The Salesforce Career Show
The podcast dedicated to helping you HIRE, GET HIRED and SOAR HIGHER in the SALESFORCE ecosystem.
Enjoy these live recordings of The Salesforce Career Show from X Spaces and YouTube's JoshForce. A guest + AMA format hosted by Josh Matthews, founder of Salesforce Staffing, LLC, Joshforce and The Expand Exchange and Vanessa Grant, Dreamforce speaker, 9X certified BA, consultant and social media darling. Recordings are 3x per month.
The Salesforce Career Show
Focusing on What Really Matters: Mark Mears, Author of The Purposeful Growth Revolution
The Salesforce Certification Voucher Giveaway is underway. Tune in for details on how to easily enter a chance to win 1 of 5 vouchers worth $400. The drawing is on December 4th, live.
And now, the episode:
Mark Mears, a luminary in leadership transformation, joins us to share his revolutionary "LEAF methodology" for purposeful growth in our latest episode. Discover how his remarkable journey in the food and beverage industry led him to champion a balanced approach to leadership that prioritizes both profit and purpose. We explore Mark's insightful perspectives on how aligning leadership models with organizational priorities can foster fulfillment and legacy-building.
We take a thought-provoking look at the role of organizational alignment and how small to mid-sized businesses can overcome challenges through effective communication and integrative approaches. Mark's experiences offer a unique lens on the interplay between misalignment and business outcomes, highlighting the importance of integrating the well-being of employees and the community into business success. We also reflect on how systemic issues, such as those in healthcare, can influence organizational dynamics and leadership effectiveness.
Our conversation goes beyond traditional management styles, emphasizing the importance of trust, community, and empowerment in transforming corporate culture. Personal stories from Mark illuminate the impact of a supportive work environment and mentorship on career development. In a world where younger generations seek meaningful work, we discuss how to foster belonging and psychological safety within organizations. Join us as we share gratitude with our audience and look forward to upcoming discussions on legacy-building leadership and Mark's forthcoming book.
And now the number one audio program that helps you to hire, get hired and soar higher in the Salesforce ecosystem. It's the Salesforce Career Show with Josh Matthews and Vanessa Grant. So welcome everybody to the Salesforce Career Show. I'm your host, josh Matthews. My co-host, vanessa Grant, will be joining us in about 20 or 30 minutes. This is an exciting show because we have author Mark Mears joining us. Mark is the author of the Purposeful Growth Revolution Four Ways to Grow from Leader to Legacy Builder, and we're excited to get his insights on all of his experience. He's had an incredible career.
Josh Matthews:I'll do a full introduction of you here, mark, in just a moment, but we've got some other news that I'd like to cover as well, and some of you may be tuning in just to find out what's going on with this cool contest that we're doing. So first to let you know, we are giving away five Salesforce certification vouchers on December 4th. These are valued at up to $400. So if you get it and blow it on a $75 cert, it's your choice, but it might be a little bit of a waste. Gilda shared these with us when I ran into her over at that's Gilda Hilaire, director of Product Marketing for Salesforce when I ran into her at Florida Dreamin' in between hurricanes in Clearwater, florida. Really generous of her to do this, not for us but for you, so that you guys can have a chance to hopefully not have any kind of financial strain when trying to grow your career and grow your credibility and your knowledge by obtaining maybe it's your first certification, maybe it's your 17th or 20th, but you'll get to have a chance to win these. So I'm going to go over the rules real quick about it. They're pretty straightforward, and also let everybody know that you can find these rules at salesforcecareershowcom. Again, it's salesforcecareershowcom, that is our podcast website and it's right at the top of the homepage so you can dive right in.
Josh Matthews:Now. There are two ways to enter. You can enter one way simply by going to salesforcecareershowcom and filling out the Ask Us Anything form. So that gives you an opportunity to go ahead and request of me or Vanessa or any of our illustrious panel that often join us on this show to help us or to have us help you by answering your questions. It's that simple. You do that, you get an entry into the contest. There's another way and you can enter two ways, but not more than twice. The other way is to leave a review on either Apple Podcasts or Spotify. So to do that, you would go to your Apple Podcasts app on your iOS device and tap on the podcast album art, scroll down to the bottom of the page, tap write a review, rate the podcast using the stars, write your review and tap send. And then you just need to send your name, contact information and a screenshot of that review to josh at salesforcerecruitercom Again, it's josh at, or actually I put down the salesforcerecruitercom so you can do that. Okay, and then on Spotify it's the same thing. You just go in, hit your stars, scroll past the play controls of the episode page. You can go ahead and leave a message for us and, again, share your contact information and a screenshot.
Josh Matthews:So we're going to conduct this drawing live on our program on December 4th at 530 Eastern right here on X Spaces. We're going to have five unique winners and I want to wish everybody good luck. This is going to be a really fun contest, at least for me, for you just click on a couple buttons, but we're pretty stoked to be able to offer this. We've been running this program either on X or on Clubhouse for about four years now. It's been a while before, maybe even four and a half years, and this is the first time we've ever done anything like this. So stumble around talking about a little bit, just you know we're kind of new. Hopefully it's a lot of fun for everybody. So with that, I would like to find out first of all how are you doing, mark? How's the week going?
Mark Mears:Yeah, so far so good. It's ironic it's hump day already and I don't know about you, but the weeks are starting to fly by as you're getting busier and busier and it's November already. I know Christmas decorations starting to go up. It's like not even Thanksgiving yet. We just had Halloween. So a lot's going on all at the same time, but it's all good.
Josh Matthews:It is all good. Well, mark, you have had an illustrious career. You've held incredible titles such as president, evp, chief marketing officer. You've been a director, You've been a CEO, before a marketing director and predominantly, at least in your early career mostly in the food beverage business, working for organizations such as PepsiCo, running marketing for Cheesecake Factory and a number of others Pizza Hut and JCPenney and Blimpy. So you've had some really fascinating and interesting roles in your lifetime.
Josh Matthews:But it's my understanding that here, a little bit later on in your life I'm assuming in your 50s I was able to read enough in your book and about your book to understand that you awoke one morning after having a significant and potentially at the time negative event occur in your life and you woke up and you looked outside and you saw a tiny little leaf on a fig tree and that was the inspiration for what eventually became the purposeful growth revolution and your leaf methodology. Why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit about that? Maybe about that morning or about you can start sharing information about your book.
Mark Mears:Yeah, you've heard the saying it's always darkest before the dawn. And now I finally realized why that's true. Significant life event was I was president of a half a billion dollar casual dining chain that had 145 locations in 24 states and was owned by a publicly traded company, and I was recruited there as the chief marketing officer for the Cheesecake Factory to help the brand undergo a turnaround. It was double digit negative in sales. It was getting a little long in the tooth, so they wanted a more relevant contemporary brand positioning and a new concept that could earn the right to capital so that we could grow and become a larger part of that holding company's portfolio. Well, we did. In two years we turned the brand around from double-digit negative sales. We did a ton of research, came up with an exciting new contemporary brand positioning and then also a new concept that was killing our pro forma return on investment capital by even a couple of years. And so here we were, thinking that we'd accomplished this great turnaround story, and I had learned of the rule of threes, which is, if you focus on three things, you'll get people to be more clear and more productive and ultimately, more successful. So my three things were leadership, engagement and accountability, and I would say, in every opportunity I had whether it was weekly emails or meetings or back in the day with voicemails that you know Josh is demonstrating great leadership. Look what results he's getting. Or Josh is engaging his team with their heart, their head, their hands and their habits and look what they're accomplishing. Or Josh is holding his team accountable for results, and that's the way we're going to turn this brand around. And so everything was about leadership, engagement and accountability. That became my mantra, until that fateful morning after the deal closed with a new buyer. Instead of us getting the capital we've earned, they put us up for sale, and so a new buyer came in on a Friday. We're drinking champagne on a weekend, thinking we found our new parent rightful owner, and I had a meeting scheduled at 8 o'clock with the new CEO to kind of plot our new future together. At 8.05, I'm out the door. We've decided to move into debt for correction. And that's the second time major time I'd heard that. So that's when it was February 21st, I believe 2018. And that's about the sign, or the dates.
