Intro
Broadcasting live from the Business Radio X studios in Dayton, Ohio. It's time for Dayton Business Radio. Now, here's your host.
The Mag
Lee Cantor here, another episode of Dayton Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today we have Scott McGohan. And he is with McGohan Brabender, welcome, Scott.
Scott McGohan
Hey, thanks for having me, Lee, I appreciate it.
The Mag
Well, we're here to talk about your work on your day job. But we're also here to talk about a new book you have, can you tell us about that?
Scott McGohan
Yeah. So I've been with McGohan Brabender, for gosh, I think 32 years now, culture has always been really important to me, and I've maybe kind of learned the hard way the value of it. And so the title of the book is Culture is an Inside Job.
The Mag
So now culture is an inside job. Is that talking about working on the kind of culture first, maybe even more important, than what the business does?
Scott McGohan
Yeah, you know, I think a lot of organizations, you know, especially as I talked to other leaders, and entrepreneurs, you know, they, you know, they want a culture that they might see on the outside. So a different, whether it be a brand or an image or a thought or a mindset. And I've learned over time, that from a leadership perspective, the culture of the organization is normally the inside character virtue of the leaders inside of the organization. And so the mindset is really traveling people through their strong beliefs internally, and then can we bring that out and bring that to life inside of the organization. Otherwise, if you say things like, you know, we're a caring organization, and you don't care about people, then it just comes off as fake. And unfortunately, it just comes off as a big gigantic lie.
The Mag
Now, in my experience, culture, and brand, I'm a marketing person, too, I look at everything through a marketing lens. So marketing and branding is something that you're doing without whether you think you're doing it or not like it's happening around you. And I would imagine culture is the same thing. There's going to be a culture if you're not mindful, and not really putting attention to it. And, and being strategic about it. A culture is gonna form whether you want to or not,
Scott McGohan
Oh, yeah, I mean, it exists, whether it's good or bad. And you know, the important people, the important thing is the fact that you know, people, people aspire to be part of a story. And they want to be in the next chapter and culture is, quite frankly, in my opinion, is really telling a beautiful story internally to your workforce, which should try and transfer externally in regards to a brand and marketing externally to customers, regardless of what business you're in.
The Mag
But how does it work? In terms of, okay, I can understand a startup and you're brand new, and it all exists. I mean, it doesn't exist blank sheet of paper. So you go, okay, these are the things we stand for, this is what we want to happen. But a company like you mentioned, your company has been around for decades. How do you kind of make that culture kind of part of the onboarding? And it's just kind of part of the day-to-day life? Can you change it? Like, if it's a toxic culture? Can you change it? Or is you kind of stuck with it?
Scott McGohan
No, I mean, you can absolutely change it. And it's a really good question, Lee, because I do believe that, you know, as society evolves, as generations evolve as people evolve, socio-culture, and unfortunately, sometimes organizations keep their values, chiseled and concrete, and don't evolve with society and time, and they will change. And that's okay. And making sure that an organization is intentional about culture. And I'm a big believer in the five senses.
So what we see what we, what we can touch, what we taste in regards to compensation and rewards, and what we hear in the words, and then lastly, what we feel in our, in our hearts. And, and I think culture should manifest all five of those. It's just not the words that are painted on the wall. It's the word you hear, it's the things you see. And you know this, but you know, most people will figure out two things in an organization is what gets rewarded around here. And then the second one is how do I get in trouble? And if those aren't clearly defined, then, unfortunately, it's it can be a recipe for disaster.
The Mag
So do you have anything actionable, our listener's can kind of latch on to and maybe implement today or this week?
Scott McGohan
You know, probably for you know, for the listeners would be there's an exercise that I've done and I've actually done Aileron It's been a great friend of mine for decades, and I probably wouldn't be the leader I am today without the folks that Aileron, but there was an exercise that we would do during a culture class. In other words, what we would encourage people to do is just imagine, if you will, if you heard somebody, bring up your organization's name. And what would that stranger say about your, your organization? What were the words that they would say, and then you have to be pretty truthful and honest about that? And the honesty in that is can be beautiful, because there's a gap between what people would say, whether they're inside your company, as an employee, or a customer versus what they would say, versus what you want them to say. And that gap, in my opinion, is what you're trying to fill. So this is what they're seeing, this is what they're hearing. And this is what I want them to hear. And this is what I want them to say. And as leaders, what we're trying to do is fill that gap.
The Mag
Now, you mentioned employees, and you also mentioned customers. Do you think that that's is what we all aspire to where the culture is kind of that both the customer and the employee sees us the same way that have that level of kind of authenticity and congruence?
