Listen to Your Employees with Justin Deonarine

Listen to Your Employees with Justin Deonarine

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 54 of The Business Development Podcast, and if you've ever had questions regarding corporate culture, we have organizational psychologist, Justin Deonarine with us, founder of Culture Shift Consulting. Stay tuned.

Intro: The great Mark Cuban once said business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. And we couldn't agree more. This is The Business Development Podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get expert business development, advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs, and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business.

Brought to you by capital business development, Capitalbd.ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the business development podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 54 of The Business Development Podcast, and today we have an absolutely amazing expert interview for you. Have you ever wondered about culture in your company or were thinking about what is organizational psychology? Even I was naive before I met Justin Deonarine, but today we are going to bring you up to speed.

Meet Justin, a visionary organizational psychologist and the brilliant mind behind CultureShift Consulting. With a passion for transforming workplaces into havens of purpose and fulfillment, he has mastered the art of applying data driven decision making to revolutionize recruitment, leadership, and corporate culture.

In today's fast paced world, where mental well being in the workplace has reached an all time low, Justin stands as a beacon of hope, committed to bringing back the essence of humanity to human capital. Through his expertise and unwavering dedication, he empowers companies to create environments where employees thrive, finding meaning and truly value their work.

Having traversed the globe, working with organizations of all sizes and across diverse industries, be it for profit or nonprofit, or even government sectors, Justin's insights have transcended borders and boundaries. His cross culture experience has honed his ability to craft tailored strategies that resonate. With each unique context, making him a sought after consultant in the field.

Beyond his hands on work, Justin's voice resonates through the pages of prestigious publications such as Inc.com and renowned Canadian HR outlets like Canadian HR Director and CPHR Alberta. His thought provoking articles on leadership, corporate culture, innovation, and entrepreneurship provide a window into his wealth of knowledge and passion for driving positive change in the workplace.

As we embark on a journey to redefine how organizations view and nurture the most valuable asset, their people, Justin's mission to foster a culture of empathy, compassion, and growth has never been more relevant. Let us delve into the world of culture shift consulting, where data driven transformations pave the way for a brighter, more fulfilling future for employees and employers alike.

Justin, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. How are you today?

Justin Deonarine: Great. It's, it's beautiful out. It's sunny. Really, really enjoying that. Thank you for having me. Thank you for inviting me.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh, it's, an absolute pleasure. I know we met very briefly before in a virtual coffee with the chamber, and you know, it's unfortunate cause we didn't get too much time to chat in that, but, you know, obviously I have very close connections with the Edmonton chamber of commerce and me and Ken were having a conversation and he goes, you need to talk to Justin Dionerine.

He knows everything when it comes to organizational psychology, and I looked at him and I go. What? What is organizational psychology? Hahaha! And I was like, ok, you know what, If Ken thinks it's a good idea, I should definitely reach out to Justin, and then when we started talking, I was like, you know what, Absolutely, this is critical.

You know, I think, If I'm, you know, a little blind to it, I'm sure a lot of people are, so this would be a great opportunity to educate the world and learn a little bit more about how we improve company culture.

Justin Deonarine: Yeah, and it's, it's a common reaction. It's we are really organizational psychologists are actually all around the world.

But unless you're like, for example, in HR, you, you tend not to know that we exist. That's, that is one of the downsides. It seems like a really niche area. I've been confused for Marie Kondo. Oh. So you, you put the Psychology Behind Organization, . Oh, okay. . So it, it is not a well-known area, but it is actually very popular, especially when you take a look at the larger organizations. Those with a large HR team. They are very well aware of it. And that is the mistake that people use with it or have about organizational psychology is that it's only for the big companies. It's actually for everyone, the solopreneurs up and, and that's where some of the some of the, mistakes or the assumptions that I end up having to address or educate about so...

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, no, I totally agree with you because at the end of the day, corporate culture and being able to, you know, being able to treat your employees well, to encourage them to help them grow is ultimately going to foster employee retention, which is probably one of the biggest challenges that any organization struggles with, because it is expensive to train employees. We don't talk about this, but it costs a lot of money to train employees and get them to a level where they are productive for your business.

And if you can't keep them.

Justin Deonarine: And even sometimes it's at the hiring level if you, a bad hire costs way more than just their salary for the three or six months that you keep them, especially if you get it wrong at the higher levels, say it's a VP of business development, how much, how many clients, could you potentially lose how much talent could you potentially lose the impacts in six months can be can be astronomical sometimes depending on the role, right?

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, you know, you know, and I talk about this with all my with all my clients as well as we sit down and I say, look, anybody representing your company, is as far as the customer is concerned, your company, and you're absolutely right. So it's critical to put anybody who's going to have any type of outward face or interaction, you know, whether that nowadays be even through socials, right?

Like they don't have to have direct interaction, but even indirect interaction has negative consequences if done incorrectly. Right. And so absolutely, totally, you have to make sure that the people that you're, that are representing your company are representing it well. And frankly, also like the company they work for.

So Justin, take me back to the beginning, you know, you know, you've been, you've been in psychology a very long time, you know, we were chatting before this, it's been over 13 years at this point, you know, what made you choose this path?

Justin Deonarine: It was really interesting because when I was, say, 18, 19, I wanted to be a video game designer.

Kelly Kennedy: That's a great path.

Justin Deonarine: It's all of a sudden, like, how did you go from video game designer to organizational psychologist? Really, what fascinated me the most was artificial intelligence. So, My undergrad was cognitive sciences, which is the foundation for A.I. So this is before A.I. Before chat GPT before all these things that we know of today, before they were even considered possible.

That's what I was studying and a lot of it was how do we model human behavior in computers? To be able to then help people improve their performance, so it's always about performance improvement, and I was looking at things like vision, hearing, memory, attention, right? So some of those things that are more that are that, impact performance in the workplace, but are more of a basic level, more of the neuro neurological. And I did that my master's the start of my PhD for that when I left my PhD I actually that's how I transitioned over to organizational psychology because a lot of the information that I, that I was researching that I had in cognitive neuroscience, was missing, was not known, was not well known, was not well harnessed, that performance improvement at the basic level at the neurological level.