Mark Mears:The first sign the spring started to emerge in Southern California and, as you mentioned, we had a fig tree in our backyard. I got up early after a fitful night of sleep and I went and took the dog out back to do his business. Well, josh, as God is my witness, as the sun was coming up over this wall in our backyard it shone on that fig tree, and there, on the end of one branch, was a tiny little green sprig of a leaf just starting to bud. And it was in that moment I got this epiphany that a leaf is a symbol of growth and rebirth. And so I took the dog inside and went to my office, started banging out a treatment on my computer for this idea, and one thing after another kept coming to me. The next thing was I've been leading with the rule of threes.
Mark Mears:As I think about it, I actually believe in the higher power of fours. You think about, there's four seasons, not three. There's four directions, not three. There's four chambers to the human heart, not three. There's four elements to an atom, the source of all life, not three, and I could go on and on with this four-play Did you get the idea.
Mark Mears:So the thing that was missing for me in all of that burning the candle at both ends and sacrificing and traveling all over the country and being away from my family, was fulfillment. And I wrote it down and I said, oh my God, there it is, and it came to me as a four circle bend diagram, like our four seasons that overlap with one another. It is leadership, it is engagement, it is accountability, but it also has to be a fulfillment.
Josh Matthews:You know that's such a huge thing. You know it reminds me of this thing I watched recently. It's a behavioralist and we talked a little bit about this guy the other day on on our chat offline. But he talks about confidence and one of the things that he added to, like how to be confident or ways to be confident or how you can recognize that someone has confidence, and it was enjoyment and that had never crossed my mind. I'm 52. I think a lot about a lot of different things and especially those sorts of things. Confidence and always trying to gauge that from our clients and from our candidates, and he, you know, to hear all of a sudden it's like, oh no, confident people exhibit enjoyment was a powerful revelation for me and it sounds not dissimilar. You know, fulfillment is enjoyment often.
Mark Mears:Yeah, and I love that word enjoyment, you know. For me, the broader word beyond that is attraction. When you're around someone who's enjoying themselves, they appear confident and they have this natural attraction that makes you want to be around them or follow them, right.
Josh Matthews:So I love that, and so out of this morning you then wrote again. You said a treatment and the acronym for well, you used LEAF and you selected leadership, engagement, accountability and, of course, layered in fulfillment. Maybe you can walk us through a little bit of each of these. You described leadership as the seed and root system, or alignment. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Mark Mears:Yeah, just like in any organization, you have to have strong leadership. Well, same for any plant or tree, right? So the seed is who you are, and in my backyard that fig tree only knows how to be a fig tree and its purpose is to grow strong and tall through the leaf, where all growth happens through photosynthesis, right, and then bear fig fruit, and we'll talk about why that's important in a minute. But getting it aligned is really important. That way, you have sturdy root system that can allow that plant to grow strong and tall, just like an organization. And so, in my view, the leadership model comes down to four sub-processes clarity of what you stand for, who you are and your values, of how you'll work together, but then connecting them to your business priorities across all four stakeholders your team members, your guests or customers, your business partners and your communities.
Josh Matthews:I believe those are the four stakeholders for any firm that then leads to and well, let me just jump in here because this is a really important thing here, this idea of connection, and I like the clarity thing your mission vision values most companies and you know there's millions of companies here in the United States. Most companies have these to an extent, but the connection piece often. I mean, you tell me, do you think that the connection piece within organizational priorities is often one of the core things that's lacking? Like there's an almost an expectation that, like, if you're called in to consult, for instance, or if you're called in to take over a department or lead an organization, is the connection piece frequently the one of the parts that's not there.
Mark Mears:Yeah, it's the missing link, so to speak, gone, you know, into different, you know studies and or brought in consultants to kind of figure out the clarity of their purposeful vision, mission and values. Right, and so all that's great, but if you don't act on them, if you don't connect them to how you make money, you're really just creating some empty platitudes that maybe people will salute you know a poster on the wall when they come in and out of the building and come up in a monthly meeting or annual meeting, and maybe they'll put some awards around this and that and the other thing but if you're not truly connecting it to your four key stakeholders. Again, your team members first. You know what was it that Simon Sinek said is, you know, customers will never love a brand unless the team members love it first. And you need board employees, which I believe the words matter I don't like the word employee, and so that is a big thing.
Mark Mears:And then, if you do connect them, which is rare then you got to communicate up, down and sideways, as I like to say, from the boardroom to the break room, across all constituents, so everybody knows what we're doing, why we're doing it and what the role is in it, and that inspires a commitment of all members of the team to do their part and achieve their specific goals individually as well as team goals that ladder up to this sense of alignment that's going to help that tree grow strong and tall.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, man, I'll tell you, I've seen misalignment in so many organizations, be them Fortune 500 organizations which, by the way, you have to have a certain amount of alignment to grow an organization that big right, you just have to, so it's not completely failing. Usually, when you're looking at organizations, are you generally seeing this lack of alignment in small to mid-sized companies versus the large ones, or are you coming into big companies too, like PepsiCo, Pizza Hut and some of these other larger groups that you've worked with and seeing this disconnect despite their success?
Mark Mears:Yeah, while it can happen at any level, any size organization, I think the larger ones have an advantage in that they've been around usually for a lot longer. They've found their rhythm, they've scaled, they've learned what to do, what not to do.
Mark Mears:And they have the access to resources from the very top consultancies in the country. I think it's more the growing or mid-sized companies that have not yet hit that scale and don't have the resources and maybe don't have the high-level leadership of a CEO who understands how all of these pieces of the puzzle fit together. Sure, often you can have an entrepreneur, founder, owner takes a concept to a certain level and then, when it's time to scale, how do you scale in a healthy way, to be more purposeful on your growth, versus just slapping more people on it or slapping more to it or other ways to grow, other ways to grow but not really growing from the inside out? That is really the situation I see. Most is small to mid-sized companies. They want to grow. They don't exactly know how to get there.
Josh Matthews:We can also see it in very large ecosystems too. I'm trying to remember if you and I talked a little bit about the Joe Rogan podcast that had Kaylee and Casey Means on there. They're Stanford trained doctors who've written a fairly significant book that talks about the history of healthcare and the relationship of health in the United States. Nutrition, the tobacco companies, the you know the gosh, what was it? It was like the standards for medical education that were designed by designed by Rockefeller's attorney, right, it was one of the of course, he was one of the first big pharma guys, and it really can feel, when they talk about stuff, almost like this collusion, right, this collusion between food companies, corn syrup companies and you know organizations that you know, companies that produce pills to solve symptoms, versus, you know, getting into actual healthy nutrition to solve most of the medical challenges that most Americans face, which are typically metabolic issues, right, and inflammation, this sort of thing.