Scott McGohan
Yeah, I mean, you know, my father, you know, probably 30 years ago said, look, there's one thing that will always be the same inside this organization, and it hasn't changed and, and by the grace of God, I hope it never does change, but it is to treat our employees the way we want our customers treated. And so if that behavior manifests itself internally, and they feel it with empathy, compassion, and energy, then what we're hopeful for is that it just transfers back to our customers, and it feels like one instead of two separate relationships. It's one relationship.
The Mag
Now, do you think that that kind of aspiration works best in kind of service industries, as opposed to maybe a product industry? Like if you're kind of manufacturing, and you're trying to be the low-cost provider? Do you want your customers to feel that way?
Scott McGohan
You know, it's a good question. It's probably, you know, it's probably a mindset that, you know, I do believe in, I'll give you an example, I was at a manufacturer, and we walked back to shipping. And the order in the organization was just kind of struggling with culture and, you know, ultimately back and shipping. Unfortunately, you had people back to the didn't care about what they were shipping, and who was going to open that box, or the customer is going to open the box. And so for the people packing the box, don't care about what's in the box, or how the boxes are packed. And the customer sees that as the fact that this organization doesn't care. So in my opinion, I don't care if you sell tires, or if you're selling machinery or tool parts, or you're an accountant or an attorney, or a benefits broker. The importance of culture and letting the customer know, externally and internally, the people, I think it matters, I think there could be some organizations that don't think it matters. And you know what, that's okay. That's the beauty of capitalism. I mean, it's your company, you can do what you want. I just have a strong opinion on, and really lifting the workforce up and making communities better, and making people feel welcome and warm and feel like they're inside of a transaction that matters.
The Mag
Now, are there symptoms of maybe a not-so-great culture that you see?
Scott McGohan
Yeah, the greatest symptom is normally what I refer to as the destructive hero. So a destructive hero is normally that person in the organization that is a really high performer, number one in sales bear or number one, and, you know, has the largest customer base, and gets away with murder. And nobody wants to address the problem, because the organization, whether it be their leaders, they're drunk on the revenue. And the whole workforce gets to watch this character walk around and behave against the culture of the organization. And I've seen it time and time and time and time again. And that, you know, they're tough people to, you know, to address and, and to talk, but destructive heroes normally can be the tipping point inside of any organization.
The Mag
Can they typically be rehabilitated, or is this something that you got to kind of get rid of it? Yeah, it'd be painful.
Scott McGohan
You know, it depends. I mean, unfortunately, I was a destructive hero. So I learned the hard way. About 18 years ago, my assistant walked in my office and said, You have values painted on the wall. You don't exhibit one of them. I have my own set of values and you talk them every day, today's my last day, and I was more afraid of what the workforce would think of me with her leaving, then I was actually even concerned with her leaving. And at that point, I kind of realized that, you know, I might be a sick dude. And I talked to her, I asked her if I hired a coach, would she give me a shot? And she said she would.
As long as every day I went to her office, and we asked each other three questions. And those were, am I okay? Are you okay? Are we okay? And after, you know, a year of going through coaching, and really understanding the value of emotional intelligence and leadership, and I began to believe that there was more important things in life than the car, you drove the house, you lived into the income that you earned, it had to do more with encouraging people lifting people up, and being more of a servant. So in my experience, by the grace of God, they're redeemable because I was restored. But in my experience, the odds aren't very high, I would think it's less than 10% of destructive heroes can be restored, give them a chance, give them the truth, give them love. And if they don't react to them, get them out as fast as you can.
The Mag
Now, in your case, this woman took a big risk, to be that vulnerable to you to even care enough to tell you the why behind it. Why do you think that that made an impact? Like what hit you so hard that you were able to kind of use that as a catalyst for change, as opposed to just dismissing that as okay, just moving on to the next person? I got this figured out?
Scott McGohan
You know, I'd like to give you a really virtuous answer. Because I, if I had to go back in time, I would probably say I was more afraid of my ego than anything else. And I wish it was more vert. And the answer was more virtuous than that, but I don't think so. And that's okay. And, you know, we're all humans, and ego and pride is normally the biggest culprit of our mistakes. And, unfortunately, back then, you know, I was probably, you know, I was awake, and I was, you know, as they say, in life, when the student is ready, the teacher will arrive. And she was my teacher. And you know, the other thing too, that's really special about Victoria, that's her name. And she's still with McGowan Brabender. She's still my assistant, and she is, you know, just my best friend inside the organization. She is just, she's my hero.
The Mag
Now, how do you kind of, if you're coaching someone about culture, and it sounds like they really have this, be kind of immersed into your soul and into the organization, there has to be a lot of vulnerability, and trust? That doesn't sound like something that can be said, just because we say it like you have to kind of behave that way for a period of time for it to really kind of sink in. So how do you kind of help a business kind of be that vulnerable and create that level of trust?