So, when I transitioned from academia to industry, that's when I made the switch to organizational psychology. And I started developing assessments personality, emotional intelligence those types of assessments that maybe some of you have taken and, those things are what I still tend to gravitate towards in terms of helping people improve their performance.

It's that baseline, right? So that's how I made the switch into organizational psychology.

Kelly Kennedy: So, okay. You know, you touched on the assessments, right? We've all done them, right? If we've been, if you've been an executive in any business, you've done, you know, personality assessments, or whatever else. You know, I've probably done them 15 times at this point in my life.

And it's, you know, I think one of the challenges, and this is something that even me and my fiance were chatting about cause she was thinking about maybe implementing them for her team. And she goes, okay, well, great, we have this information, we have, you know, but how in the world do we implement it into day to day life at our organization?

I think that's where all organizations like struggle. It's easy to implement a personality test and get results, but what's hard is what do you do with it after that? Like what, how do you implement it? Maybe you can shed some light on that because I'm sure we've all faced it.

Justin Deonarine: Sure. I think the first thing with with assessments, you've taken like 15 different types, and I'm guessing probably about 80 to 90% of them were probably a little bit flawed.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay, well, they all, you know what I found, they changed through time as I evolve, and that makes sense, right? I guess they would change as you change, right? My assessment from when I was 21 is not the same as my assessment at 31, right? Different, different Kelly at that point, right?

Justin Deonarine: Different Kelly. Some of them would, some of them wouldn't, it really depends.

But what I found throughout, working in the industry is there's a lot of assessments out there that are not reliable, that are not valid, and that's the challenge because they all look the same. So waiting through which ones are helpful in which ones aren't because if they're not reliable and valid you don't really know what your getting.

Now to answer your question. Say you do have something that's reliable and valid and that works. Okay. So how do I now implement those? I think that's sometimes where organizational psychologists come into play or organizational psychology comes into play because you take a look at what HR organizational development, training and training and development, the learning teams, they use organizational psychology principles.

So really, it's a matter of taking the information and converting it into something actionable, and that varies depending on the individual. So I always say start with their strengths and challenges. Where are the areas that they can, where are some, like one or two areas that they can harness, strengths that they can harness, and what are one or two challenges that they could improve on? That they could really work on and develop, and how do they need to adapt accordingly?

Kelly Kennedy: So, okay, that, that makes a lot of sense. I think one of the challenges that we face when, when this is happening and, and, you know, I, this is one of the conversations that me and my fiance had was, okay, let's say that you have identified the, more challenging areas.

However, you know, they perform a certain task in your organization, they perform that well, it doesn't necessarily get interfered with by these, by the negatives, per se. And even if it does, it's very minor. Do you still need to help that employee improve with those negatives, even though it's not part of their day to day tasks?

Justin Deonarine: Depends on whether you want to retain them or not. Okay, okay, okay, yes. So, so that's, that's, that honestly, I would say if you're taking the time to do an assessment with, with an individual, it's worth the time, investing the time. Even if it's not something that immediately looks like it's going to be a benefit to their performance or to their role, you never know how it's going to help overall.

So if you're taking the time to invest into them for the assessment, take the time to invest into developing them professionally, because not only does it give you, does it give them a bit of an extra challenge? And again, you never know how, what they learn will actually improve their performance overall.

It also shows that, they're valued that, hey, we want to invest in you. We see potential in you. We want, we, we care about, we want to, we want to help you grow. We want to help you develop. And in turn, that's one of the keys to retention, showing people that you value them. Right? So if they're valued, we're putting this investment in.

Yeah, sure. It may not be immediately applicable. But you never know when, and we're willing to put that time into.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes.

Yes, absolutely. I completely agree. You have to, you have to invest in your employees. It's just, I think a lot of companies struggle with where to do it, where to do it. And I know that even, you know, I, I look at our organization and say, okay, here's the skills that we need to have to do our jobs effectively.

Here's where I would per se invest that money is to make them more effective at those particular tasks. But what you're saying is, you should also look at tasks that are not necessarily part of their key day to day, but you want to invest in their own overall growth as a, as a person.

Justin Deonarine: Exactly. If you take a look at soft skills as a whole, emotional intelligence, growing in one area of soft skills, you never know what other impacts it might have for other, for other areas of soft skills.

So if you help them improve something like Their social confidence. You never know where, it might help them with, with other areas. If you take a look at something like assertiveness, you never know where it may help them in other areas. So I'll give you a good example. I know an individual who was going into a new role into a higher role.

And, he came to me and, and he said, Hey, I don't feel like I've got the assertiveness for this role. So we did a little bit of assessments and emotional intelligence and took a look at his as a certain of score and and yeah, it was a little bit below average. So he wasn't he wasn't quite there. We worked on a few things that you could do to build that assertiveness.

So that he can have that debate or have that conversation, especially if it's a tough conversation, he was going into first time management. So to have that tough conversation as needed, and he wasn't ready for it, but that's where helping him grow with that, all of a sudden I start to notice other things like his confidence increase.

His ambitions started to go up. He's like, Oh, you know, maybe I should try for this higher role. And he got it right. So you start to see other things start to improve, start to really become refined. He started to come, into his own in ways that he wasn't specifically trying to work.

Kelly Kennedy: It's a snowball effect.

Once the snowball, once you get a small win, then another win, then another win. And it just starts compounding. Exactly. Now tell me about the opposite. The opposite The opposite can also happen, correct? Where they're not being looked after and then...

Justin Deonarine: Oh, oh yeah, for sure. I wouldn't say it's that their skills, that their soft skills or their talents are decreasing, it's that it's motivation.

If, if you don't, so say the worst thing I see, okay, we're going to do these assessments with you. The assessments done. Here's a report. Good luck. It's like, Oh, well, okay. I guess we're going to do nothing with this.

Kelly Kennedy: That's how assessments have been run in every organization or class that I've ever been in.

Justin Deonarine: Yeah, exactly. Right. So, now think about it from your perspective. You get this report, you read through it. Oh, it's interesting. Now, what do you do?