Josh Matthews:And so here you've got connection in this giant, you know med, pharma, slash, education and food ecosystem, but it's just not working. The goal isn't aligned to health, the goal is aligned to profit, so there's going to be issues, and so, you know, figuring out that goal like, well, what do we really want to do? Do we want to make things and organizations and people healthy, or do we want to make a lot of money? I mean, it's well, you got to pick one. Really, you know you got to pick one, and then we all know where the fulfillment is going to come, from which direction you would go to actually gain more fulfillment. So it sounds like, yeah, small and mid-sized companies, but also the broader ecosystems that we all participate in willing or unwillingly here in the US.
Mark Mears:Yeah Well.
Mark Mears:I'd say all over the world, and I don't believe it's either, or so I don't think you have to pick one. As a matter of fact, I'm advocating that you pick, and it isn't just about profit, it's purpose and profit. And I have, you know, a member of Conscious Capitalism Inc, and I just came back from the annual CEO summit in Austin last two weeks ago, I guess now and you know there's a lot of conscious companies out there that are doing well by doing good, and so you know the RJRs that you mentioned, or some of the other.
Josh Matthews:Philomorus yeah.
Mark Mears:That are looking at, you know, replicating habitual but negative personal health habits. Scientific addiction processes yeah, that would not be, in my definition, a purposeful. That would be. We're in it for profit. We don't care what happens to really the people that use our products.
Mark Mears:All we care about is keeping that quarterly earnings train moving forward and hitting our guidance, because you don't have to do that with Frito-Lay for example, there was a lot of backlash at the time about having salty snacks, high level of fat, in schools, and so instead of just saying, well, let's lobby for this, let's keep it going. Steve Reinemann, the CEO at the time, later became the CEO and chairman of PepsiCo and was also the CEO at Pizza Hut. When I worked for him, he said we've got to fix this. We've got to find a way to do better for you products that will still be craveable and yet not harm the person eating them.
Mark Mears:And there was a whole movement around a better for you portfolio of products, and this goes back several years, and so it's something that different firms have recognized, and their sales have not gone down, they've gone up as a result. And so you have to take a bit of a risk, because if someone tells you hey, I got all these case studies that great companies and even small businesses have figured out how to be more purposeful, and you know what it permeates all four of those stakeholders. If you're more purposeful, your team members are going to feel better. A Deloitte study just came out a couple of months ago that said, among Gen Z and millennials, nearly 90% want purpose at work. They don't want to just work for the weekend.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, it's huge. It's huge now. It's so much different than 15, 20 years ago, dramatically different.
Mark Mears:Yeah, I think COVID gave us all a bit of a timeout, Josh, and it really it's like trends were moving in that direction, but not all that quickly. But I think it gave us a bit of a timeout to reflect deeply on not only what, but who matters most in our lives. And when I saw the Sloan School of Management at MIT's research on 34 million people who left the workforce across the globe, I asked a simple question why the number one answer? By 10x over the second most given answer work environment. And then you follow that up with Deloitte's human sustainability work and the research that I just mentioned about wanting purpose at work.
Mark Mears:So your team members come first, and then your customers see that you're doing good and they're going to feel better and maybe they'll even pay more for working with a conscious company. And then your business partners who are in your ecosystem are going to make more money and want to invest deeper in you because of the financial benefit you're getting, and the communities you serve are going to be enriched because you're in them. Whether it's your local community could be statewide, countrywide or globally, depending on the size of your enterprise. And all that together says that business can be and should be, and was always meant to be, a force for good, and so conscious capitalism's mission that resonates with me and is aligned with my values is elevating humanity through business.
Josh Matthews:I love it Now Mark. The next letter in a leaf. E stands for engagement. You described that as the trunk and the branches. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Mark Mears:Yeah, it's the trunk and branches and system of nourishment, which I found out is called sabia, and Spanish translates into English as lifeblood. Well, what's the lifeblood of any organization? It's people, right? And so if you go back to your high school science days and you-.
Josh Matthews:No thanks.
Mark Mears:There's ways that the energy and nutrition gets through the leap into the tree where it comes back up, and so the idea is it's all interrelated, and so one must be engaged with their heart, their head, their hands and their habits, and that leads to empowerment. So again you hear about lack of engagement or quiet, quitting or all these things that you know, or the great resignation a few years ago of people wanting to leave the workforce or leave toxic environments or just not feeling purposeful at work why they're disengaged. Can I?
Josh Matthews:ask you something, though, about this, because we talk about this a lot, right, and this show was born of COVID, right?
Josh Matthews:That's why we even have this program, and I'm kind of interested to know what your perspective is on these 34 million global I hope I got that number right 34 million global people who listed a toxic work environment. Now I have to ask how much of that do you think was actually real toxic work environments, versus people just being averse to work, or people having behavioral challenges or mental health crises or things that had nothing to do with their immediate manager, their team or what work that they were producing? You know what I mean, because I've interviewed so many people, thousands of people, and sometimes I talk to them and they tell me about this toxic work environment and they describe the situations, and then, the more and more I dig in, I just think, well, gosh, if I had an employee like you, you might think it's a toxic work environment too, because I don't think that you're very good, and I don't mean that harshly, I mean it truthfully and transparently. So what do you think about that? You know?
Mark Mears:there's never anything black and white, there's always shades of gray. And, to be clear, the research that was done on 34 million I didn't say all 34 million cited it. I said of those who took the survey, the number one most given answer was toxic work. It was 10 times more than the second most given answer.
Mark Mears:And now compensation didn't come up until number 16 on the list. Okay, so I believe it has less to do personally, and when I read the report you can read it as well it's cited on their website it's not wanting to go back to an unsatisfying status quo. Right Now. I'm a little older than you, but I know you also know that we've been working under a command and control management style that no longer serves us, and so my goal is to put the human back in human resources, and I say to do so, all we need is love, which we'll talk about later.
Mark Mears:I don't want to fall in the middle of the leaf model. I've seen that, whether someone got COVID themselves, whether someone in their family was hospitalized or God forbid someone they loved actually died, we were all sheltered in place. If you remember, we all didn't know what we didn't know. We were all fearful of going out and touching something or being in someone's close proximity and having it happen to us, and so there was this real kind of fear.
Mark Mears:That wasn't a US thing, it wasn't a red or blue thing, it was a global thing. So many people just got a chance to reevaluate what's important in their life and who's important in their life and so that when you see that study of younger people wanting purpose in their work, I think a lot of it comes out of that. I don't think they want to work less. I think they want to work for a company and for a purpose that they can get behind and feel like they're doing something to make their world or their community better, versus just punching in and out of clock and getting paid every other week.
Josh Matthews:But we are kind of talking about fulfillment and you know I've mentioned on the months or even years whilst raising them, that you know there's little happiness, you know, during some moments of child rearing. You know, like we know, that Everyone who's a parent knows, yeah, They've been studying for years and that show the dip.