Scott McGohan
Yeah, you know, like, I'm a big believer in the rule of three. So culture should do three things really well. Number one, it should aspire an organization to meet its vision and mission. Number two, it should allow a workforce to adapt to change. And number three is it should have allow people to thrive. And as long as you stay in those three lanes, and then probably the best gift or advice that I can give it organizations is to go out and find a group of people that are not afraid, to be honest with you, and ask them about the culture of the organization, what they believe and have them use verbs, and adjectives.
And you'll get a really good idea if you get seven or eight different people, that I'll start feeding you information back around where the organization is today. And as a leadership team, and those eight people, and we've done it a number of times, you can begin to pick and choose which words we are defined as of today in which words do we aspire to be? And I'm a big fan of getting some naysayers and bystanders and victims on that team as well. I mean, those people that are complicated those people that are complicated, you know, sometimes can be great to tellers, and they're not afraid. So you can't find people that look just like me talk just like me, or, or sound just like me, you know, try to get a diverse group of people to help you understand what your culture is today to help you understand what you think your culture may move into or evolve into the future.
The Mag
Now, right now, the country is going through a crisis or maybe multiple crises at the same time, you're in the benefits business when there's kind of this kind of chaos going on. How does this help you serve your team and your employees, like kind of this having this true north?
Scott McGohan
Yeah, I mean, I think you know, every organization is always faulted against not communicating enough. And, you know, through Aileron, and actually even through, you know, our business advisor. He had told me a long time ago, when, when you're tired of talking about something, you're probably halfway finished. So as a leader, you've just got to be in front of your workforce. And just rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat and over-communicate. And I think what I love about and obviously, what we've gone through in regards to social injustice, or with COVID-19, you know, this is new territory for us as leaders. And personally, silence is not an option. It's just not. And it's okay to say, I don't have the answers. It's okay to say, I don't know, I don't know. And let the local workforce know that, you know, you two are struggling to figure out what the next steps are going to be. Just be vulnerable and honest. And, and, you know, people people will rally behind you.
The Mag
Now, how are you helping from the benefit side? How are you helping your clients kind of navigate the kind of nuts and bolts of their day-to-day business life? How does your firm help?
Scott McGohan
Yeah, so I mean, we've we serve about 1200 employers, Dayton, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Indianapolis, represent about 100,000 employees. And I like to say a quarter of million belly buttons, moms, dads, kids, and about a billion and a half in health care spent. So when COVID-19 came obviously, there's just a lot of questions. So we built an nb COVID-19 Response Team, website, two days after that announcement came out.
And we through the all the resources, whether it be you know, the World Health Organization, the CDC, the state of Ohio, State of Indiana carrier information, benefit questions, Cobra issues, we threw that all lot all those resources out for not only our customers, but also for the community at large for all employers, here's one single site Resource Center, and all that information was updated daily, and almost hour by hour. So employers were being bombarded with all these different avenues of communication, they were able to come into McGohan and Brabender and look at our site, and be able to at least take some small steps forward every single day.
The Mag
Now, how do you kind of help your clients in terms of, you know, it's great to have the information there? But what about, you know, the kind of the struggle that they're going through? Internally themselves? You know, because now you have, they have belly buttons to serve to, so how to how to you got to proactively help them kind of get through this other than just being a resource?
Scott McGohan
Yeah, so we have some learning centers, that they're about 12 different classes that we haven't been going Brabender we've done those all, virtually now, we're, you know, and we don't want to talk about benefits. I mean, it's what we do. And we're very proud of the work that we do. But we also want to help HR in a variety of different ways. So we've had a lot of emotional intelligence sessions. So helping people understand how does a workforce deals with fear and anxiety? So especially when you're calling a workforce back? And in the workforce saying, Well, you know, I'm not ready to come back or I'm afraid is how do you give people tools and resources to address fear, and to, to address transition stages. So we've had those for human resources to reach out to, you know, what does COVID-19 mean, in regards to your benefit, cost structure, we've had, you know, sessions in regards to strategies to help CFOs and CEOs understand the risk of COVID-19 and financial impact to their organization. So just a variety of different communication paths for human resources for employees, and then for C suite executives as well.
The Mag
And then, what about the kind of remote working? Because that was a big transition for a lot of folks.
Scott McGohan
Yeah. So, you know, in regards to, you know, what does that look like, you know, to be honest with you, we, you know, we probably had five or six people out of tune or navy that worked remotely. And, you know, we moved everybody out of this building, March 16, a week before the governor shut down the state, and everybody went home and worked remote. Eight o'clock in the morning, 97% of the workforce was on VPN and working and it took our breath away.