Kelly Kennedy: That's right. It's like, okay, great.

Justin Deonarine: Right. Yeah. What do I You file it away somewhere? Yeah. In a fold, in a drawer, and it's, when you meet someone like me, have you ever taken this assessment?

Have you, oh yeah, I've got this entire file folder of assessments. You pull out the drawer, oh, here's that what I've done. Here's what I've done. Right. So what you, what a lot of companies don't realize what a lot of managers don't realize if you give somebody, Hey, here's, here's something to start with, and there's no follow up...

it's like an empty promise, right? We, we're going to invest into you. We're going to train you. We're going to develop you. And then nothing happens. Well, then they look at it and say, well. You're not doing anything anyways. So where's my incentive to improve? Where's my incentive to give you more? Where's my incentive to stick around if somebody else comes to me with an opportunity that gives me more?

Right? Yes. It's, it's really interesting because one of the things I work with, with people is, with individuals is career values. So what do, what does somebody actually value in their career? Are, do they want more money? Do they want more work life balance? Do they want more training? And, and it's really interesting.

One of the things that that's come up over time that has raised in, in value over time is training and development.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes.

I think you kind of hit the nail on the head is that people want to be challenged, right? We want chat like we don't want to get stagnant in what we're doing because if we start to feel like, you know we're not you know, we've hit the top and that you don't mean this happens with high level executives too, if they hit a wall the wall is what kills them right?

Like, you know what I mean? You see, you see, and I don't know how true, you know, you might know the truth of this more, but you see high level CEOs tend to swap out of companies usually every five years, and I wonder how much of that is because not because they weren't doing an amazing job, but because they they had nowhere else to go.

The only place to go is to the next company.

Justin Deonarine: I think there's, a little bit of truth in that. I think it depends on the individual too. So, I mean, somebody who's a bit higher ambition will probably change a little bit more, right? If you're in that moderate ambition, you might stick out a little bit more.

You still do want to move up eventually, but it's really interesting that you bring up that example because research has actually shown that when CEO switches, positions from one company to another, they are actually about 70% less effective in the next role, because they don't know the culture. They haven't been in there long enough to really be as effective.

The part of their effectiveness is. Those intangibles, the things that not, not their critical thinking, not their intelligence, not their, their experience. It's those intangibles or connections, their influence, the, building that network within the organization to know who, when, where, and how to get things done. And they come in in the first year, they're like 70%, they're about 70% less effective because they need to reestablish now why they move over.

Part of it could be yes, that, that boredom, part of it could be they've, they've accomplished what they can in there looking for the new challenge. Part of it could be that they're just looking for that new opportunity. Hey, something else has come, come along and this, other organization that's doing something similar. Especially like you take a look at the tech firms there, their top executives move around quite a bit.

If you take a look at, or, or within banks, for example, within the same industry, I can take what I've done here and help someone else. It's right so that and that some of that's that entrepreneurial spirit right there.

How can I build? How can I build? Right?

Kelly Kennedy: Yes.

Yes. No, I agree. I always just found it kind of curious, right? And that was definitely one of the things that had crossed my mind when we were talking about essentially stagnation is that sometimes you hit a point where you're just feeling stagnant. And I do wonder how much that actually plays into, you know, a lot of organizational change because, you know, I think most companies, as long as you know that the management is Is great and they work well with their teams.

There's not a lot of animosity. It's not necessarily enough. You, like you said, you still have to, you still have to challenge your employees. You still have to provide growth opportunities because even if you're a great organization, you still need, you know, the employee needs something. The employee needs to feel like they have something to reach towards.

Justin Deonarine: And I would, I would say it depends on and I'm glad you define those specifics on that because yes, a what the hallmark of a great organization is investing into your people. So that's when people don't leave when they feel that they're valued, they could feel valued, they could have a great relationship with their manager, but if they're not growing, it will be they will be.

If they have a great relationship with their manager and, they like where they're, where they are and what they're doing, the bar will be higher. It will require more for them to move on, but I have seen those individuals move on still, right? But if there's, if you're providing that training, that growth, those opportunities, it's actually really, when another offer comes along with somebody, say somebody, some, a head hunter comes along and tries to poach them, they really, really, carefully evaluate, is this worth it going to. It's the golden handcuffs.

The more you, you provide an employee, the more training, the more support, the more they feel valued, the harder it is for them to walk away to a new situation and say, I'm going to take a risk leaving. It's a risk reward, right? I'm going to take the risk in leaving because there's the grass, is the grass greener on the other side?

Or is it as the ever so famous example goes, or is the grass greener on the other side? Cause there's spray painting it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Totally. That's it. You don't know until you figure it out, but usually by the time you do, it's too late.

I have, you know what? We haven't talked about this, but you ha you got my brains turning.

And we're talking about motivations in people and, and, you know, the lengths of times per se that people spend in different positions. And it got me thinking, you know, if I go back to my dad's generation, right, my dad's generation you know, you stayed at a company for 30, 40 years, right? Like you had a great job.

You just, you suck it out. You suck it out. Come hell or high water. You know, how is that changing as the generations move forward? And are there different ways, you know, in organizational psychology to work with these new generations?

Justin Deonarine: Definitely it is changing. That's the gig economy. It's what we call the gig economy, right?

So, so comparatively to the company man mentality, where you, you go somewhere, you stay there, the, you take care of the company, you, provide your loyalty to the company and the company rewards you in the end with a retirement package with takes care of you in the end, right? As soon as those things started to get removed as soon as we got rid of retirement plans as soon as we got rid of those we opened the organizations opened up the market.

Well, now you're just basically hiring gig people, right? They're going to come in and some people come in and we'll still do that. I know companies that have, that have young, younger employees who have been there for 15, 20 years, because they feel valued, they have career growth, but they're not going to stay in the same role with doing the same thing for that, that amount of time now, right?

So that's where I find things have changed a little bit. Sometimes if it's used in effectively, they call it quiet promotion or quiet hiring, where all of a sudden you're stacking on more and more job requirements, but you're not giving them any sort of promotion in like to accommodate.

