Adam Larson: 00:05

Hey, welcome to Count Me In. This year at IMA26, I had the privilege of recording live on the podcast stage in Tampa, Florida. Throughout the conference, I sat down with a lineup of presenters who took time out of their schedules to share their passion and expertise in a range of topics. So I'm excited to bring you these special Count Me In episodes featuring some of the brightest voices from IMA26. So without further ado, let's get started.

Adam Larson: 00:36

Kristie, thank you so much for joining me here at IMA26 for recording a podcast. I'm really excited to have you here. You have a very unique background where you spent like twenty years at a massive organization like Blue Cross Blue Shield and you saw things like culture like, hey, we're going to have culture. We're going to be better culture. We're going to leadership is going to bring in better culture, but what would actually happen when they would say have those conversations?

Kristie Stocker: 00:59

You know what it actually happened, right? It was a $40,000,000,000 company. It was the largest health insurance company in my state, and it was interesting because most companies of that stature and that size when they say something like that, it's usually just lip service. What was the difference with that company is it started with the top, so the executive leadership said we need to change the culture for different reasons. There was a lot of regulations and things and people are getting burned out.

Kristie Stocker: 01:28

I mean, there's a lot of government regulations, so there's a lot on the plate. And so they said if we want to be competitive, we want to stay number one. We need to change the culture period. So they saw it as a business strategy, not oh, well, is something HR does or the development department or whatever. So what was nice is they saw it as we need to do this and and they took it to heart in all the departments.

Kristie Stocker: 01:54

All of them. IT health. You know we had nurses and doctors on staff. We had marketing sales. We had HR.

Kristie Stocker: 02:02

We had everything. We were huge company. Well, I don't work there anymore. Say were they still are a large company and they everybody everybody was expected to participate quote unquote in the culture and in helping other people in being positive and helping the client in. They are one of the few companies that I know that actually kept the mission and vision in front all the time, and I think that's what the difference was.

Adam Larson: 02:31

That's amazing, because a lot of times when you talk about culture, it is just lip service. Yeah, what do you think gets in the way most of the time when that when that's happening?

Kristie Stocker: 02:38

Oh, there's so many barriers. In fact, I just did a session here at IMA26 and it was called the culture wake up call, and that's exactly what we talked about was the barriers and a lot of people are quick to say, well, it's budget, right? Oh, we don't have the money or anything like that. And So what I had told the attendees, I said, imagine this. Imagine a large company, right?

Kristie Stocker: 02:59

And it could be a $30,000,000,000 company and they look at a small company and say, well, of course they have good culture. They only have 50 employees. We have 10,000. How can we have good culture? Because we have so many people to manage.

Kristie Stocker: 03:11

And now flip it. Take that 50 person company, and you look at the huge company, and they say, well, of course they might have some budget for culture because they're a $40,000,000,000 company.

Adam Larson: 03:20

Of course.

Kristie Stocker: 03:21

So, okay, which is it? Is it the excuse of money or is it the excuse of the size of the the organization? So it's really kind of a moot point. And so a lot of the times, the barriers, especially in the accounting and finance industry, especially I mean there's lots of industries, right? But speaking to everybody here,

Adam Larson: 03:38

a

Kristie Stocker: 03:39

lot of them boil it down to ROI. Because if you think about it, culture, people, it's unpredictable, right? People do wacky things. It's unpredictable. It's not like a chart where you can say, well, if we invest this, we should expect this percentage increase or we should do this.

Kristie Stocker: 03:55

So it's not like that. And so unfortunately, because it's so risky, lot of higher ups, right executives, managers, whatever you say, look, we can't risk this and I kind of turn to them and I say it's not really up for negotiation on sometimes because if you don't change the culture, you're going to have high turnover. Are going to have lower productivity. You're going to have upset clients and then you lose clients. Then I mean, think about the domino effect, right?

Kristie Stocker: 04:26

And so a lot of the times the barriers are, especially in this industry, is because they cannot put it in a perfect little chart.

Adam Larson: 04:32

Yeah,

Kristie Stocker: 04:33

and put a metric behind it. That's really a hard one for them, but it takes some some work and then they see the fruits of the labor for the ones that actually do it.

Adam Larson: 04:43

Yeah, because I was as you were talking about that, I was thinking I bet a lot of times people say, well, I I what's the ROI? I can't quantify it. So how can I measure this?

Kristie Stocker: 04:51

Yes,

Adam Larson: 04:52

how do we know it's being successful? Exactly what do you say to them when they said when they say that to you?

Kristie Stocker: 04:56

Well, and there's lots of ways. So like in my session yesterday I had pulled up research from Gallup. Mean a lot of people know Gallup, Gardner, Deloitte does a human capital survey all the time, right? And that's all the quote unquote squishy woo woo fluffy subjects, That can't be quantified, but they quantify them, and so the reason that they do it is they ask if you were at a level 10 of burnout. What are you now right?

