Transcript:
Chad Kearns: [00:00:01] Culture starts with relationships. How do we communicate with each other? How do we work with each other? How do we respect each other? What are the norms of the organization? Culture is not the values on a wall back in the day when we had walls in our office, an office with walls and all that stuff. It's how we treat each other. Adam Stoker: [00:00:20] Hey, everybody, we've got a new show to announce on the Destination Marketing Podcast Network. And I'm really excited about it. As you know, with my show, I bring on experts from all over the industry and we talk about some of the amazing things that destinations are doing, some of the issues facing the industry, the problems being solved. I think that for people that might be new to the tourism industry, my show could probably feel a little overwhelming at times. And so we wanted to provide a resource where people that are new to the destination marketing industry could learn the basics, what are the basics of tourism. And so we got Andi Jasperson who has been on the show, on my show a couple of times and she started a show called The Tourism Teacher and it's designed to give you the basic education. You need to thrive in the tourism industry. I think you're going to love it. Andi does a great job. She brings on some amazing guests. Wink, wink. One of them might be me. I really think that it's going to be an excellent resource for people trying to break into the industry and build a meaningful career. Hello, everyone and welcome to another episode of the Destination Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Stoker. This is our first episode live at the Destinations International Annual Convention. It's been such a great show so far. Destinations International does an incredible job with this event. There are so many people here. I think this is the largest conference that I've experienced in the tourism industry and it's been a lot of fun. I've got with me, a good friend of mine. His name is Chad Kearns and he is the Vice President and Lead Practitioner at Fired Up! Culture and Chad and I are going to talk a little bit today about what's wrong with me that we learned through the Birkman Assessment and we'll talk about that. But Chad, thanks for joining me here on the show. Chad Kearns: [00:02:15] I appreciate you having me, Adam. Adam Stoker: [00:02:15] Absolutely. So to give everybody a little bit of background, I'm going through my CDME courses and as part of that, I did the leadership course this time and in preparation for the leadership course I had to take what's called the Birkman exam or Berkman, what do you call it Chad? Chad Kearns: [00:02:31] Birkman Assessment. Adam Stoker: [00:02:33] Birkman Assessment, not an exam. So, Chad, first of all, I don't want to get too far into it until I ask you one of the important questions that we do for every guest that comes on the show, we're just going to do one of them. But Chad, what's your dream destination? If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be? Chad Kearns: [00:02:49] Wow, anywhere in the world? Adam Stoker: [00:02:54] This is also how I find out if people listen to my show or not. Just FYI. Chad Kearns: [00:02:58] I must have failed then. Adam Stoker: [00:02:59] You totally failed, you failed your assessment, Chad. Chad Kearns: [00:03:01] I failed my assessment. No, there's no right and wrong there. Man… Adam Stoker: [00:03:07] Or one of the places on your bucket list, I'll take some of the pressure off. Just give me one of the places on your bucket list. Chad Kearns: [00:03:13] Tokyo. Adam Stoker: [00:03:14] Okay. That came fairly quickly. So why Tokyo? Chad Kearns: [00:03:17] Two reasons. One, food and I need to go a little bit outside of Tokyo because I want to ski in Japan and experience the powder out there. Adam Stoker: [00:03:27] Nice. Okay. Skiing in Japan. Chad Kearns: [00:03:28] High on the list for me. Adam Stoker: [00:03:30] It's funny, I've had a lot of people say Japan, nobody said the skiing. So that's interesting. Chad Kearns: [00:03:35] Yeah, I'm from Seattle. It's relatively quick but a direct flyover and powder is supposed to be legendary out there. So I need to get out there soon. Adam Stoker: [00:03:44] Nice, nice. And you and me got along fairly quickly when we met because you've sat in my chair. You've done what I do. You ran an advertising agency, you felt some of the pain, success, excitement and all the above that an agency owner has. So I felt like you and I were able to maybe connect a little easier than I would have with someone else. So tell us just a brief history of your background and how you ended up at Fired Up! Culture. Chad Kearns: [00:04:10] Yeah. I started at a small independent agency out of Seattle called Portent. We positioned ourselves as a full-service digital agency. We had eight or nine teams all running different channels and operations within the marketing sector. I had the opportunity over my really getting started in the agency to build out in my own service line within that business. So focusing on small businesses, I built out a paid search offering and over the first four or five years of my time there built that into a seven-figure service business, had a couple of members on the team and really within that time was building my own agency within the agency, which is really, really cool. I learned how to design services and I learned how to market those services, eventually sell those services and work with clients. We had success there and went on to build on a team so you talk about hiring and onboarding employees, managing them as well. Like I said, really at the end of the day running my own agency within the agency. I did that for four or five years and eventually stepped into the role of leading the entire agency, which is a really, really big jump for me. We grew to 40 or 50 people over that time, had a ton of fun, like you said, the ups and downs of agency life, really, really highs and some lows as well being in that role. We had worked