The best companies I've seen have stacked on those new responsibilities. And then when they hit a certain plateau. They gave them a senior title or something like that with a little bit more pay to reflect their new responsibilities. Hey, we've been, we've been giving you these challenges. You have risen to the challenge. So now we're going to reward you, right?

So really some of it, when it comes down to the differences, first off with the younger generation, millennials, for example, I'm a millennial, right? With millennials, Gen Z, you're, you're going to expect that. They might turn over despite your best efforts, because it is a bit of a gig economy.

They know, like, take the banks for example, it's well known within the, within the Canadian banks, that if you do not jump between banks, you are probably... Not going to rise up that high, you need to jump from bank to bank to bank and take your opportunities in order to rise higher. If you can provide that mobility internally, which is what I'm seeing, a lot of larger organizations are trying to work towards today, that's one way they're trying to, to combat that.

Let's when they get in here, if we see them as a high potential after, you know, they've been here two or three years, we see them as a high potential. Let's chart out, this career path for them.

Yeah. So they know if they stay here, here's what we're going to try to do. Here's how we're going to try to raise their, their status within the company. Here's how we're going to try to give them career progression so that. And it could be in a way that we'll sit down and we'll work with them to plan that out, right?

So it is different. It is a little bit different. There is a little bit more effort. It's not that you can't take it for granted anymore that they're just going to be there.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, for sure, and do you see that? Like, I'll tell you one of the challenges that I'm seeing in the business development field, okay?

And that's where... We have organizations that are hiring business development people that have completely, you know, for whatever their reasons have completely dropped the older ways of doing business development, which is actual interaction, right? Like direct phone calls, direct emails in favor of a social.

A more socially oriented system where a passive system I like to call it where yeah, we'll put out all these ads and we'll just wait for the phone to ring and it's genuinely a fear and part of my goal with this show is to like remind people that no, no, no, no, no, that we need to get ahead of this. We still need to make phone calls.

We still need to have human to human interaction. And I, I'm, I'm a little bit afraid for business moving forward. You know, it's going to suffer if we can't kind of go back to human interaction to encourage human interaction with the show. That's what I'm always trying to do is, you know, bring you back to more of an active marketing strategy where we're directly getting in front of people.

We're going for lunch. We're going for meetings. We're having human connection. We're building real relationships, right? And it's, it's a little bit scary because I'm definitely seeing the trend go the other way. I'm really wondering what that might mean for the future of business.

Justin Deonarine: So it's really interesting.

I mean, let's talk about organizational psychology and business development, right? Let's, let's, let's talk about how they, they collide. Yes, I have been seeing that in terms of in terms of business development myself. But what I've also been seeing is that the, approaches and the challenge of the approaches that people take is still around the same if we talk about normal distribution, you have people on one side who like the more passive approach, you have people on the other side that like the more, active, the, I call it the, the hunter and the farmer mentality, right? So you have, you have about the same distribution across generations. That's the amazing part. Despite these, these societal trends, when you take a look at the individual level, their personality traits are still the same, they just express them differently.

Now, what you may see, this is one of the challenges, is when you take a look at an IBM sales team, for example, those traits that you're talking about, getting in front of people, having, having those lunches, things like that, they're, you take a look at their high performing sales team, that's what they're doing.

So the talent is out there. Just what I'm finding is it's not as easy to identify who's going to be doing that. So I'll give you a good example for my own clients, because I do help organizations with that hiring side of things because retention is one side, but it's also finding the people it's, how can we help them grow?

But how do we find the people and know how they need to grow in the first place? And what we find, what I'm finding over time is that it is normally distributed. You have your same amount of hunters. You have your same amount of farmers. No matter the age group, right? So it's just you identifying the say at the younger generation identifying the differences between the two is not as easy, so that's where I find you have to take a look at a little bit deeper the methods of resumes, interviews, for example, in the past, that could define these individuals aren't working anymore.

So that's where businesses need to update their strategy.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, no, I totally agree. And I think, you know, there's different strategies that work for different types of business as well, right? Like, in my experience, if you're doing business to business relationship building, an active strategy just works better. It really does.

But if you're doing B2C, you know, you're, you know, the guy buying things on Instagram, that's a great, that's, that works, man. Like social, social marketing for B2C works amazing, but it does not necessarily work. Like you said, if you're trying to sell things to IBM, so you need, you need two different approaches depending on what you're doing.

A hundred percent. But yeah, it's it is a little bit concerning because I know, you know, There's a bit of a social gap in some of these newer, younger kids. And, you know, it's, not their fault. That's the thing. It's not their fault. It's just the generation they grew up in, the lifestyle, you know, we like we built all these great things and they got a little bit antisocial.

Justin Deonarine: And I would challenge that, but continue, continue the thought. I'm just, I'm just warning you, I'm going to challenge it.

Kelly Kennedy: No, fair enough. But I think, but I think, and this is where I'm going to hopefully win my, win my credibility back here. They're still willing to learn. They're still willing to turn it around.

And I think that it's our job as employers, especially with this new generation, to give them that little bit extra time that they need and to really explain that they're in a generation that, you know, they've grown up with information. You need to tell them why, and they need to believe why, if you can tell them why, and they believe why.

They're going to get on board, but you can't just say, Hey, do it this way because we've always done it this way, or they're going to challenge the crap out of you. You need to give them the reasons why.

Justin Deonarine: And, and I would take that one step further. You have to not only give, not only just the reasons why it's the, they have to believe in what they're doing.

There is, that is one of the, that is one of the broader trends, the differences that you see between the, with the new generation is if they don't believe in what they're doing. It's a lot harder to keep them. They have to believe. So that's where you see nonprofits are having a lot easier time sometimes retaining because you have people coming in.

They believe in the mission. They believe in, in the vision. They believe in what they're doing. They feel like it's helping. So even though, you know, nonprofits pay less, right. Even though they're not making as much money, it might be a little bit more work. They, they, they buy into that value, right? They buy into that.

I am helping somebody so if they don't believe in what they're doing. And I mean, it, I, I have no millennials who, who do light bulb industrial lighting sales and really, really good at it, love their job, believe in it, right? You don't have to be a nonprofit to build that, to build that connection with the vision, the mission.