Kristie Stocker: 05:18

And they say five now. Of course, it's it could be subjective, right? Or what they're feeling right now,

Adam Larson: 05:22

of course,

Kristie Stocker: 05:23

so it's not going to be perfect, but you have to understand it's not going to be perfect. Work with humans, not with numbers, right? There's Gray area and then there's black and white area, right? And so you have a mix of both.

Adam Larson: 05:33

Of course,

Kristie Stocker: 05:34

and so there are ways to survey your employees and I had talked to an attendee here who had improved the culture of his manufacturing organization of 200 people. I said, how did you do it? And he said I actually went into Claude and they looked at the numbers of, like, call offs, people calling off work and things like that. They looked at their turnover rate, and they said, had this many people and contractors here. You had this many people and contractors within a three year period.

Adam Larson: 06:02

Yeah.

Kristie Stocker: 06:03

And they compared the numbers and noticed that people were staying longer and there was lower turnover rate and but it was interesting because you know he was the controller of that company, but he didn't see it, right? And so sometimes you just need a little software help to say, no, really, you are lowering the turnover rate and whatever you're doing the last three years is working.

Adam Larson: 06:25

So in other words, you can quantify it. You just have to get a little creative.

Kristie Stocker: 06:28

Exactly. But because in this industry it's a lot of black and white, the numbers don't lie, this and this, they feel that there's no other ways to quantify it. But there are a lot of ways to do it.

Adam Larson: 06:40

So let's a little bit about like when you're working to change culture in a company. A lot of times they'll bring in a consultant. You do like a half day workshop. Everybody gets real excited and pumped. And then when you leave that bubble, nothing changes.

Adam Larson: 06:53

What do you do when that happens? Especially like let's say somebody listening to this conversation. They're like that just happened last week like what do you? What do you say to that person?

Kristie Stocker: 07:00

It happens a lot, right? Know, because I am a leadership consultant. I do go into those companies and they say, well, Kristie, we just need you for a half day session. That's it. I'm like, that's it, I said, Okay, so you want me to literally transform your culture that has been on the down slope for like five years and you literally want me to change it overnight.

Kristie Stocker: 07:19

And what I find funny is that most people don't like those quick changes. Those overnight. Oh, it's not an overnight fix like people get wary of that right in the most parts of say, oh, here's how to get rich quick and all this. But then when it comes to coaching or changing culture, they want it overnight. I'm like, well, that's not really how it works.

Kristie Stocker: 07:38

And so So what I would say to the decision maker, you know, if you're a decision maker, you're listening to this. I'm I'm glad that you're taking the first step, but I would say that is a first step because when you're dealing with people right, there could be trust issues. There could be engagement issues. You are talking about issues that have been going on maybe one, two, maybe ten years longer. Don't know, right?

Kristie Stocker: 08:01

And so you it's just like losing weight, right? You don't want to lose. If you're trying to lose like, say 50 pounds, you're not going to lose 50 pounds in a week, right? It's about this how it works. Oh, I'm so sorry.

Kristie Stocker: 08:13

Spoiler alert. Man, so sorry. Okay, I'm so sorry, but but it's going to take time for people to build back the trust to build back the relationships because it takes a long time to build trust and two seconds to break it. And then you're going to have to take a long time to build it back up. These are people you're talking about, so that's why I tell the decision makers look.

Kristie Stocker: 08:34

It's great you want me to come in, but consider this a springboard and a first step. Let's figure out something that would transform overtime and keep doing that positive reinforcement and staying instead of saying one and done, which is great. But I mean, want you to get the ROI out of this. Like I want you to have the transformation. You bring me in, I want you to see that quantifiable metrics like my friend from manufacturing did and say, Okay, these are the numbers we're looking for.

Kristie Stocker: 09:04

Let's keep going. Yeah, those are the those are the people. The people that understand it's kind of a slower burn, but they trust the process. Those are the ones that get ahead. Those are the ones that you see in Success Magazine.

Kristie Stocker: 09:16

And yeah, you know all the the awesome magazines getting featured. Yeah,

Adam Larson: 09:20

so you can't just put it as like a hey, this is my next project I'm working on. This project is done moving on to the next thing

Kristie Stocker: 09:26

you could, right? Like if you feel Okay, the culture is good here, right? Trust is built. Okay, now let's move on to this. Sure, of course you could do it something like that if that's what you mean.

Kristie Stocker: 09:37

But if you just feel that you need to put a check-in the box for your employees like, Oh, hi, you guys wanted leadership development. We brought in Kristie. She taught you for a couple hours. What more do you want? It might not be the best way to think about it if you're really trying to transform the whole workforce.

Adam Larson: 09:55

Yeah, the reason I was saying that is because it's not necessarily a project, it's more of a process.

