I want to walk out the door to, gosh, we have five locations.

Yeah. Just stunning. I love it. Thank you so much for sharing all of this stuff.

Action Steps (00:38:05)

So, folks, here's some things that you can do that this week. First thing I want you to do, evaluate your current team.

Take a look at your team, who fits your culture, who doesn't, who's just good at a job, who's not good at a job? Where do you need accountability? Second thing is, review your hiring process.

Is it aligned with your values? Is it just your job description? You know, what does it look like if it's not fully detailed in getting you to. You can't interview everything out.

You're still going to have some things you're going to discover in the, in the process of working with somebody. But if your process doesn't get like, like Cindy's saying these words that you don't want and these responses that you don't want, adjust your process.

Three, make sure you invite your leaders in. Start bringing your team into the hiring conversations and the onboarding.

Number four, define your cultural guardrails. What are your top three? Three non negotiable behaviors or values that you must have.

And number five, these are all things you can do this week. Be courageous. Make one bold move that protects and strengthens your team culture.

Because if you don't, and you just heard Cindy talk about this, you can lose good people by not pulling the trigger on toxic people.

You can lose good people when team members think that the culture isn't protecting them. Right. Or you can lose people who appear to be good people to other people and they turn out they were toxic.

So get in there, dig in, find all this stuff. We have more resources for you. The Smart Hiring series. So check out our October episodes. All focused on hiring with practical worksheets and frameworks.

You can get these. Just go to chrislocurto.com/podcast and and find episodes 646 through 649 and you can sign up and get that.

Next-Level Leadership LIVE Event (00:39:59)

Now let's talk quickly about the Next Level Leadership LIVE Event.

Cindy, you've come to. I don't know how many events you've come to in the past.

I love them. They're so awesome, so fun. We look forward to that event every single year.

We wish we did more public ones like that, but that's something that we look forward to every single year.

So I'd love if you could just share what your experience was like and how it helped you grow even more as a leader.

Yeah, I think even when I went to my first live or first event, any event that you guys put on, I realized that everybody really struggles with the same issues.

And that realization alone was really freeing for me because I would sit here and kind of like think about, oh my gosh, how, why is this me?

Why is this happening to me? But just the fact that you have that community and you have that perspective, you walk away with so many practical tools and really kind of just seeing yourself more clearly and realizing that you're not alone, not being.

Not having to solve leadership problems in isolation, I think that just accelerates growth more than years of trial and error. Yeah. Getting that many times I've asked that question.

How many people in here think you're the only one struggling with this? Yeah, it is funny. You always see the newbies raise their hands and all the veterans that have been coming for years are like, yep, I was there. I remember.

People don't realize that, like you just said, everybody's struggling with the same stuff. You think you're alone, but you're really not.

So, folks, if you want to experience what Cindy did and get hands on coaching with practical tools that change how you lead, then there's no better place than the Next-Level leadership LIVE Event. Now registration opens November 10th.

You can save $500 with early registration. All you got to do is go to chrislocurto.com/liveevent. One word. liveevent, all together to get your tickets.

Conclusion (00:42:01)

What-- Powerful-- Thank you so much for doing this. I love it. You are phenomenal. And I think it's just. It's so inspiring. I know everybody listening to this is inspired, but I know that I'm just inspired listening everything that you've accomplished in this process.

Oh, I appreciate you guys. So I am forever grateful for you guys. Like I said, if you guys were not around, this business would not be around. I can promise you we've had many good cries together.

More than I'd like to admit. But I really appreciate you guys more than you'll ever know. Well, it blesses us to know that we had a part in those 300 kids. I mean, that.

Yeah. That makes it what we do so worth. Oh, now I'm gonna get all emotional. That makes what we do. We're both gonna just be sitting here balling on the. But I mean that.

That's why we love what we do is. Is to help people set up to do what they're experts at and be phenomenal on it. So thank you. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for helping those people that are listening that have been struggling with these kinds of ideas and.

And thoughts of do I do this or what do I change? So thank you, Cindy. I really appreciate it. Of course.

Well, folks, that is all the time that we have for today. What a great episode. We've got more episodes coming. Things that you need to understand is that hiring for culture isn't a one time decision.

It's a leadership mindset. So choose wisely, build intentionally, and lead a team that doesn't just work.

They stand, folks, as always, take all this information. Change your leadership, change your business, change your life. And join us on the next episode.