Mark Mears:You know it's like a U-shape that when married couples first get married they're at a certain level of happiness. And that show the dip. It's like a U-shape that when married couples first get married they're at a certain level of happiness and that goes down through a certain number of years, which happened to be the child-rearing years. So there's a definite common denominator. But once they're out of the test, it shows that the curve continues to go up long into their elder years.
Josh Matthews:That's right, but they get fulfillment. Even during those less happy years, you can be fulfilled and unhappy. It's not the same thing. At least that's what I think. What do you think?
Mark Mears:Well, I covered that in my book, ironically, okay, and it's toward the end. So I know you don't have the book yet, so you wouldn't have gotten to it. But I believe there's four kind of elements that we're talking about. I think there's fun, which is contextual, and it's internal I had fun at the concert last night temporary. Then I think there's happiness. We all say we want happiness, but I also think happiness is fleeting, it'll last longer than fun. And it's also internal. It's about me. Now, when you get to, joy lasts longer. And joy is external. Oftentimes we find joy in serving others and then fulfillment, I think, is eternal and that is the joy we have in serving others and fulfilling what our God-given purpose may be in this life. And that is something that we'll always kind of work toward and maybe we'll never fulfill it while we're alive, but maybe we'll look back at some point in our last days and say, yeah, I left a mark.
Mark Mears:Yeah, I crushed that yeah exactly, yeah, and that's one definition of legacy about you know, waiting until you're after you're dead and buried, and bequeathing something of value to people you love. I'm saying, how do you use every 24 hours of every day? One thing I know for sure, josh we only get 24 hours. Not one of us gets a minute more or a minute less. So how are we going to use that time to create a living legacy by impacting the people we work with to where they can then want to lead, like us and that's going to get into the other discussion here in a minute.
Josh Matthews:Well, let's. Yeah, I really want to make sure that we're providing the very best value, because not everyone who listens to our show is necessarily a business leader or a business owner, and you know, I want to find and explore some of the aspects of your work that does speak directly to those people who are employees and I know you don't like that work or team members.
Mark Mears:Yes, members, absolutely. I'm happy to follow you wherever you lead me.
Josh Matthews:Well, let's talk about the next one, which is accountability. That's the A in leaf, and you described that as the leaf and the fruit.
Mark Mears:Right. So we've got our seed and roots with leadership. We've now got our trunk, branches and system of nourishment with engagement. And now what are we in business to do? That fig tree is in business to grow fig leaves that can help that tree grow strong and tall and ultimately bear fig fruit. That is not only sustenance for people and animals, but it provides an opportunity through the seeds inside to be scattered for future growth.
Mark Mears:And so accountability, as I look at it, has four different elements. There is kind of outcomes, like measuring what matters most. We have to be clear about that. There is gosh. I'm just drawing a blank.
Josh Matthews:You talk about outcomes. You talked a little bit about how to overcome unexpected obstacles.
Mark Mears:Yeah, so obstacles is the next one. Thank you for reminding me you got it, buddy.
Josh Matthews:I'm here to remind you of what you wrote.
Mark Mears:Yes. What obstacles are in our path? Maybe we're off our plan, our sales plan, or maybe there's a new government regulation that's impacting our growth, or maybe we got hit with a lawsuit we weren't intending we're any number of things can happen.
Josh Matthews:So how do you do happen, Right? I mean, it's it's expected that there are going to be unexpected obstacles.
Mark Mears:Yeah. And so you have to plan for that. And when you're going through your strategic planning you say here's what will happen best case, mid case, worst case. And what happens if it's mid case, what are we going to do? Did we leave any? As an old boss of mine used to say and I say boss because he was a boss, not a leader we got to leave some dry powder in the gun. Let's go shoot everything off, because we'll have no contingency in case we get off the plan. And then what would be the worst case? If there was, if we're farming and there was a drought, if we're a restaurant and there was an E coli outbreak or you name it right. So you don't know those things are going to happen, but you got to plan for what might be the worst case. So I've always been a big believer in best cases if everything goes right. Mid case is if most things go right, and there are some, you know, bad things that do happen. And worst case is if man, the wheels could fall off.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, man, it's really a huge thing, and I can't remember what book it was in. It might've been in yeah, I'm not even going to bother, possibly and I think it was a Gladwell book or it could have been in Atomic Habits. But the importance of doing worst case planning right and I think the example used was it's a software launch right and it's going a lot. You know, they've been in development for three years. They're going live tomorrow.
Josh Matthews:What happens when all the servers break right, this sort of stuff like let's figure it out, let's role play, all of that, everyone's in the room, everyone's got to figure it out. It's not the most fun thing to have to think about these things, but when we think about them then we're not shocked. You know when it happens. It's like you know. It's like college football teams that practice playing really loud, crowd noise right, so they can get really comfortable calling their plays at the volume necessary for the team to hear and know what's happening on the field. That kind of stuff. It's like practice and plan in the painful scenario so that it's less. I mean it's basically what they do in boot camp for the military. I mean it's what it is.
Mark Mears:Yeah, yeah, that's a good analogy. Just like here in Kansas City and the chiefs were playing, uh, a monday night game in the rain, and so you know, patrick mahomes, now you know, prior to that, before it started raining but throwing wet footballs yeah exactly we're in these conditions, and so we better plan for it instead of being surprised by yeah, exactly.
Josh Matthews:I mean you're gonna lose whether you're throwing a football or hitting a golf ball. If the ball's wet, it's not going as far, probably. It's just how it is.
Mark Mears:No. So now you know your outcomes, you have ways of overcoming obstacles, and now you kind of get to this idea of innovation. So who are the outliers? Whether it's in your company, or maybe it's in your you know competitive set, or maybe it's outside your competitive set, but who can you learn from to help you do what you currently do better? Right, that leads to obsolescence, which you don't want, and that's really where innovation kicks in to say who can we learn from and what can we do to create a new growth path? Once we start to kind of you know level off where we are currently, is create a new growth path? Once we start to kind of level off where we are currently, is there a new product or service that we could begin to invest in and innovate in? Now that will be there. I mean think about great companies like Kodak, blockbuster Video, circuit City.
Josh Matthews:I could go on and on yeah, they're obsolete versus a Netflix that went from delivering videos by mail, dvds by mail and Dropboxes and this sort of thing to delivering it via the internet. Absolutely.
Mark Mears:And so I think every company has to wrestle with that is how much time do I invest in the future? And I remember the Steve Jobs quote when he was addressing his executive team once, and he says our job is to invent the future while we're managing the present. That would lead to achievement. Then we get to fulfillment, which is the ecosystem the soil, the sun, the rain that provides a perfect environment for photosynthesis to occur, so that plant or that company's culture, or what I call a community, can grow into its purpose, into the best version of itself, through people, places, process and performance. And so all that leads to, again, an environment that is conducive for the best source of growth, not a toxic environment where people feel undervalued, treated like an employee ID number, not given a chance to learn and grow. All of those things Gallup says are disengaging factors not feeling cared about at work, not being listened to and not being given clear instructions what I'm supposed to be doing and not given frequent feedback. For how am I doing? It's shocking, isn't it?