Kristie Stocker: 10:00

Oh, it's a more of a process. Yeah,

Adam Larson: 10:01

and so like sometimes when when these things come up, they're like, I did my Monday board. I have my monday.com board. This project is done. Click. Let me move on to the next project for getting that's just the first step and you need to keep going kind of thing.

Kristie Stocker: 10:14

100% yes. So yes, culture transforming culture is a process, not a project. It's not something you just put the check-in the box. Yeah, Okay, we gave you what you wanted. Let's move on.

Kristie Stocker: 10:25

Yeah, that's probably the worst thing that you could do. I mean it. Well, maybe not the worst. Worst would just be ignoring the problem, right?

Adam Larson: 10:32

Of course,

Kristie Stocker: 10:33

but at least you're taking the first step, but understand that's the first step in a process, not like one project and you're finished.

Adam Larson: 10:39

Yeah, yeah,

Kristie Stocker: 10:40

100%.

Adam Larson: 10:41

You mentioned this a little bit earlier where you know size. Sometimes people look at size like you have a small organization. You're like, oh, it's small. We don't need to work on culture. You have a huge organization like, it's so complex.

Adam Larson: 10:52

I can't work on culture.

Kristie Stocker: 10:53

Yeah,

Adam Larson: 10:53

but you know, obviously you still need to work on it. What would you say to somebody like? Well, my my firm is too big. Can't do it or my firm is too small. I can't do it.

Kristie Stocker: 11:00

Yeah, so kind of going back to what I said earlier, right?

Adam Larson: 11:03

Yeah,

Kristie Stocker: 11:03

because it is just an excuse and it was funny. I was hanging out in the women's leadership suite and they were asking me that actually almost the same question.

Adam Larson: 11:12

Okay,

Kristie Stocker: 11:13

and I had told them, you know, the big company looks at the little, the little looks at the big and then one's talking about budget and one's talking about size and the one woman said, so it's an excuse. I said, yeah, that's that you pretty much put. I couldn't have put it any better. I said it's an excuse because going back to my example of Blue Cross as a $40,000,000,000 company with at the time I think it was like eight or 9,000 employees across multiple locations across the state and some were remote, so you can't blame it on location, right? So some are remote, some are hybrid, all the things and they their culture.

Kristie Stocker: 11:48

I mean we had people that were there fifty years. Fifty five-zero

Adam Larson: 11:54

wow

Kristie Stocker: 11:55

and the CEO would come out and make a big deal and recognition all these things. But people when they got there, they stayed there like they were like people who were like lifers like that was their first job and their last job. And so I say to you that if your leadership and I don't care if you're a 10 person team or if you're a 10,000 person team. It does not matter because I think people think changing culture requires a ton of budget, a ton of time, a ton of resources like Oh my gosh, it's got it could be small steps, right? Like I'm a marathon runner.

Kristie Stocker: 12:31

I don't go running 26 miles right off the bat when I'm training, I start small. I move forward right?

Adam Larson: 12:37

After long days, yeah,

Kristie Stocker: 12:38

you know, and so you you don't just run out of the gate and say, Oh my gosh, we just have to blow all this budget or whatever. There are small things that don't cost anything that can improve culture, like improving trust or just saying thank you or appreciating your employees. Or some people you know some people love. Oh, you brought donuts in and they just think that's great, right? Whatever it is, but I think the big key is understanding your people.

Kristie Stocker: 13:06

That's where it starts. The people who want to make an excuse of small company, big company or whatever. If you know your people and you have the pulse of who your people and your team, what their motivators are and what they want, what they value. Because I teach that a lot. Once you know that, then you can move on to Okay, let's improve the culture and it might not require any budget or it might require some budget like no.

Kristie Stocker: 13:30

We want leadership developments, bringing an expert and and develop our people into great leaders. Great, then then that's what you do. But I think the mindset barrier is hard because everybody thinks we must do it this way. I'm here to say that it's different for every single company that I talk to. Yeah, every single one because their people, their values, their motivators are different.

Adam Larson: 13:56

So I want to quote our speaker from this morning where she said it's really simple to make somebody feel special.

Kristie Stocker: 14:01

100%

Adam Larson: 14:02

so simple.

Kristie Stocker: 14:03

It is way simple and most of the time it's free. Yes, right? Yay. So yes, 100% I agree.

Adam Larson: 14:12

Yeah, yeah, I I I really like that because I think people get caught up in. Oh, I have to do these grandiose things. I have to bring in these people. I have to spend all this money on to like and I feel like and there's also the old adage you can't teach an old dog new tricks, right? Somebody's been there for fifty years.

Adam Larson: 14:29

We've always done it this way and how do you kind of combat those different aspects where you have different generational aspects and you're trying to change a culture, but people might have different understandings. They may have different feelings. They might feel special in different ways. How you kind of balance that as an organization?