with Fired Up! Culture for seven or eight years as we were a client at Portent. I love the work that Fired Up! did, was inspired by it, saw the impact that it could have on organizations. It was time for me to leave Portent. And it was really, really clear to me that I wanted to join Fired Up! and enact change with other founders and leaders in marketing organizations, whether that be on the agency side where we work quite often and destinations as well. A big book of our businesses in the destination sector. Adam Stoker: [00:06:14] Great, great. So that kind of brings us to Fired Up! Culture and the Birkman Assessment that I took that I thought was really interesting and there was some, some light bulbs for me. First, tell us, what is the Birkman Assessment? And why is it a great way for people to kind of make identifications about their personality, their needs, their usual behaviors? Why is that a very valuable tool to be able to help somebody understand what they need from their professional environment? Chad Kearns: [00:06:50] The Birkman Assessment is a personality assessment. and we like it. We really, really like it, it Fired Up! at the start of team-building and relationship-building exercises. The reason why I think the Birkman is a really, really good assessment is because it provides people with vocabulary and understanding about themselves that they've maybe always felt but didn't know how to name. Vocabulary words, feelings, Adam, you've already used usual behavior, right? We talk about usual behavior and needs and interests and potential stress behavior as well. Right? As we try to build emotional intelligence in the workplace and as we try to build relationships with each other in the workplace, we have to know ourselves and we have to know how we show up and we have to know, like you said, we need to know what our needs are. Being able to assign a vocabulary to that, being able to see it on paper, makes it a lot easier for people to start those conversations. I feel like the Birkman Assessment is a really, really good ice breaker to important conversations that need to happen among business partners, among team leaders, really anyone in an organization, stakeholders around them, really key conversations there. Adam Stoker: [00:08:10] Yeah, I thought it was interesting that as I went through the assessment, there was a lot of questions of how do you think other people see you when you do this or that? Then those same questions come back when you say, how do you actually do this? It's basically gauging and I'm probably butchering this but gauging the connection between how you think others see you and how you see yourself and maybe looking at the gap between those two things and using that to kind of identify certain stress behaviors and certain usual behaviors and things like that. Chad Kearns: [00:08:46] Well, that's what we see when we talk about the difference between usual behavior and needs. Usual behavior, how do people perceive you? How do people see you when you're at your best? What do they maybe assume about you? But then your needs are, what are the things that you actually need to be at your best? Right? And like we talked about and we won't give away all the results of your Birkman, but we can talk about it. Adam Stoker: [00:09:09] I'm an open book, let’s do it. Chad Kearns: [00:09:09] We’re an open book, we'll get into it, how different some of those usual behaviors are and what your needs might actually be, right? And we talked about that as a leader, we want to maybe show up in this way. We need to put on our hats 7, 8, 10 hours a day to be there for everybody. But like you and I talked about, how do we provide that space? Right? How do we provide that quiet time? How do we provide a little bit of that me time and separation so you can sit down and do the thinking that you need to do to be at your best? Adam Stoker: [00:09:42] Yeah. That's where we kind of get and I joked, what's wrong with me? That's not really the case. It's basically diagnosing your needs as a person. Some of that is the way my usual behaviors I tend to be very and last night was a great example because we're out at this event and I'm shaking hands with everybody and chat and having small talk with everybody and I go home and I'm just like head hits the pillow and I just need a minute, you know what I mean? It's been difficult for me to understand that because I've always felt like I'm a real extrovert. But the older I get and the more I progress in my career, the more I feel like, man, I need a minute, you know what I mean. So my colors were green, green, blue in the three different sections that you guys lay out. Let's talk about that green, green, blue. What does that mean? I'm going to joke and say what is wrong with me. But the reality is what does that mean about who I am as a person? Chad Kearns: [00:10:39] I think there's a couple of things in there that we keyed in on during our conversation when we actually went through the report last week. It's showing up with that strong sales and marketing background, right? Our communicators. Certainly, the role that you're in the field that you found yourself in for a long time, that interest of showing up, promoting something, marketing, but also being around people and mentoring, being around a team, bringing people together to lead that team forward. You mentioned the blue when we talk about the blue are thinkers. Time to pause and reflect. A big decision may come your way and you may need to be on the spot and make that decision quickly and decisively. But more often than not your preference, your needs are going to be, I need a little time to think about this. I might need to seek counsel from one or two people who I really, really trust. That difference of I'm going, I'm going, I'm going to make decisions on the fly, decisive, good go, let's move and iterate might not be your most comfortable spot all of the time. Doesn't mean you can't flex there, doesn't mean you can't get there but you talked about the