Josh Matthews:I mean you've been in this game for decades. Right, and so have I. And it is the most shocking thing to me how many times I talk to people in any given month where they describe their last employment experience, where they're basically dropped into the middle of a project they're shovel ready. They might not even talk to or meet their boss for three to six months. No joke, nevermind feedback, right, like forget that. Yeah, we'll talk in a year if you're still here. It's that kind of mentality. And then they wonder why they have high turnover, you know. And then they wonder why they have high turnover, you know. It's incredible.
Mark Mears:Yeah, it's sad because it's very avoidable. But to do that, I think we've got to put the human back in human resources.
Josh Matthews:So let's talk about that for a little bit, right, because I've got. You can probably guess I have very strong feelings about human resources, and particularly on the recruiting side. Human resources is a wonderful department, but I'm with you, I don't know that the human is in human resources the way that it was ever originally intended. What have you found in your experience as a leader in some of these larger organizations? Where have human resources maybe missed the mark and what can they do about it?
Mark Mears:Yeah, I think it's probably the most overworked and under a department in most firms because they're asked to do so many things and a lot of them are just administrative.
Mark Mears:So we look to HR to solve people problems and many of them are not maybe coached or educated or adept at leading and developing leaders to where the team members feel valued, and so that's kind of an extension of the purposeful growth revolution, which is all about personal and professional growth. And yes, there's a lot of insight in there for how to be a better leader and certainly that's part and parcel to the book. But if that was about 100 miles wide and 10 feet deep because I covered a lot of ground, as you can tell from even the leaf growth what's missing is this idea of bringing love into the workplace and not the kind of love that's going to get you a quick call from HR and escorted out of the building. Really a model for tapping into some of our most fundamental human needs beyond food safety, sex, et cetera, et cetera. Right, and Maslow's hierarchy needs. There's this idea we all need to feel seen and heard.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, we need to. We need connection.
Mark Mears:It's a human need to feel seen and heard. Yeah, we need connection. It's a human need, yeah, and we need to feel empowered to be our very best. And so you peel back that onion. And what does love stand for? Listen, observe, value and empower. Listen to someone empathetically deeper than you normally do and not only hear what they're saying, but maybe listen to what they're not saying, maybe be naive to think that people don't have things going on at home or outside of work that are impacting their ability to do quality work and feel fulfilled in their job. So when you listen on a deeper, more empathetic level, you're building trust, and that's the foundation of any relationship, right? Trust. Am I going to trust Josh by telling him I've got an elderly mom that needs this care, or I've got a sick kid who I don't know how we're going to get their surgery paid for, or I'm struggling with my spouse and it's really messing with my head?
Mark Mears:I don't know what he's going to do with that information. But if you built that foundation of trust by saying you know, hey, mark, I'm really very sorry to hear that. What can I do to help? Is there anything I can do or the company can do to help make this situation better for you? I mean imagine hearing that and then that leads to observe Don't wait for the dreaded annual performance appraisal that no one likes and no one does well, or even quarterly review. That's too long. Be able to observe by coaching, encouraging and maybe critiquing in real time, so people feel like you really care about what they're doing.
Josh Matthews:So now you're talking about not the department, not the HR department. You're talking about someone's supervisor.
Mark Mears:Yeah, because the HR department doesn't have most of the time. Now, bigger companies, they're a little different. They've got more money for learning and development and other things of that nature, but most mid to small size companies rely on HR to do everything that is people related.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, look, they're doing compensation reviews. They're looking at, you know, various insurance benefits. They're looking at their you know their EVP. Some of them are sort of cross trained to do some recruiting, but then they're also, you know, running insurance programs. Yeah Right, some people are just dedicated in the talent acquisition division of an HR team. You know, tell me about this. I've recognized there are different. Like, if you look at someone who's in HR, who's in talent acquisition, they're a recruiter.
Josh Matthews:Most recruiters I know who are talent acquisition people at companies are usually they usually at one point or another, always, and I could be wrong. I haven't run stats on this, but in my experience most of them at one point or another was a recruiter at an agency like mine or an agency like robert half or tech systems or something like that, and then they left right and they leave for a variety of reasons. Agency work can be very up and down. I saw that you worked out your your rsg that was a client of mine back. Agency work can be very up and down. I saw that you worked out your RSCG that was a client of mine back in the day. That's an agency, not a staffing agency, but a digital agency, one of the largest in the world. And you know those guys, man, it's crazy, it's super hectic, right. And so a lot of people come into agency work or consulting practices and they're like I got to get out of here, I just want to work for one company and I don't want to have to deal with this stuff.
Josh Matthews:So they go and oftentimes they're arriving with a personality that is human centric, right, but that and you know empathetic and you know servitude. Servitude not in a bad way, not in a bad way, but a willingness to serve others, right, a willingness to try and make things better, make a work environment better. But those same qualities that may make them sensitive or may make them empathetic, for instance, those same qualities oftentimes are anathema to some of the qualities that they need to actually be highly successful, in other words, the willingness to speak up, and loudly, and often to foolhardy senior leadership that's just making bad decisions around their staff or whom they're hiring or their hiring processes, and they don't speak up. And then they hire some guy like me and, because I don't work there, they'll listen to me, and I tell them no, you're doing it wrong. Oh yeah, sally already told you that. Okay, well, you should have listened to her the first time, right?
Josh Matthews:What do you think about that from an HR, from a person you know? Hr typically attracts certain, you know several personality types, but it generally does not attract the highly ambitious types. Now, you could be ambitious in HR, and I know some VPs of HR that are absolutely stunning with their drive, absolutely incredible, right, no doubt about it. But the vast majority don't necessarily have that fire in them right? And it's the nature of the role. What do you think about that?
Mark Mears:Yeah, again, I don't think it's all black or white, there's some shades of gray. I can cite Dina Barmesty Gray, who was the head of the people at the Cheesecake Factory and easily the best overall culture and I'll say community because I think it was that I've ever worked for and I would be right near PepsiCo Pizza Hut. When I was working at Pizza Hut, we were owned by Pepsi. We had a great leader named David Novak as the head of marketing and then, as I mentioned, steve Reinemann was the CEO of the whole enterprise and we had a great HR person at the Cheesecake Factory who I just mentioned. She would challenge David Overton, the founder and CEO still there, not in a mean way, but just speak up.
Mark Mears:It's so easy and I've seen it so often where HR leaders swallow their whistle because they get dominated by either the CEO themselves or other members of the C-suite. They still have a C title next to their name and they still have value to bring, but oftentimes they swallow their whistle because they just want to get along by getting along. Dina never did that. She was the exact person you're talking about Vivacious, inspirational, smart, talented, ambitious, and she wanted the best for not only for the company, but for every individual team member working for the Cheesecake Factory. So it can happen, but you've got to be cut out of the right mold and it can't be a fallback position for you To your point. It has to be your life's ambition and you have to be wired right for that to work.