Kristie Stocker: 14:45

Well, balancing it out means it does mean a little bit of work on your part, and I say yours like you're the manager. Yeah, right? You're decision maker, you're the team lead. And it's your responsibility to understand, okay, we have a Gen Xer who's got different values, we have a Gen Z who's got different values. And let's even forget generation.

Kristie Stocker: 15:05

I mean, come from different socioeconomic places, experiences, ethnicities, everything, cultural differences, all the things right? So you throw all that into the pot and it's like, Oh wow, Okay, so you really have to look at them as individuals. So the person who's like, well, we've always done it this way, whatever right? The traditionalist. Yeah, I understand it, right?

Kristie Stocker: 15:30

But if you're the type of person who can say, well, what if we could make your life easier by doing this, right? Because maybe they value getting things done more efficiently or whatever. They go, yeah, you know what? That would be great. How would I do that?

Kristie Stocker: 15:44

Well, remember that little piece of tech that you kind of shine away from? It's actually does this and it makes your life easier. It does. Okay, so right? So but these are small things, right?

Kristie Stocker: 15:57

But it's up to the leader to understand this person likes to work efficiently or this person always has a challenge with this. Piecing it together. Creativity really. I mean, that's really what it is. Understanding creativity, yeah, and then going back to the other side, right?

Kristie Stocker: 16:14

So if you have somebody generational who's like I want to try all the things and shiny objects and all that kind of thing, right? So they're kind of the opposite way. Then you need to kind of rein them in and say, well, you said that you wanted to go this path or you wanted to do this project or finish this up. Well, if we stay the course like this, you'll get it done quicker, right? So it's it's basically just understanding people and putting their motivators in front of them.

Adam Larson: 16:37

Yeah.

Kristie Stocker: 16:37

And then letting them walk through the door.

Adam Larson: 16:39

Okay, now that makes sense.

Kristie Stocker: 16:41

I mean, it really is. I mean, I make it sound simple, but if you really, I really can't say enough. If you take the time to understand people and understand their motivators, what motivates them or what they value, that is the key. That is really the key.

Adam Larson: 16:59

Yeah, so it's more than just, hey, I'm the CFO and I want to make sure our analysis is good and our strategy is good, but you also need to take time to understand your people

Kristie Stocker: 17:07

100%. Yes, absolutely. And in in no matter what level you are and it doesn't even matter if you're not a leader, right? Let's say you don't have any in contributors or teammates under you, right? When I was at Blue Cross, I was really into leadership even back then, right?

Kristie Stocker: 17:23

I was studying leadership. I've been researching leadership for I don't remember how long I probably shouldn't even say because then it makes me know what age are you again? But I had studied leadership for so long and I understood the personalities and I'll tell this story. It was really interesting. My team lead.

Kristie Stocker: 17:39

She looked at me and I was in marketing, right? So I worked with all sorts of people from all the departments. I worked with fraud. I worked with IT. I worked with doctors.

Kristie Stocker: 17:48

I worked with marketing and everybody had different personalities. If you know what I mean,

Adam Larson: 17:52

I do

Kristie Stocker: 17:53

marketing people very different than the doctors, very different than the fraud people, And she said, you know, Kristie, there are a lot of clients I cannot put with other designers because they just you know what I mean? They just butt heads. She goes, but for some reason I can pretty much put you with whoever, even the harder ones, the hard nosed ones that are kind of like why I need this tomorrow and you know, their deadlines are a little and she goes, somehow you never come crying to me and complaining or whatever. Like, how do you do it? Right?

Kristie Stocker: 18:21

And this is my team lead saying this, right? And I said, I just understand the personalities. You've got some that are a little pie in the sky and they have no detail oriented mindset at all, and you have to figure that out. And then you have some that are very rigid, and then there's some in the middle, you have to understand their motivations. Some are in there and they they email you.

Kristie Stocker: 18:43

They're like what's the status? Well, you could look at that as being rude, or you could look at that as well. They need to get things done because they have a lot on their plate and they're a director and all these things. And so like I said, going back to what you had just mentioned is, yes, if you are the CFO and you understand your people, you understand the vibe, the pulse of your company, then you can understand the strategy it's going to take to transform the culture in the way that you want.

Adam Larson: 19:10

Yeah, so who's who's in charge of the change? Because a lot of times people say, oh, that you have to do from the top down, but it can't just be one person managing that. So how do you like kind of dictate that?

Kristie Stocker: 19:22

Everybody is responsible for the change, even the people who sweep the floors, right? It's it does not matter, at least in most large corporations, right? It goes top down. Not saying that's right or wrong, but if it works for you, then we do it. Of course, however, if you're going to change a culture of a larger company, you have to survey the the people of what they want.