And the part that I'm going to challenge of what you said is that traits are still normally distributed. The talent that that would be a high performer in a more hunting hunting role are still out there. It's just, it's harder to find them. You still need to make them identify with the mission, with the vision.

Yes, for sure. You need to help them grow. They're going to ask why. Yes. Sure. But there are people out there with the natural talent still as much as they used to be It's just finding them you need to be It's not going to be the same way to find them,

Kelly Kennedy: But wouldn't you argue? That in some ways, it's not, it's not the same because, you know, there was a time when after school we went and played at the park and we actually got other interactions that like, you know, you go by the parks today.

There's no kids on the playground. Like, it's a completely different world, Justin. So how can it be exactly the same? How can that, how can the social interaction, how, like, how, how does that rationalize out

Justin Deonarine: Because they're interacting differently? The social interactions is just different. They may not be out in the parks, but they may be, say, out in the malls instead.

Right there. The scene has changed, but you take a look at introversion and extroversion, the distribution, it's still a normal bell curve. There are still kids. You take a look all the way down to when they're kids, you can still see the kids who like to be social and the kids who like to be introverted, those basic. Traits have really, do not change throughout generations.

They are really consistent, right? But because the scene is different, you can't like, for example, in sales, I know one thing that I've seen a lot is, well, I'd like to see if they're, if they participate in sports, because that means they're a team player.

I've seen that a lot as a hiring criteria. I'm like, no, that doesn't, that doesn't. Automatically mean that they're broadening those definitions of what we're looking for will help us find those individuals who fit right?

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, and I like you kind of you kind of hit it where like personality is so critical in some in some positions, right?

You know, I like to say that I know within five minutes of meeting anybody, especially if it's an interview, whether or not they'd be good in business development or not, because the reality is somebody who's good in business development has this likeability about them that they just, they radiate. It's literally who they are.

You know, you can teach all the sales aspects behind it. The one thing that I can't teach is that likeability aspect that they either have or they or they don't have.

Justin Deonarine: Yeah, yeah, and that's where emotional intelligence plays a pretty good role, right? You call it likeability, I call it emotional intelligence. There's right, it's kind of, it's all hinting towards the same thing.

Kelly Kennedy: It's yeah, yeah, but yeah, it's true. It's just like you said, some people are that or aren't. So it can be a nature versus, you know, instead of a nurture thing per se is what you're kind of getting at. And you know what? You kind of hit something that's fairly relevant because I have, I, you know, we have three boys and you know, two of them are very extroverted and one is very introverted and that's just how they were built. I Totally get what you're saying. It resonates very, it resonates. It hits home here.

Justin Deonarine: Yes. Yes. And if you take a look at, even take a look at your, your two introverted sons, they may have different social preferences. See, that's, you hit the nail on the head a little bit earlier when you said there's a lot of things built, there's a lot of options.

So being social in the past doesn't have to look the same and being social comparing brothers, for example, one could be social in one scene and there's multiple ways, multiple scenes, multiple avenues, multiple ways to be social, right? And I've seen highly extroverted people and they love the video games.

Yeah, that's traditionally associated with introverts, right? But they're playing online together with their friends. They're socializing that way. Then they might go to school afterwards. Talk about it with their friends kind of thing. Right. So...

Kelly Kennedy: I always, I always laugh that I ended up in business development and I always kind of joke that business development kind of chooses you, right?

Nobody goes to school thinking about it, especially goes to business school thinking I can't wait to be in business development. It never happens, right? One day it kind of comes up and bites you in the ass and you're like, Holy crap, this is a job? This is a great job! Yeah, I've loved it ever since I'm a huge advocate for it.

But, as a, as a person before I got into the business development field, I was a very introverted person, which is kind of funny because yeah, you would think like, yeah, I would say, I would say socially I was really good, but I definitely gravitated more towards alone things. Like I really enjoyed building things or I really enjoyed, you know, like you said, playing some games or whatever.

But I liked my alone time very much. Yes. And it's very weird that that I ended up in the career that I'm in, not that I host this podcast because, you know, young Kelly was a very introverted Kelly and yeah, I, I feel like X, like extra version can be learned. It's, it is a skill. That, you know, I get better and better out with time, but I still, I still struggle.

And I talk about it on the show quite regularly where I fight social anxieties. So you put me in a room, you put me in a coffee with the chamber room or something like that. And I'm definitely fighting my own nature.

Even though, even though, you know, you see Kelly on the podcast, you see Kelly right now, I'm a very bubbly, happy guy. I talk loud, you know, I, I fill up a room pretty quickly, but, that's not who I always was, which is interesting.

Justin Deonarine: It's also interesting because I'll give you an example. Some of the best, the best business development reps that I've ever seen are introverts because they have a different way of connecting with people.

They don't need to adapt the adopts the. Traditional outgoing extroversion ways. They have a different way of connecting with people and that has made them highly successful. So sometimes even if say you're introverted and you want to, and you see business development and you're like. Oh, wow. I think I could really do something with that.

Your approach is going to be different from the approach of others in the field, but you can still be highly successful. And I think in the hiring side, when companies are looking at these individuals, that's where one consideration that I don't see being made. Well, this person's just Yes. A little too quiet or a little too introverted. And then they're being passed up, right? But meanwhile, somebody else picks them up and they become a superstar.

So...

Kelly Kennedy: The thing that made me really successful in business development, and you know, you might've hit the nail on the head there, actually. And I get in trouble because I say that too much.

But anyways,

one of the things that gets me in trouble, or well, one of the things, sorry, that that's made me successful in business development. Is my ability to stick to a process, which is a very introverted thing, for sure. No question. It's my ability to be able to do something repetitive, repetitively, week over week over week over week over week and sticking to it, which, yeah, I definitely take back to my time as a kid, you know, building, you know, remote controlled airplanes or whatever else.

Like I loved those things. They're very introverted tasks. They're very like task oriented. And you do a lot of work until it's done. And then you have this reward, right? And I definitely taken that same aspect into my business development life where I recognized, you know, you know, you, you, you can make a few calls and you can get lucky.