Josh Matthews:Yes, absolutely Absolutely, and I think it's a bit of a crapshoot too. I mean, I think it's one of those roles that some people go to college for sure know more people go to college for HR than they do for recruiting Right Maybe like one program in the country that that you can get a degree in recruiting Right. But HR generally attracts females more than males. It just does same way with nursing Right. It just does. And there's a lower aggression, and I don't mean aggression in a bad way, but there's a lower chance of confrontation among women than there is among men, and this isn't guys. I'm not saying that there aren't people who are on either side, soft men and and more driven and confrontational women, of course, but in general, you can look at the numbers. It's just how it is. This is behavioral stuff and so, consequently, I think that most strong leaders in HR that I have ever met in my life and I've met a number of them that are really fantastic They've all been women, 100%, minus one. I have a friend, drew, who worked at a very high level in human resources, and aside from him, they've all been women, but for the most part they're less likely to be confrontational, and I think that whatever we can do to empower people and I love this because this is part of your LEAF model is empowering and training the younger or the newer folks who are joining human resources, to really empower them to have that voice, once they learn their job right, to speak up.
Josh Matthews:I think people should keep quiet until they know their job and they're good at their job, and then you go ahead and challenge away. I don't think people should start challenging from day one. If they showed up and they don't know what they're doing, right, that wouldn't last very long. Yeah, and they don't, and they do it all the time and they don't last very long. And I talk to them and they're job hoppers. We all know that. We all know these types right. But I think that this is such a critical and important point whether you're a business owner, whether you're listening to this program and you're in HR, you're a recruiter that's listening to this program or simply someone who's going to be interacting with HR. It's so critical to make sure that, look, these are the situations where you absolutely it's not just we hope you speak up. It's you must speak up. This is part of your role too.
Mark Mears:Well, here's what I've found to work as a former CEO and president, I've had the full P&L responsibility and the responsibility of all directs reporting to me at C-level individuals, but I've also spent the most time on the marketing side. It's really about brand building and for me, I think there are four sub-brands that lead into the total brand. There's the personal brand that asks the question who am I, what do I bring to the table? There's the internal brand that asks the question who am I, what do I bring to the table? There's the internal brand, the collective we, what do we stand for? There's the external brand that's like all marketing and sales is basically a value exchange what do I get for? What do I pay and, most importantly, how do I feel about it? That then leads to the employer brand, which asks the question do I belong here? And that word belonging is so very important.
Mark Mears:While you've heard me talk about community versus culture, because I believe words matter and when you're trying to make change, you can't just keep using the same nomenclature and doing things the same way. We all know what that leads to. Right Breaking it down, I think a culture is a place someone may feel that they're merely a part of. It's not bad. But a community is a place someone feels they belong in. Notice the difference in this world of DEI. Diversity gets us the door, that's good. Equity gives us an equal voice it's better. Yet, inclusion gets us the seat of the table Wow. But if we don't feel like we belong, the seat of the table wow. But if we don't feel like we belong, we're likely not going to be or feel psychologically safe enough to be vulnerable to give up our very best. We're going to just get along by getting along right, and that doesn't do anybody any good.
Mark Mears:Yeah, yeah, for real. The V in the love model and I'll get to it quickly is value. Okay, we all need to feel valued, right. And so Not just reward and recognition, but value the whole person. Now let's say, josh, you came to me as a team member and I'm your leader. You say, mark, I'm really interested in AI and what it could do to help improve the productivity and satisfaction of our team's job. If you value something, you invest in it. And I like to say, josh, that sounds interesting, let's get you some training on how you can learn more about this, and so we figure out what we can do. Is it a two-day conference? Is it a series of webinars? Is it?
Josh Matthews:whatever right? Yeah, here's a YouTube video. Let's start there. It's free and you'll probably learn a ton right Exactly. You don't have to spend two grand to learn AI Right.
Mark Mears:So now you feel valued as a member of a team and not just as a random employee ID number. That leads to empowerment. And that is a strong word, because I remember when I learned to ride a bike and I remember having training wheels and my dad taking them off one Saturday morning and I was excited and nervous at the same time. After a couple of falls and he's teaching me how to do it, he's holding on to the handlebars and running down the sidewalk with me and finally lets go. And after a few times I wobble and fall. I then get myself back up and finally, when I was able to pedal and get to the end of the block and turn around and come back, I don't know whose grin was bigger my dad or mine, but I'll tell you this in my mind's eye as we're speaking.
Mark Mears:I remember that sense of freedom I felt when I was finally empowered to ride my bike and be on my own. I lived on that bike that summer and the following summers. And so what if we were able to create that same sense of empowerment? So I say, josh, you've done some learning on AI and how it might work in our team environment. Maybe you might want to put together a presentation for our team with some examples. And you're all of a sudden going wow and you'll say I'll say to you I'm here if you need me.
Mark Mears:what resources do you need? What can I do to support you? And you'll say, well, maybe there's this project that I'm working with Bob and Sam and Mary on. Maybe, if I could have a little time to work on this and maybe have them pick up some of my Slack, that'd be helpful. Okay, you know, we set a date and all of a sudden you feel empowered to teach the team the benefits, the techniques of what AI can do to help make our lives better, our work more productive, and all those kind of good things. Who would want to quietly quit that? Who would want to resign from that?
Josh Matthews:It would be a community where you feel like you belong and you're empowered to be your very best. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. I can recall not just you know, my boys learning to ride their bike or me learning to ride my bike, but something similar that happened to me when I was a division director Well, I wasn't quite a division director yet at Robert Half and I had asked if I could run a training series on teaching MBTI, basic MBTI principles and how to understand the different aspects of Myers-Briggs type indicator and how decipher or discern or guess with pretty good accuracy based on simple questions, what kind of individual you're communicating with, so that you could have a deeper understanding of them. And we like to understand people, because when we understand people we can more typically, we can more predictably predict their behavior. And that gives us security, right, that gives us safety. And now we know what we're dealing with, right, so we can predict that. Oh, I can predict that crocodile is going to bite me if we get too close to the water, right, we already have that prediction model in our head.
Josh Matthews:But when it comes to new team members, or you're joining a new company and now you're going to be engaged in working with four to eight people on a regular basis and you've got to figure it out. You've got to figure it out pretty quick this sort of thing. But, man, if that didn't beholden me to that company in a way that nothing else would have, I was getting paid well, I was very successful. I was doing, I think, a very good job. The economy was great, like no issues Right, but the opportunity to go and lead and teach and do more research and kind of take my training wheels off as a manager, so to speak, was the coolest thing that company ever did for me, you know so I totally got that Right.
Mark Mears:You felt like you were a valued member of a team versus just another cog in the wheel. Absolutely, and it was only when I began to versus just another cog in the wheel.
Josh Matthews:Absolutely, and it was only when I began to feel like a cog in the wheel that I left.
Mark Mears:Yeah, and it can change. I remember my first agency job. I was reporting to three people doing a ton of work, but I had one leader who's acknowledged in my book, who really took time to mentor me and show me the ropes and figure out how I could manage to accomplish the work that the three different leaders were giving me and not go insane, and prioritize and understand and be empathetic. And all of a sudden my world changed. Well, he left. A new one came in and he was much more nose to the grindstone.
Mark Mears:Don't bring in that weak shit in here, I don't want to hear about it. Just get your results and get the grindstone. Don't bring in that weak shit in here, I don't want to hear about it. You know, just get your results and get the job done. And that's when I had the opportunity to go to Pizza Hut and to work for a wonderful leader like David Novak. And my career, you know, trajectory, changed as a result of that move, that decision. But it took kind of having a turd ball Tell me what I would and I wouldn't accept and I just went.