Kristie Stocker: 19:43

If you're a smaller company, let's say 50 or 100 people, right? You might already know what they want because you're smaller, right? You have the community and you understand what's going But it is the responsibility of everyone, and I have to stress this because that is the only way culture changes. Because if you have the marketing departments on on board and the accounting departments on board, but the cybersecurity department is not on board, then you're going to have a problem because then the other two departments are going to look at cybersecurity and say, well, what's up? What's what's your problem, right?

Kristie Stocker: 20:17

Like what? Why? Yeah, so they all have to be involved. Now the executive leaders might be the ones that set the vision. That's important, but they also have to walk the walk and talk the talk.

Adam Larson: 20:31

Yeah,

Kristie Stocker: 20:31

they have to. There is no. Hey, we're going to change culture and then they walk away and they feel good and they're like, oh, look at what I said at my company like good for you.

Adam Larson: 20:41

Yeah,

Kristie Stocker: 20:41

but you're not going through with it right and your employees are going to find out right. They will because they see that you're not walking the walk and so every single person is responsible for the change. So going back to that, my friend who I ran into here at the conference who's got the manufacturing company at 200 people. He loves people, right? Which is odd in a manufacturing organization, right?

Kristie Stocker: 21:07

Like you really? But because he loves the people, it started with him and he's not the CEO, right? He's in management, so he's not in C suite.

Adam Larson: 21:18

Yeah,

Kristie Stocker: 21:19

but it started with him and then it started with his people and his people felt valued. So then they started on his team valuing each other. He only had six people on his team. That was it. In a in a company of 200 ish or whatever he said, yeah, right?

Kristie Stocker: 21:34

And so it started with his team and he had told his CEO I'm going to change the culture of my team. And so the CEO saw what he was doing and then it started spreading. CEO said, well, what are you? What are you doing that right? Our productivity is up.

Kristie Stocker: 21:49

I mean, we're talking 57% like it went. It shot up, yeah, and he's like, are you doing over there? And he told him and then it started spreading and so interesting it doesn't have to start with the C suite. Yeah, it can, but in this case it started with manager so

Adam Larson: 22:07

it's infectious

Kristie Stocker: 22:08

and it's a and it is very much infectious. Very much is because when you walk the walk and talk the talk, if you have at least some people of character integrity, a shred of it, great ethics. The people will start saying, well, I like how they treated me. I'll treat them the same. And but sometimes you're going to come in with the people who don't want to be on board with the change.

Adam Larson: 22:33

Yep, as

Kristie Stocker: 22:33

you said, and there is one particular person I can think of at Blue Cross that was like that, and he was not very liked in the department. However, I knew what motivated him. I knew enough about his personality to know how to work with him, and I was one of the very few people that when I left the company, he was like, I'm going to miss you. Wow. I almost fell out of my chair.

Kristie Stocker: 22:59

I almost did. I almost did. I mean, we were equals, right? I wasn't over him. He wasn't over me, right?

Kristie Stocker: 23:04

We were equals, there were times where I would need some input from him to do my job. And I was shocked and he goes, Kristie, you're one of the few cool people here. And I'm not saying it to, you know, brush my shoulders off, but it was because I ignored some of his abrasiveness and I just shot it real with him.

Adam Larson: 23:23

Yeah,

Kristie Stocker: 23:23

right? Like hey, you know, hey, when can I get this? It wasn't. Need this.

Adam Larson: 23:28

Yeah,

Kristie Stocker: 23:28

because he didn't like that, right? That wasn't. He heard that right. It was a challenge to him and so I said, hey, could I have this and what time could I have this information? I would put it back on him and he was like, oh, well, I get it too early.

Kristie Stocker: 23:43

Because I didn't come at him like I need these things and whatever.

Adam Larson: 23:47

Yeah, it's really funny you were just talking about that because as you were saying that it made me think of what about the cynic who's listening to this conversation and they're like, well, I don't want to drink the Kool Aid. I'm just there to get a paycheck and go home. How do you kind of work through those kind of conversations? Because don't necessarily have to drink the Kool Aid. You don't have to be like this company.

Adam Larson: 24:04

Most amazing thing, but it's still good to be a part of the culture. So like how do you balance that?

Kristie Stocker: 24:10

How do I like if I was talking to somebody who that was going through like if I was consulting or whatever exactly I had that question of a client. I'd say about two years ago, Okay, right? And now obviously they didn't tell me who it was, but I was there and their executive leadership team was on a zoom call,

Adam Larson: 24:26

right?

Kristie Stocker: 24:27

They said, Kristie, what do you do with belligerent people? They did

Adam Larson: 24:31

belligerent belligerent, right?

Kristie Stocker: 24:32

Like they literally use the belligerent like no matter what you do, they're going to complain. They're going to be negative and all that kind of stuff. They don't like you said, to drink the Kool Aid no matter what you do. You could give them $1,000,000 and they'll still find something wrong with it. They're like this is the wrong shade of green, right?