And I think it's a good example for us of the fact that when you care about people before a crisis, then they will care about you inside of a crisis. And when you don't care about people before a crisis, you got a lot of hard work in front of you. And so as we explore off into the future in regards to a remote work strategy, You know, it's certainly number one or number two on our agenda. And we're, we're, you know, even our own strategy and calling our workforce back and what that looks like and the staging, we're supplying that information to our customers, you know, if they want to understand what Miguel and great vendors were doing, we're free to share all of that information.
The Mag
Now, do you see any silver linings or anything that you kind of were forced to do during the crisis that you might be able to carry forward once the pandemic wanes?
Scott McGohan
Oh, yeah, I mean, definitely remote workforce. So, you know, definitely, you know, we've got five buildings, real estate, you know, do we need this much space? And, you know, I know folks in office space and real estate are probably thinking, Whoa, like, Hey, we've we've got to change our strategy. And they have and they have adapted. So I think that's a silver lining. I think, also, the silver lining is the fact that you know, there was a lot of employers that we're worried about remote because maybe it was trust, or maybe they felt like folks wouldn't be as effective, or as efficient. Quite frankly, I've learned over the last, you know, five months, four months, the fact that it is very likely our workforce may be more efficient working remotely than they are internally. And that's, we're really curious about that. And we're measuring that, and we're exploring what does a remote, you know, the strategy looks like from a go and brave and are often in the future?
The Mag
So now, what is the sweet spot for the firms you serve? Is it do you specialize in certain industries? Or are you kind of industry-agnostic?
Scott McGohan
Yeah, they're across the board. I mean, it could be, you know, two guys in a shop, fixing radiators to health systems and colleges, and universities. So you know, it's an organization that has an employee benefit platform, that once relentless communication and strategy and risk mitigation. Our vision is empowering businesses with solutions. So they can go back to doing what they really love to do. And that grows their company, empowering people with choices. And then if both of those align and they come together, then what we get to do is what we love to do, and that is to empower healthier living or deliver healthier birthdays to people.
The Mag
Now, what is the pain that your new client is having? I would imagine that they're switching from one provider to you, what is kind of frustrating them where they're at now, where it's worth giving you guys a call?
Scott McGohan
Now, it's probably one answer there, you know, there was a lot of people in our industry that just went and hid under a rock, and didn't lean into the problem. Because maybe they felt like they could be like everyone else, and you know, great organizations during a crisis will lean into it into a crisis, and step out. And so I think organizations that have maybe not been taken care of during the crisis are saying, hey, look, it's very obvious that you know, we had some folks that didn't have the resources or the capacity, and quite frankly, maybe not even the courage to, to address really big complicated issues. But you know, our industry like any industry, you know, especially in the service world, it's a world full of bags of promises that are thrown on people's desks. And so, you know, some people are doubtful in regards to the back of promises. And so what we have to do is to make sure that we keep every promise that that that we keep, and we love the fact that we don't have our customers signed contracts, we have to earn their business every single day. And it's been like that for almost 50 years. And hopefully, it'll be the same way for the next 50.
The Mag
So if somebody wanted to learn more about your firm, have more substantive conversation with somebody on your team, what's the website?
Scott McGohan
Yeah, mcgohanbrabender.com. And they can go there and find out about all our resources we've done. Plus we have a, we have a studio and inside of MB, so we have a lot of stories and videos. And so if you're a reader, there's a lot of content. If you're a listener, there and kind of a watcher. There's a lot of video content that kind of tells the story of McGohan Brabender, and what we're about and what we care about.
The Mag
Now, if somebody wants to get a hold of the book, culture is an inside job, where can they find that guy's on the website as well?
Scott McGohan
No? No, actually, I am right in the midst of finding a publisher. So I am I've got it edited, it's ready to go. And I've got a couple of people that are giving me advice. So hopefully, it'll be out by the end of the year.
The Mag
So are you going through a traditional publisher? Are you considering self-publishing?
Scott McGohan
You know, it's, it's, it's probably 50,50. And if you got any advice for me, let me know. I'm open.
The Mag
I think, ultimately, of the marketing is going to be on you either way. So it doesn't matter from that standpoint. But if you have a good resource that can do the editing and publish thing then you have more control over how fast it gets out there.
Scott McGohan
Yeah. Oh, good. Well, I'm looking forward to it.
The Mag
All right, Scott. Well, I appreciate you coming on and sharing your story and one more time the website for our listeners.
Scott McGohan
mcgohanbrabender.com, Mc Go han Bra ben der .com I wish it was shorter.
The Mag
All right. Well, thank you for sharing your story. You're doing important work and we appreciate you.
Scott McGohan
Well, thanks for having me.
The Mag
All right, this is Lee Cantor. We will see you all next time on Dayton Business Radio.
Image source: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-mcgohan-26b9797