Josh Matthews:I don't think I've ever heard that term before. That's hysterical. Yeah Well, let me ask you this, mark, because we're getting closer, a little bit closer to the end of the show and I'm just going to do a quick little public service announcement that if you're just joining us right now on the live show or you somehow popped into the back half of the broadcast, the podcast visit salesforcecareershowcom. We've got a wonderful contest going on. We're giving away five certifications. These were gifted to us by Salesforce five certification vouchers and there are two different ways that you can enter to win, and I think everyone's got a really good chance of winning. So definitely check out salesforcecareershowcom and go ahead and enter into that contest. So I'd like to steer this conversation into some very practical things that some of our listeners might do, and, of course, one of the practical things would be to go ahead and get your book, and your book I'm assuming it's available on Amazon- it is as an e-book, a paperback, a hardcover and even an audio book.
Mark Mears:if that's the way you roll, did you do?
Josh Matthews:the audio for it.
Mark Mears:I did.
Josh Matthews:Last winter.
Mark Mears:I got it done this spring and I thought writing the book was the hardest thing I've ever done. But I will tell you, I just like the sound of my own voice and I have a lot of disruptions where I live, and so it was a struggle to get the book done. But I did it because it was part of the creative process and so many people talked me into it and said, mark, you know your material better than some goldie throat voice actor, you should do it.
Mark Mears:And I relented and I think it came out pretty good.
Josh Matthews:I'm glad you did that, mark, because I happen to think you've got a wonderful speaking voice, just so you know, and I think that a lot of people I'm glad you did that, mark, because I happen to think you've got a wonderful speaking voice, just so you know, and I think that a lot of people, including myself, we don't really love our voices. I know I'm not a great singer and I've learned to, I think, get better at speaking and sort of open my voice up a little bit over the years, particularly with this program. I actually did a little research on it and did a little practice on it, which is helpful. But there's something really special when the author is the one doing the audio book. I remember I was just talking about Beyond Order, which is a Jordan Peterson book, and I was talking about it with my host. I'm at an Airbnb in Charleston, south Carolina, right now and I was talking to my host, who's this lovely woman, and we were telling her about Beyond Order and I was saying you know, one of the things I loved about that audio book is that he spoke himself. You can really get the passion and there are even moments when you can tell he's full of tears, right, because he's talking about a very sensitive situation, a very sad time in his life, a very painful thing that he had to go through. So I'm a huge fan of that. Now they can find it.
Josh Matthews:The book is called the Purposeful Growth Revolution. It's by Mark Mears, m-e-a-r-s, and I want to touch on your book that you're in. You've got part two coming out. It's a different title. We're going to talk about that in a moment, but before we do that and wrap it up, I'd like to find out what are some of the things, and it doesn't even have to be in the book, let's just say from you. Let's say, someone is an employee, someone is a team member and they are feeling like they're not empowered where they are. They are feeling like they're not fulfilled or not as fulfilled as they could be. What are some things they can do within the organization that they're in right now to hopefully overcome some of those negative feelings or less than fulfilling experiences?
Mark Mears:Yeah, I think the first thing I'm a big believer in communication. Okay, back in the olden days, when I was first, you know a young Turk coming up climbing the ladder, you didn't ever want to bring attention to yourself, you just wanted to do a good job. You know, get work done. You know, hopefully you'll get noticed and be eligible for promotion and other bigger projects, and that was the way of the world. Whereas today, again, I think that we're a little more open to communicate and if you don't advocate for yourself, no one else is going to advocate for you.
Mark Mears:So you know, you need to understand who is your boss or leader, depending on you. Know their style. Are they new in their role? Because you know, if it's a new manager and we'll talk about that in a minute the difference between a manager and a leader they may not have the communication skills or the emotional intelligence to be able to sense that you're not 100% engaged or happy with what you're doing. You've got to set up time with them and say look, josh, I just really I love working here, but I've got some issues that I would like to communicate to you and let's see if we can work this out together.
Mark Mears:And so all of a sudden you're disarming that person and telling him what you want to talk about, and then that gives them time to go away and think about it and you time to kind of come back with a very well articulated communication of what you want to accomplish with the meeting.
Josh Matthews:And you see, where it goes, you never show up and show up with solutions. I mean, I think that's a really important part yeah.
Mark Mears:I always said bring me solutions, not problems. I know what they are and I got plenty, but I'm open to your solutions. Yeah, and I really am. I love being a team player and I love being a team leader. I can do both, but what I really love about it is the camaraderie, the shared values and the esprit de corps that happens when you're working together. It's like a rowing team with all the words in the water rowing together.
Mark Mears:And that's the right direction, right. So you have to have that communication first. You have to have solutions. Like I said, I love what I'm doing, but I'd rather be doing more of this and less of that. Or I'd like to take on I've got capacity, I'd like to take on another project, or maybe help work on Bobby and Sarah's project. But you've got to advocate for yourself because nobody else will. And then, all of a sudden, you're going to feel frustrated because no one's helping you. Well, you've got to reach for the life raft yourself.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, man, I love what you just said. You've got to advocate for yourself Now. Anybody who's ever had an alien family member or someone close to you that's in the medical system or you've had to, they're in the hospital or you know you're concerned about their care, Anyone who's gone through that by the way, I've gone through that, but I didn't. It didn't have to go through that until later in life, Right, but I've gone through that and it's incredible how much improved someone's health outcomes are when there is someone there advocating for that patient. Right, Like it's a massive, massive difference and it could even be life or death, or at least severe discomfort and comfort.
Josh Matthews:Right, but in the workplace, and you just said, no one's going to advocate for you but you. I don't know if I'm going to 100% subscribe to that because, like you, I also believe in different shades of gray and I do think that there are ways to build alliances and to build advocates and develop advocates for yourself in the business. But to do that initially, that really does have to fall. That does fall on one's shoulders, and so how would someone go about advocating for themselves or identifying someone, or what's the work that they would need to do necessarily to get recognized so that they can have someone advocating for their promotion or whatever else they're looking for.
Mark Mears:No, I love that you brought that up, and I was just giving you step one right.
Josh Matthews:Let me guess four steps. Let me guess four steps. Yes, four steps, Mark.
Mark Mears:There would be four steps if we had time, but I'm going to cover the one that you.
Josh Matthews:It's a hard pair of fours man, come on.
Mark Mears:Yeah, I know you said it's so powerful, this idea of mentor and finding a mentor at work, and so in my book I talk about having two mentors one who can help you with maybe the hard skills and how do you do your job better? And if you're in a technology field or maybe you're in a financial organization, what hard skills do you need to get better at beyond your education, and who do you admire that does it well? And then also find someone who can help you with the soft skills. That's emotional intelligence, that's how to communicate, that's how to advocate. And you see someone that you admire and say well, josh, I see you in meetings and, man, I love the way you carry yourself. I would love to learn from you. Are you open to coaching me a bit?
Mark Mears:So, because you've asked for help now from two different people and it could be the same people person that exhibits both skills, but I doubt it, unless they're a rock star, but you are. So maybe now you've got someone who says hey, mark really wants to get better. He's come to me and asked me to take him to coffee or go for a walk or whatever, and coach him on ways that he can get better at X or Y or Z. Now, when your supervisors or higher-ups hear that they're going to be more likely to to now kind of put an eye towards you. How are you growing? You've asked for help. Are you improving in these areas? And now are you ready to take on more work and more leadership through promotion? Right, and so I've personally done it, I've seen it done and finding that mentor who can advocate for you if you're having a bad day with your boss and you just want someone who you can trust to kind of help you work through it.