energy of last night. Right? It's 107 degrees, we're going out on buses to an event. Wonderful event, had a lot of fun, ate a lot of great food. But like you said, you get back to the room and you're done. You need that space, you need that time alone to rebuild that energy. Comes out in a lot of different ways, right? You bring up a social situation, like a networking event and a welcome party. But we also talk about decision making maybe in and how that comes up in different aspects of our roles. Adam Stoker: [00:12:18] Well, when we found out that there's a gap in at least sometimes a gap in the role that I have and the job duties that I need to fulfill and my needs. That's something that I think was a really fascinating discovery for me. Right? Because, and now we're going to maybe broaden a little bit and say, okay, yes, the Birkman Assessment is great. But now how does it play into a company culture? Because if I have a situation where my role does not match perfectly the needs that I feel like I have as a person and how I answer the questions on the Birkman Assessment, how many other people in my organization might be in roles and their needs aren't necessarily being met? I'd love for you to talk a little bit about how if you do a Birkman assessment across an organization, some of the discoveries that you have and how you can help improve the culture of an organization by understanding who everyone is as a person. Chad Kearns: [00:13:14] Culture starts with relationships, how do we communicate with each other, how do we work with each other, how do we respect each other, what are the norms of the organization. Culture is not the values on a wall, back in the day when we had walls in our office, an office with walls and all that stuff, it's how we treat each other. That's where the Birkman can come into play with that relationship building. Understanding first of all starts with yourself, how do I show up? What are my needs? How can I start to get a little bit more comfortable with those? And how do I start talking to people about them? Those conversations can be hard to get into. The fun thing with a Birkman is usually when an organization, organization-wide will take the Birkman. Everyone has their paper, everyone has their colors. It's really, really natural, what's your color? Usually gets a couple of laughs. Oh, let me go grab my report. Let's talk about it. That might start. That's an easy way to start a conversation and it might start with some giggles and some lighthearted conversation but it can get into the key places of relationship building. For us, that's where culture starts, is coming from a place of understanding, coming from a place of respecting everybody in our organization in order to start to build that culture and that healthy culture to bring organizations forward and to make organizations frankly more productive than they would otherwise be. Adam Stoker: [00:14:42] Great. I'd love to have you without naming names, but you see a lot of organizations, you work with a lot of organizations. Maybe give me an example of one that you go through the process of the assessments and you discover that a change of some sort needs to be made, tell me about one of those experiences. Chad Kearns: [00:14:59] I don't necessarily think it is connected to the assessment results of the Birkman like you and I talked about a lot. I think we laughed a little bit on on our session when we met the other week, there's really no right or wrong answers in any of this. When we do, let's say we have an organization of 50 people or even of 20 people and everyone takes their Birkman Assessment and we look at an overall map of where they land, these groups are landing everywhere in all corners of the map clustered in some places spread out and everywhere. There's really not a connection in terms of where Birkman results land and culture or productivity or just overall health or morale of an organization. There's truly no right and wrong in in how all that shows up. Adam Stoker: [00:15:46] Great. So now let's just talk about maybe because you've been able to meet with so many organizations and work with them. A piece of advice and it can't just be Fired Up! Culture, right? But maybe a piece of advice for destination leaders that may be trying to navigate the different components of the leadership requirements of their role. Chad Kearns: [00:16:11] Know your people and what they need. What you assume they might need isn't always necessarily going to be how you get them into their best place to do the job. Adam Stoker: [00:16:21] And you're likely to project your own needs and try to give them what you need. Chad Kearns: [00:16:24] Exactly. Yeah. And your assumptions talked about usual behavior and perception a couple of minutes ago and we look at think back to your map, Adam, and the difference in how that showed up. What you see is not what I need. The only way to figure those things out is to have a conversation and to talk about it and that can be uncomfortable, that can be hard but that's how you get to those places of getting people in the right spots and organizations, getting them to a place where they're comfortable. What we know is when people are in the right spots and they're comfortable, they're going to do better work, they're going to be more productive, they're going to be happier and it sounds pretty good. Right? That's what a lot of executives and a lot of leaders are after which is what we help them do. Adam Stoker: [00:17:15] For sure. Well, Chad, I appreciate you coming on. If people want to learn more about you or Fired Up! Culture, what's the best way for them to do so? Chad Kearns: [00:17:22] firedupculture.com. People can also find me on LinkedIn. I try to be pretty active on there. That's the best way to get a hold of us. Adam Stoker: [00:17:28] Great, Chad, thanks a lot for taking the time. Chad Kearns: [00:17:30] Adam, thanks so much. Adam Stoker: [00:17:32] Absolutely. [End of transcript]
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