Kristie Stocker: 24:48

Or something like that, right? And and I said sometimes those types of people that don't want to join the bandwagon no matter what you do, it does not matter. Sometimes you have to understand that people have. Don't want to say inner demons, but they might be going through things that if they're that cynical, they're that against it, that disengaged. There's something going on underneath because it's my belief that most people want to do good and be good and be a good person, right?

Kristie Stocker: 25:23

Unless there's something completely mentally unhinged with you and there are people out like that. But in some cases when somebody is that negative, there's an underlying past experience they've had that may have nothing to do with you or the company or anything. Could be something personal going on at home, right? So sometimes you can't solve that unless you put them behind a closed door and be like, Okay, I noticed that you're really this this. You know these behaviors George, what's going on?

Adam Larson: 25:54

Yeah,

Kristie Stocker: 25:54

let's just you and me. Is there something I can help you with right? Because I've noticed these behaviors now back in the day I taught college right? I taught some digital courses in college and it was for adult learners, so it wasn't college college. Was like continuing education, right?

Kristie Stocker: 26:11

So you could have somebody who is 19. You could have somebody who is 91, right? And so is these digital courses and in the class I had mostly I would say maybe 40 or 50 something. There was one person in there who was about 19, so he was like almost right out of high school. He was right at high school age and he was.

Kristie Stocker: 26:31

He just would challenge me on everything. Would question everything I did. He kind of thought he was number one on the world and there was nobody else in the planet except for him.

Adam Larson: 26:40

Of course,

Kristie Stocker: 26:41

I was like he's being pretty disruptive in the classroom and it's messing up the other students who need extra time, right? I get it. You're more digitally prone. You get it. I know you get it.

Kristie Stocker: 26:51

I get it, but these people don't and they need time and and this is not helping. So I had one of two ways that I could have went at him. I could have said, look, you know, been a disciplinarian and parent and a you know you're doing these things wrong and

Adam Larson: 27:05

you know

Kristie Stocker: 27:05

this, But I, because I understood people and I understood his motivators, what he wanted to do was be seen and say, hey, I have this knowledge and I want to be seen as having this knowledge. So instead of being disciplinarian, I gave him a role and I don't remember his name. I'll just call him Mike, right?

Adam Larson: 27:23

Sure,

Kristie Stocker: 27:23

so I looked at him before class and I said Mike, you know what? You're pretty smart. I said you get a lot of this stuff. Do you see that April and Kate and Mary over here? They don't get it.

Kristie Stocker: 27:35

Would you like to be my assistant and help? Okay, and because you get it, but they don't. But you know what? They could really benefit from your knowledge now. Was he being cocky and all that?

Kristie Stocker: 27:45

And is that my thing? No, I don't like cocky people. It's not my thing, right? So I could come at him like you're a cocky little, you know, whatever. But I said, but he was smart and so he lit up like a Christmas tree.

Kristie Stocker: 27:57

I'm not kidding. He lit up like a Christmas tree because I acknowledged he was smart and I wasn't trying to put him on. He was, and so I said you're smart, you can help and you can use that energy in different ways and he said Okay and I didn't hear and I Adam. I didn't hear a darn peep out of him the

Adam Larson: 28:16

entire really.

Kristie Stocker: 28:17

He loved it. And he went over and he helped all these, you know, older people who are struggling and everybody everybody wins, right? He feels seen and they get extra help and it helps me right? So you just start looking for the win wins at that time.

Adam Larson: 28:31

Yeah, so I think it it goes back to listening to your people paying attention and understanding their motivators. Understanding when you're hitting bubble wrap, circling back to our session from this morning, but like knowing when that is and knowing these emotional response isn't about me. It's not about me.

Kristie Stocker: 28:45

Yes,

Adam Larson: 28:46

what are you going through and understanding that and remembering those things? Because it's it's difficult because when somebody comes at us and gets abrasive, you want to hit back with that same energy, but remembering, hey, it's not about me. It's not about my character.

Kristie Stocker: 28:58

That's right.

Adam Larson: 28:59

Okay, and that's hard. That's not easy to do as

Kristie Stocker: 29:00

a leader. It's not easy. Yes, exactly.

Adam Larson: 29:02

Because we're humans too. Leaders are humans too, and we were vulnerable people.

Kristie Stocker: 29:06

Yeah, yeah, we're all humans as far as I know. As far as you know, as as I know. And with it comes human nature. So yeah, you know, yeah, you hit the nail on the head. Yeah, I agree.

Adam Larson: 29:15

What So about when we talk about talent management? You know, you're bringing in new people and you want them to be part of the culture. Sometimes, like, you can do, like, oh, we had this cool thing. You do this cool PowerPoint deck or you you do this onboarding thing. Mhmm.