Josh Matthews:Absolutely, and I think it's very important to get on your boss's radar as well. Yes, because you never know when you may lose that person and you don't want to go in cold. I started a job, I was hired as a branch manager for brisbane, australia, for a scientific staffing firm, and the day I arrived to start my work, my my boss flew up from melbourne to meet with me and within 15 minutes, told me that he's leaving the company and would be gone by the end of the week. Right, yeah, and it's like, oh, okay, so now all of this, all of this affinity that I had for him, who and he was one of the reasons why I chose to work there. It was gone Right, zero time to develop that relationship above, but I did.
Josh Matthews:You know, I was then reporting directly to the CEO and had a good relationship and eventually was able to take over for that year, my boss's job, right, which was great. Gave me a little, a lot more fun being able to do that. But it's a hard road. It's a hard road and we also have all seen mass layoffs, right, and we don't know what's going to happen to us, right, and if your boss's boss doesn't know your name your boss's. Boss may be the person who's making the decision. Oftentimes our immediate supervisor, you know, has no say in it.
Mark Mears:If your leader is truly a leader and not a boss, they will make that introduction for you to their leader or boss, whoever, that's right, and they won't feel threatened by it. It's people that want to protect what they feel is theirs. They're going to hide you under a bushel because they just want you to work for them and make them look good.
Mark Mears:But a true leader flips it just the opposite. I'm here to serve you. What can I do to help you feel a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment here at work and achieve whatever career objectives you have? That's my job as a leader is to grow other leaders.
Josh Matthews:And that demonstrates massive confidence, which we talked about sort of at the beginning of the show. And let's face it, not all people who are in leadership positions possess that. They don't Many of them do, fortunately. Thank goodness for that, yeah.
Mark Mears:Right, and that's what leads me into my second book and all around this idea of putting the human back in human resources. But I don't mean at the human resources level, I mean throughout the organization. To be sure I don't want to pile on again overworked and maybe under-trained group of people that do a lot of good for the company. But it's really again helping managers who can become leaders, who can grow into legacy builders. And I'll just break it down real quick for you.
Mark Mears:If you're a manager, many people go to schools of management. We learn how to manage right. We manage projects and timelines and budgets and resources and people. It's very transactional. So that makes the person that works for them say I will obey you because of your title and the hierarchy and all that command and control malarkey. That no longer serves us. But if we can help managers grow into leaders, that's where trust is built and it's more relational. You don't work for me, you work with me. And actually I flip it around and say I serve you as your leader. Okay, now that's relational. And then, if we do that really well, that person who says I was going to obey this person, but now I will willingly follow you, now when it's their turn to lead, they'll, but now I will willingly follow you. Now, when it's their turn to lead, they'll say I will lead like you, and that becomes transformational. So you go from transactional as a manager to relational as a leader, to transformational as a living legacy builder.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, Think of it as yeah buddy, I love it.
Mark Mears:You know the pebble in the pond right. Once you throw it in the pond you don't see it again. It's underneath the water on floor right Of the pond, but you'll see the ripple effect on top Now let's say, you have four or five direct reports, you have a chance to have four or five pebbles that can exponentially grow.
Mark Mears:A leadership shadow is what we used to call it at PepsiCo years ago and that will help ultimately transform the tired old command and control management style that no longer serves us into a more humanistic, relational leadership style that will not only pay dividends for the team member, but it will pay dividends for the whole organization and every stakeholder underneath that firm's ecosystem right Team members, customers or clients or guests, business partners and communities.
Josh Matthews:Sure, it radiates out. Mark, I'm going to jump in here because we're going to be wrapping up the show. What is the title of your new book that's going to be coming out, and when is it coming out?
Mark Mears:Well, I'm working on the new title as we speak. I've done a ton of research, I've already written several pages and usually the title comes later, but I'm open to suggestions. I'm looking at something provocative like love at work and think about the men at work sign construction sign, replacing it with love at work, and underneath it it would be something about building a sense of community and belonging for X, y and Z. There you go, but something tied around this whole idea of love to be a better leader, kind of sounding like it's a question and love is the answer, through the acronym or the model. I'm working on that as we speak.
Mark Mears:Any ideas you or your listeners have, shoot them toward me. You can find me on. Linkedin and my website is markamierscom. There you can also. One of the practical things is take my purposeful growth self-assessment and it takes about six, seven minutes, but it will kind of give you a benchmark of where do you stand on the idea of finding and fulfilling purpose in both your work and your life and I'll send you back a custom report with your scores and some helpful tips from me.
Josh Matthews:That's fantastic, mark. Again, that's markamierscom M-A-R-K-A-M-E-A-R-Scom. Again, the book is the Purposeful Growth Revolution. You've been listening to the Salesforce Career Show. I'm happy to say that throughout this program we've been getting entries for the contest, which has been terrific. So keep those coming, my friends. We appreciate the questions, we appreciate the reviews and again, if you're just tuning in at the end or you didn't have a pen to jot it down at the time, you can visit salesforcecareershowcom and have up to two entries in to win up to $400 worth of Salesforce certification vouchers.
Josh Matthews:Unfortunately, vanessa was not able to join us. She is a solopreneur these days and had a critical client meeting, so we'll forgive her this once. I hope that everyone will tune in on November 20th, where you can join me and Vanessa with our special guests Bobby. Bobby Dornbos, who's a principal at MRE Consulting, and his friend Theron Stanley. I've met both these guys. They're wonderful people. He's a strategic account director at Salesforce, covering a lot of the oil and gas out in Texas. I believe they're out in Houston.
Josh Matthews:So join us on November 20th for that and then the episode after that is December 4th. We've got a couple folks that are going to be on that show. We'll announce those in a little bit, but December 4th is when we are going to be announcing the winners. You don't have to listen to the show live to be a winner. It's not like that. It's not like the raffle where you got to show up and get your ticket number called, that sort of thing. We'll just go ahead and let you know by email or a phone call.
Josh Matthews:But definitely join us in a couple of weeks. And, mark, I just want to say thank you so much. Getting to know you over these last couple of weeks and the several conversations that we've had, and particularly in this one, has been absolutely remarkable. I congratulate you on your success as an author, your success as a business leader and your willingness to pour your heart and soul truly pour your heart and soul into a work dedicated to helping people have a better experience and better productivity and a happier and more fulfilling life in their work. So thank you for producing this and thank you for being a guest on the show.
Mark Mears:My pleasure, Josh. I appreciate the platform and hope to give in value to your listeners.
Josh Matthews:I'm sure you have, absolutely. You have All right, my friend. Well, look, when the new book comes back, comes out, let's have you back on the show and I wish you a very happy, a very happy holiday season here. And thanks everybody for tuning into the live program. I you know we've had folks all the way from Nairobi listening in. Thank you Linda, thank you Tom, thanks Brana, thank you Casey for joining this episode. Every other listener that we've had on the live program, you guys rock, appreciate you guys coming back week in and week out. We're going to be covering a little bit more salesforce specific oriented stuff in two weeks, so stay tuned for that.