Or you can make a lot of calls on a regular basis and it's no longer luck, right? And you can make your own luck, right? But it definitely is that, that introverted side of me that can sit down and do that tedious task over and over and over and over again until I'm successful.

Justin Deonarine: And that's also persistence.

Kelly Kennedy: Sure, sure. So yeah.

So Justin, what are some of the organizational problems that when you come in and work with a new organization that you see on a regular basis?

Justin Deonarine: I get asked that one a lot. That is... Oh yeah, if I were to summarize it, there's many smaller problems that I see, but if I were to summarize it, the first one, the biggest one would be disconnect between the upper management.

Say your senior management, your directors, your, your C levels, and, what's actually happening at the ground floor. So there was some research and I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head, but it was a really interesting way that it flows down a hundred percent of a C of the C level, the organization, when they make a decision, the C level sit down in a meeting, they make a decision.

They understand 100% of the details on it, as you move down throughout the organization. People understand it less and less and less. So now imagine if it's, say, 64% at the director's level and 32% at the management level. You're getting down to the bottom, to the bottom level and it's like, Oh, barely anyone understands the original vision.

So that's where communication comes into play as part of it. So I would call it that general disconnect. And I've actually written an article about this because a lot of people ask me, okay, what's good versus bad corporate culture? And I call it connected versus disconnected. Because you take a look at something like a Toronto based street stock or a New York stock exchange, a hedge fund company, they have a very different culture.

But that culture works for them and everybody... Understands the culture and that culture works for them. They could be more competitive. They can be a little bit more cutthroat, but that's what makes everybody happy. So I wouldn't consider it like you take that and move into somewhere else. It could be considered toxic, but for them, it's a connected culture.

It works. It's when you have that disconnect. So what I see a lot is, is leadership moving in one direction. And all the challenges that the individual contributors see, they start moving in a different direction because they're like, well, we can't get to where leadership wants because we've got all these roadblocks.

So they move in the direction of typically least resistance, right?

Kelly Kennedy: So, okay. Yeah. So what do you do? Like, and this is obviously you're talking about a problem that doesn't happen at the beginning of an organization. It happens well after that organization has been established. Heck, maybe it's even been around 10, 15 years.

And I totally see what you're saying. I've seen this over and over and over again. You know what I, you know what I see? I see the CEOs sitting there thinking, Yeah. Okay, we, you know, we want to do this, but we don't know what to do. We don't know what to do. Like what, what would you recommend to them? How do you even reconnect?

How do you reestablish connection? How do you reestablish communication between the top and your, and your floor level workers?

Justin Deonarine: And that's where the, quickest and easiest solution that I've always seen is. Pay attention, listen to what's happening, ask, you're at the sea level and exactly what you said in the smaller organizations, this, this does happen still, I've seen organizations with 15 people and it's disconnect happen.

But, you know, at the beginning, you're starting off a solopreneur, two, three people, this tends not to happen because you're having, you're involved in the day to day. It's as you get separated from the day to day that you need to have those conversations. So I'll give you a good example. I know one CEO but 250 people he goes around every one day a week, he has blocked out time on his calendar one day a week to go talk to a different department within the organization.

Go down. Go down. I mean, they've got like a 40 story building. He goes down to a different. So throughout the year, he's kind of connected with everybody. And he just goes, walks into their office,asks, what's happening? What are they? What are some of the challenges? Ask questions. Get curious. And that's where, where he's always had a good sense of what's needed, what are the struggles, what are the organization's struggles, because he's having those conversations and also he's built a relationship with all of those individuals throughout the, the organization at the, at those many floors.

Because he's going through and he's having conversations right down to like the warehouse. He's going to, to the warehouse and having a conversation with them. Right. So multiple times a year, he's, he's made himself visible.

He's gone. He's, he's had those conversations to see what's going well, how can things be improved. And, and they're casual conversations. They're not like formal sit down interviews. It's like, Oh, Hey, like this CEO can tell me the names of every single. Like employees, child, children, all their children, like they get to know them as people, right?

Kelly Kennedy: Sure, because like, if you're looking at a typical organization, like the one you're speaking of, there would be many senior and mid level managers in between the CEO and this floor level group of people. Is he bypassing them? What, like, because the typical chain of command would be, I'm going to talk to my senior executive who will tell me what is going on in the warehouse, correct?

And that is still the very typical standard, you know, structure of an organization. But what you're saying is, if, if he's constantly getting reports from that executive, There's still the disconnect.

Justin Deonarine: There's still the disconnect, yes. It's the disconnect and the personal relationship. I know from having conversations with him, he's like, I want to have that personal relationship.

Even though we've expanded, we're much bigger now. I still want to have that connection. I still want to know people. I still want to know their... So he goes and has those conversations, but what he's seen is he gets to also understand what's going on in those different areas. So he is bypassing them, yes, but he also has their support in doing so.

Everybody, all of his direct reports know, all the directors know he's doing this. He has conversations with them too, right? So it's just staying connected. Now, I mean, that's... There's, there's a lot involved in that. That's not an easy thing to do. That is something he purposefully wants to do. He schedules a time in for it.

What I typically see within organizations for something easier solution within, within an organization for that is, is literally having somebody come in, to some degree and do that. So employee interviews, employee engagement surveys, like employee surveys, things like that. I see larger organizations do that.

HR will put out employee survey or in my case, my clients, I'll go in and do those interviews and have those surveys and bring those findings. So having some sort of bridge, some sort of way to connect. To recreate that connection. That's how you fix that disconnect.

Kelly Kennedy: Do you find that the employee surveys are accurate?

Justin Deonarine: Oh yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: I always wonder about that because there's definitely, you know, I mean, a fear, I think whenever an employee survey comes around and I get that we do them anonymously nowadays, but like, Anonymous information is also like the internet. Anyone can say anything and it has like, how do you know what is relevant data and what isn't when if you're doing anonymous and then the flip side is if it's not anonymous. There's going to be a fear of repercussion, and I feel like we're just that's just built in

Justin Deonarine: Yes, Yes, so first thing is always make them anonymous always make sure they're anonymous because if you have any fear of repercussion then yeah no one's gonna reply It's only gonna be the most bold or the people who have one foot out the door that are gonna be right.