Adam Larson: 29:26

But then they get in and, you know, you might have the old bird who's like, well, let me tell you the real story. Know how do you combat those things when you're trying to bring good talent management into an organization

Kristie Stocker: 29:37

that sometimes it's Adam. You're laughing. You're like, oh, I got a good one for her. Is sometimes hard to avoid, yeah, right? Because you're gonna have the veterans that are coming in there and like alright, yeah, they tell you that, but then they do this.

Adam Larson: 29:51

Okay, I know I've been guilty of

Kristie Stocker: 29:52

it, right?

Adam Larson: 29:52

You know, sometimes I'm like, well, let me tell you the real story.

Kristie Stocker: 29:55

Tell you the real

Adam Larson: 29:55

deal and I and as we've been talking like man, I've I've been that

Kristie Stocker: 29:58

person sometimes. Oh darn it now I'm talking about myself. Yep, Okay, so A it's hard to combat. Yeah, B if you have that that might speak to your culture because if you are onboarding somebody and saying we're rainbows and sunshine and you're gonna love it and stuff. Okay, if it's maybe not so realistic and it's a little too over the top, then yes, maybe you might need to dial it back to maybe more realistic.

Kristie Stocker: 30:27

But if you're doing the opposite of that and your veteran is saying, let me tell you how it really is, then there's a culture gap because what you're onboarding with your new person is not what they're going to obviously experience per the veteran person in the team, right? And so you obviously have a culture gap, because if you didn't have a culture gap, there wouldn't be unless you just like I said, have somebody mentally unhinged that just want you know the whole world to burn. Of course, and there are people like that. There are right. So outside of the unhinged person you will probably have people that was like, oh, it's so nice to meet you.

Kristie Stocker: 31:04

You're gonna love it here, right? Like the coffee is a little drab, but you know we have donuts on Wednesday and you know so and so and AAR is great and oh, you're going to love this guy over here in the web department or whatever it is, right? So they would be opening them on the team with open arms rather than let me tell you all the crud that this place is. I won't say can you blame him, but I mean, like you said, you're guilty of it. I might have done it too.

Kristie Stocker: 31:33

I don't know.

Adam Larson: 31:34

Think I have. After I said I was like, I think I've done that a few times.

Kristie Stocker: 31:37

No, but it just means that there's a culture gap.

Adam Larson: 31:40

Yeah,

Kristie Stocker: 31:41

because if they were excited to have you on the team and things were great, they're gonna Oh my gosh, you're love it. They're just going to go on about the positives. The negatives are not going to be the first thing that they think about. So as you had said, you know it might not be about you, right? So it might not be the person, but it's that person who has been experienced the not so happy positive culture that they're like.

Kristie Stocker: 32:06

Me tell you what it really is like, because there's a gap here. So what you see on external is not what you're going to experience internally, and that's a problem.

Adam Larson: 32:14

And that's

Kristie Stocker: 32:14

a problem. That's

Adam Larson: 32:15

problem. You should be able to find a way to recognize that within your organization.

Kristie Stocker: 32:19

Yeah, so I won't say that it's awesome that that person is doing it, but it's not necessarily wrong either, because if their lens is correct and you as the company are not walking the walk, talking the talk, they're just being a, what do you call, the mimic back.

Adam Larson: 32:37

They're just a reflection.

Kristie Stocker: 32:38

A reflection, yeah, like a mirror, right? They're literally reflecting back what they are experiencing, seeing, and if you're a leader and you hear that, yeah, you should be taking note of that.

Adam Larson: 32:50

That's interesting. Yeah, well, and if you're also listening to the conversation, you realize you're the person doing that. Maybe you're the person being that. Let me tell you the real story. Maybe you should reflect on yourself and saying what's going on here?

Adam Larson: 33:01

What can I do to make a change

Kristie Stocker: 33:03

exactly exactly 100% and like well, going back to what we said, who's responsible for the change? Everybody, everybody, yeah, everybody.

Adam Larson: 33:12

Let's So say somebody is listening to the conversation and they've reflected. They're like, Oh my gosh, I'm that person, but they don't feel like there would be an acceptance of, Hey, we need to change things. How do you start the change within yourself and and cause that fire to burn like that one manager who started it and everybody caught on? How do you? What are some first steps that you can take?

Kristie Stocker: 33:32

So if you're like in a company and you're like, the culture is a little subpar, you're

Adam Larson: 33:36

a contributor.

Kristie Stocker: 33:36

You're individual contributor and you're like, Okay, this is not going the way that it went. So in the team that I was on in corporate, one of the teams I was on, the mindset would go up and down sometimes, right? Yes, of Like, oh, it's great, and now it's not. Oh, it's great, and now it's not. But I tried to keep it even keeled and tried to.