The thing that I always say is, excuse the language on this, it's shit in, shit out. If you have, that's, that's one of the challenges, so, so I say yes, and I say yes confidently on that, because I'm creating those, those surveys, but if you create a bad survey, You get bad Intel, right? So it really depends on the quality of the survey, but if there's the anonymity, it's a good quality survey.

And especially if you're like it's HR that's administering or it's an external somebody, I find somebody external really cranks up the response rates because, this is something, whether or not they, they're working for the organization. This is something they have a vested interest in. This is something where they want their voice to be heard.

They want to be heard. And that's what usually helps with improving the, getting those response and making sure it's not like the internet where it's just everybody spouting out everything. They have the things that they see going well and that the, that they see that are not going well, and they want to be heard.

So that's where it helps. But if it's coming from anywhere where they feel that it may not be anonymous, that's when you're going to see everybody pulled.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah, no, I, I agree. Cause you know what I mean? I feel I've been in those rooms where it's been anonymous and non anonymous and it's definitely a different idea, right?

Like you're not, even if, even if you're seeing stuff, you may or may not speak up because you know, you need your job or whatever, right? Exactly. Okay. So. I want to get into CultureShift. So you founded CultureShift right in the middle of COVID. What was it? February of 2020?

Justin Deonarine: February 2020. Yep.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Talk to me. I founded, I founded Capital in December of 2020. So I'm right there with you. So, but I love these stories. I have a vested interest in hearing them. You know, what, what, why then? Why did you start CultureShift then?

Justin Deonarine: Yeah. I really, I saw things were starting to hit critical mass, things were starting and, and I, we knew of COVID at that point.

And it was like, Oh, people are going to need help with this. To be honest, in February, 2020, I was personally, I was thinking, Oh, you know, this is going to be something maybe a couple of weeks. Yeah. That's it. Right. And then, and then, and then next thing we know two years later, but I knew just from the scope of it, honestly, that a lot of organizations were going to need help.

We're going to need help adapting. We're going to need help adjusting. It's going to be a new way of, of approaching things and the large organizations, your multinationals, your nationals, we're going to have no problems finding help with that. They've they've got their consultants. They know they're going to be doing doing that.

It was those say those midsize in those smaller organizations in those not for profits that we're going to be having to navigate this on their own. And that's where I really started to specialize at that that time where I started to streamline towards those organizations, because I knew they were the ones who were going to be left without the support and potentially needed more of it because they didn't have the internal expertise.

So that's where, where I started culture shift because, I knew this was coming. I stayed a little bit one step ahead. I'm, I mean, full time role. I was, I was, I'm an organizational psychologist, so I kind of looked and I saw what is this going to do over the next short term? What happens if this goes on long term?

I was not expecting it to go on long term, but I always ask that question. It's that curiosity. What happens if? Right? So, so that's where I was like, okay. I, I, there needs to be a way for people to, to get this help. There needs to be somebody who can help them. Let me join that pool of resources for this organized for those organizations.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I, I want to, I want to keep on this culture shift because I want to know the full ins and outs of, of the organization and what you do with it. But you, you hit on something just given COVID, right? Yes. One of the first challenges you must have run into, which frankly as a world we'd never run into before was.

Entire offices working from home. Yep. What? What was that like? That must have been like, no one saw that coming. So you know, how, how did you handle that when organizations are like, Oh my gosh, how do we keep connected with all of our employees when we're not even seeing them?

Justin Deonarine: Yeah, and I think mostly what I handled wasn't the technology side.

It was like, okay, well, you know, here's some it people that can help you with the technology side, but it was that getting comfortable with it and also rolling out the process properly. So I'll, I'll give you an example of an organization that I've seen they. The rollout was not great. They rolled it out in such a way they thought was a strategic and organized way I can't go into the details on it, but they rolled it on a way and it actually created organization wide infighting.

And that's where, where the rollout impacted morale, impacted turnover, impacted employee, like just, just the general quality of life of employees generally. So that's where part of it was, how do we do this rollout? And then. How do we get used to working from home? How do we adapt to this? How do we, how do we, how do we communicate efficiently through a virtual online?

And I mean, throughout my, history working, I've always had the option of working from home. So for me, it was. This is just like nothing new. I was already doing this sometimes once a week, twice a week. Right? If it, if it was raining too hard out and I, I grew up in Toronto, if it was raining or snowing too hard out and I didn't want to go through that massive commute to get to the office, it was like, okay, I'm just going to work from home.

Right? So for me, it was. It was a comfortable environment as a familiar environment, and that's where it's helping others understand that it can still work actually, it can actually help your productivity if you if you do it right, it can help your productivity, but it can still work and that was the first hurdle getting people over that it's like, what do we do?

We've never. Not had people in the office. So how do we, how do we work with this? Right?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Like for me, it was a heck of a shift because, you know, I mean, I've, I'd worked at offices my entire life. So for me, home was my space. Right. And it's like, yes, I really had to compartmentalize. What I did is I, you know, I put all my equipment in a room.

And I basically made that room my workroom and when I went in, shut the door you know, I, I, I dressed as I would for work. I didn't change anything. I tried to, I realized fairly quickly that in order for this to be successful for me, I needed to make a space. I've gotten much better at it over time, but initially I had a lot of trouble working from home and I'm, I know I'm not alone.

Justin Deonarine: Oh, for sure. For sure. And that was for some individuals. It was, it was what works for you. Like, for example, for me, when it came to a permanent work from home. I worked for my couch. I had no separation of, of, of working at home because I could do that. So once I, I mean, some people did this where at the end of the day, they take a walk around the block to simulate their commute.

So I would always engage in something that would be considered a home activity to. To trigger that switch from work to home. So for me, it was kind of like, I can work from anywhere. And part of my, part of my work in the past working in working with some of the reality TV shows I was in hotels, so.

I had to learn how to work from anywhere really and, and merge the two and then create that hard separation, right?