Kristie Stocker: 33:57

I tried to lead by example, right? In the areas that I did not have people under me, I tried to lead by example because I'm the type of person where it's like just because these people are acting this way doesn't mean I need to act this way. And so I've been on enough teams. I've led enough teams where, like I said, it's a slow burn, right? Relationships take time and human psyche.

Kristie Stocker: 34:20

Takes time. Human psyche takes time. What I would do is I'm like, I know my character integrity. I know the values I was born with. I know what my beliefs are.

Kristie Stocker: 34:29

I have a high level of self awareness. Feel and So what I'm going to do is I'm not going to lead into the gossip, the rumors and things, and sometimes that didn't always set well with my coworkers because they wanted to come over and be like, me tell you and I just kind of don't feed into it. And then eventually they realized Kristie is not the one to just go gossip and spread rumors with because she's not going to hear

Adam Larson: 34:52

it. Yeah,

Kristie Stocker: 34:53

that's one less person contributing to the negative culture, right? And so after awhile there are a couple people that will come to me and say, you know, I noticed that you don't say these things and you don't complain or you're not running to the team leads, screaming about whatever is going on. I'm like, yeah, because A, I understand people. Know how to take care of it myself, so I feel the higher your self awareness like you said, what can you do? Increase your level of self awareness.

Kristie Stocker: 35:19

There are a

Adam Larson: 35:20

lot of

Kristie Stocker: 35:20

books and coaches and you know things that you can do for that. Increase your level of self awareness because it starts with you. And if it starts trickling up, down, left, right diagonal, right? That's good. Yeah, because you have to start with yourself, right?

Kristie Stocker: 35:33

I mean, in my when I do my leadership retreats, I have something that says no self, so know yourself first. Second part is self lead, so know how to lead yourself, motivate yourself, your goals. You have to self motivate, right? Mhmm. And then lead others.

Adam Larson: 35:50

Yeah.

Kristie Stocker: 35:50

So know yourself, self lead, and then you can lead others. And so when you're in the self leadership, people start seeing that and you are basically subconsciously leading others to be better people, better coworkers, maybe gossip less, things like that. Then there are other ways besides leading by example where you could lightly call out something lightly. I say that depending on your team, right? But if somebody is gossiping or negative or doing whatever, you can say, you know, I I think she's great.

Kristie Stocker: 36:24

She's this or that right? You can lightly turn the conversation around, right? Like we don't have to be, you know, going down on this rabbit hole of how horrible this VP is or the CFO or whatever, right?

Adam Larson: 36:37

It's easy to get caught

Kristie Stocker: 36:38

up in those conversations. Exactly. Yep. And that's just gossip. There's so many other things, right?

Adam Larson: 36:42

Of course.

Kristie Stocker: 36:42

There are ways that you can switch it, your energy, right, and kind of move things a different direction. And then people subtly pick up on that, and they go, Oh, okay, well, maybe I shouldn't be. Like the guy in class, right? Instead of just saying, Hey, you shouldn't talk to people like that. I get it.

Kristie Stocker: 37:03

Sometimes direct is good, but sometimes subtle works with people as well. So,

Adam Larson: 37:08

yeah. That's awesome. It's almost like that, I've heard leadership people say, like, be the change that you want to

Kristie Stocker: 37:13

be.

Accouncer: 37:13

Well, yeah,

Adam Larson: 37:14

that's And that's kind of, It's exactly what you're saying, It's true. Yeah.

Kristie Stocker: 37:19

I mean, I I'm a consultant and if I and I and I coach I'm a success coach and I teach people about goal setting and vision and finding purpose and all that. And if I was like sleeping in till noon and being on the couch eating bonbons every day, I'd be like that is definitely not the change. No, I want other people right? It's true. It's the same thing.

Adam Larson: 37:40

You have to be the change in yourself. Have to practice what you preach as they say exactly.

Kristie Stocker: 37:44

So yeah, I know myself. I self lead so I do. I work very hard to practice what I preach, right? I mean, we're human. We fail, right?

Adam Larson: 37:52

Of course,

Kristie Stocker: 37:53

but at the same time, yes, if you want to see change, be the change first and see where it goes. Awesome. Yeah.

Adam Larson: 38:01

Well, Kristie, this has been an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for joining me here at IMA26. I really appreciate it.

Kristie Stocker: 38:06

Yeah. Well, I'm excited that you asked me to be here, Adam, and you asked really good questions. I hope your listeners get a whole heck of a lot out of

Adam Larson: 38:12

this. Well, I sure did. So thank you so much.

Kristie Stocker: 38:13

Good. Thanks.

Accouncer: 38:16

This has been Count Me In, IMA's podcast, providing you with the latest perspectives of thought leaders from the accounting and finance profession. If you like what you heard and you'd like to be counted in for more relevant accounting and finance education, visit IMA's website at www.imanet.org.