Kelly Kennedy: For sure, it was tough. I I definitely struggled with it. I've gotten considerably better at it, you know, over the last three years, but when it initially happened. I probably had like a six month where like my productivity, you know, probably shit the bed a little bit just because I was working in a location that normally was my fun location. It was my space, right?

And so to try to get mentally shifted into the right head space to do work effectively and efficiently, literally, I got to a point, Justin, where I just locked myself in a room for eight hours and I did work and I left and I only left the room to grab coffees. Like that's literally, that was how it worked.

Go to the bathroom, grab coffee, get back to it.

Justin Deonarine: There you go. Everybody had to find their way, their shift, right? So, and that's where, where a lot of during, yeah, straight into the beginning of CultureShift, that's where a lot of companies needed that help right off the bat.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh, I bet, like, your timing could, like, ironically, your timing couldn't have been more perfect. So take me into CultureShift as an organization now. What are some of the services that you offer?

Justin Deonarine: Yep. So, so my main two are recruitment and retention. That's, that's basically for, so for the recruitment side, how do we refine our processes? So I'll give you a good example for the biz dev side. Identifying who's going to be a, somebody good for that role, whether it's marketing, whether it's sales, it's different for each role, identifying, and that's where I bring in some of those high quality personality tests to really help with that.

Identifying the traits that they have, the areas that they are going to walk in as strengths, the areas that they're, that they can get some extra development in, in order to get up the role, because you're never going to find a perfect cat. So that's where I help with that side of things. And then in the retention side, it's everything from investigations, so interviews with people, to employee surveys.

Those tend to be the two most common things that people, that companies come to me for. I do other things like diversity and inclusion, like a little bit of high potential coaching also as needed. They're typically solutions on top of something else. So succession planning is something that I do have quite a bit of expertise in also, so that's something that I've been working on, but really right now it's a lot for the recruiting and a lot for the retention side.

Kelly Kennedy: Perfect.

Perfect. So like. If some, what about like culture as well? So like, what if a company is absolutely struggling with their culture? Like you said, they have that, maybe that disconnect and they're trying to, you know, in 2023, it's never been more important for CEOs to have a forward face. And that's not just with, you know, the external public, but it's actually with their employees as well. Right?

You know, like one of the great things about this podcast is, I get to have that real connection with not only my customers, but actually what my employees listen to the show too, right? Yeah. Okay. We have, we have a great time. We have lots of conversations. I use a lot of the material, you know, like, as you guys know, if you listen to the show on a regular basis, we provide a lot of really great learning material with regards to business development.

That's just as relevant for my employees as it is for, and my customers for that matter, as it is for you, the listener. And so there's ways to connect now that just never existed before. However, there's also obligations for, for leaders in business to have a more outward face. Whereas before that just was not the case at all.

You know, if you learned about a CEO, you learned about it because of right up in Forbes, not, not, they have a social platform.

Justin Deonarine: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. And, and if, if a company is feeling disconnected, they're usually seeing in other challenges. No company has come to me and said, we've got a disconnected culture, right?

It's usually they've come to me and said, we have an abnormally high turnover. We're struggling to retain people. We're struggling to find people. So typically that's what they come to me with their challenges with. We can't find people. We can't keep people. Or in some cases, honestly, some, some of them said we want to prevent this from happening.

We've, we've got great employees. We've got a great culture. We want to know how to keep it this way and how we can improve it. That's where we get in and sometimes get into the, like the diversity inclusion kind of side.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. I'm going to put you on the spot here a little bit.

If you can give just one piece of advice to any organization to improve their culture, what would that be?

Justin Deonarine: Listen to your employees.

Kelly Kennedy: Listen to your employees. Yeah. It's, it seems very easy, doesn't it?

Justin Deonarine: Yeah. It, it, it sounds easy. It requires effort. It requires time. Yeah. I know, I know. I said it really quickly, , and I said it really, really casually, right?

Yeah. . But it, does take a bit of effort, but you know what, in the end that effort is totally worth it because you imagine you're a CEO coming in and say you're in the office or you're connecting with people online and you see a happy environment, a happy workplace, where people are, are, and like, I'll give an example, I've seen this where people are not drinking at their desk, where if you open their bottom drawer, it's not just loaded with alcohol, right?

Where, where people are happy and, they like what they're doing. When you have, CEO into a environment like that. There's pride. There's, there is a sense of satisfaction on that one. So it's, it is. Amazingly powerful.

Kelly Kennedy: Awesome. Awesome. Well, you hit the nail on the head, Justin. Listen to your employees. I think you're, I think you're a hundred percent on point, especially moving forward, right?

Like the reality is, is that, you know, with, with the way things are changing in business we need to make sure that we have a happy work culture. We need to make sure that our employees are feeling engaged, challenged, and that you know, they're feeling valued for sure.

So Justin, if if someone wants to get ahold of you, and they want to engage CultureShift Consulting. How do they go about doing that?

Justin Deonarine: Best way typically is to email me. Just, just reach out. Justin@CultureShiftConsulting.Ca. Kelly, you can provide that easily. You have my email. The other way is reach out to me on LinkedIn. Justin Deonorine, Organizational Psychologist. Send me a message or connect with me there. More than happy to chat. That, that, that's the two easiest ways to get me. Third option is my website, cultureshiftconsulting.ca. There's a contact me. ,It goes straight to my email, so...

Kelly Kennedy: Perfect, perfect. And maybe just give me, just for our listeners list just a couple of challenges if they're facing it that they might want to reach out to you for. Just what are some key, some key things that if they're seeing, they need to call you.

Justin Deonarine: Yep.

Struggling with Finding the right person in that hiring side, in that recruiting side having a hard time keeping people and that retention side, or you're, you're, you're doing everything well and you just want to take it up to the next level. How do we make our culture better?

Kelly Kennedy: Perfect. Perfect.

Amazing. Well, thank you, Justin. This has been an amazing interview. Thank you so much for educating me on organizational psychology. It's been a great conversation. If you guys have any challenges with corporate culture, hiring, that sort of thing you can always contact Justin. He'll definitely help you out until next time.

This has been episode 54 of The Business Development Podcast, and we will catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020. His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your business development specialists.

For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the business development podcast.