What if Joy is Your Most Undervalued Business Strategy? with Joel Hilchey

What if the fastest way to better performance is more joy, not more grind? We sit down with engineer-turned-entertainer-turned-executive Joel Hilchey to unpack how purposeful play transforms culture, unlocks honest conversations, and helps teams learn at speed. Joel’s story moves from an ill-fitting corporate stint to leading a thriving facilitation company, and along the way he discovered a simple truth: serious work doesn’t require serious faces.

We dig into the difference between empty fun and fulfilling moments that are both fun and meaningful. Joel shows how levity in hard conversations lowers defenses and increases candor, why “mandatory fun” backfires, and how small language shifts—calling something an experiment instead of an icebreaker—can change participation. 

You’ll also hear a practical playbook for culture change with three high-leverage areas: onboarding that sets human-first norms, meetings that balance connection with clarity, and recognition that celebrates progress with meaning. We talk culture carriers—the people who flip negativity into momentum—and how protecting them preserves morale and retention. If you’ve been hunting for concrete steps to boost engagement, psychological safety, and team performance without the corporate cringe, this conversation is your blueprint.

Enjoy the episode, share it with a leader who needs it, and subscribe for more conversations on culture, behavior change, and building teams people love. If you found value, leave a review and tell us: what small shift will you try at your next meeting?

Connect with Joel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelhilchey/

Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayjohnsonccg/
Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com

Transcript

Setting The Stage For Fun At Work

Jay Johnson 0:38

Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge, where together we are shaping workforce behaviors. I am excited to have this conversation. I think it's going to be one of the more fun ones. I think it's going to be the unique perspective on how we can shape culture and how we can bring joy and fun into the workplace. And to facilitate this conversation, I'd like to introduce you to Joel Hilchey and say, welcome to the show, Joel. It's great to be here. Thanks, Jay. So, Joel, uh, you know, in in looking at your work, I've seen everything from juggling to joggling. I've seen uh antics on the stage, I've seen just a beautiful message about fun and culture. I would love to know how did you get to this space? Tell us a little bit about your story. What brought you into this space of shaping cultures and doing this type of work?

Fun Meets Meaning As A Performance Tool

Joel Hilchey 1:34

Sure. So uh I studied engineering uh back in university, engineering physics. Um because I was a kid, I was good at math and I liked Lego. Um and uh then so you know everybody assumed, oh, okay, you're gonna be an engineer. But I was a performer, and everybody around the engineering world said, you don't seem like an engineer. My my favorite part of university was taking my little juggling talent show thing to coffee houses. You know, people have bring their guitar and do the well, I had I had a juggling act, and I liked making people laugh, and I liked showing people that it was it was okay to be a little weird. Um, along the way, I got involved with other like kind of team building stuff. I was a high ropes facilitator, learned a ton about group dynamics and and how to facilitate great conversations. Um I I was a teaching assistant because I I liked being an educator. So I I now sort of think of myself, I was I was like uh an engineer, uh an entertainer, an educator, and now I've added in executive because soon out of university I got a job uh doing database stuff, which was right up my alley. I'm sure you can imagine. Um it was it was awful. Uh and I lasted like four weeks in the corporate world. Um incited by a change of housing situation, I thought, am I going to double down on this? Or yeah, do I uh do I leave? And I decided I want to go back to school, do a master's. So I typed up my resignation letter, and that was almost 20 years ago now, and I ended up in the world of training and development. Uh another mentor saw me and said, Hey, you're the seven habits of highly effective people. Um I hadn't, embarrassingly, but you know, he said, I've been looking for a replacement for myself. And he got me in as a trainer. And I started to work especially in education for me with students and teachers. But over time, we developed more career skills workshops in general, and then we got busy enough that um now our small team, Beanstock Creative, looks like um eight facilitators. We've got five full-time staff, um, and we run events and do in-school workshops. So that's sort of my full-time gig, is I'm the CEO of that, and it's been it's been a real journey from like solopreneur to you know, even CEO of a small team. It's still manager. Gosh, I've made so many mistakes, Jay. And and um, and along the way, we we also developed a great culture. And so I was still performing and entertaining and teaching, but now more and more people are asking, how do you create culture? And so that's sort of what I've become really interested in in sharing, uh, you know, making how to make things fun, how to create memorable experiences that that uh really do make a shift in things. So that is my short journey along the way. Uh, wrote a few books, and most recently, the six and a half habits of highly defective bosses. Serious lessons for accidental managers. So uh it's been so fun to pull things together uh from different realms creativity, leadership, um, retention, uh, and and culture. And um it it it's been uh it's been a great journey for me, anyways. That's probably too too much of my story, but here we are.

Jay Johnson 4:58

Not at all. And I I love it because from the moment that we started chatting, it has been one of those things where I I've had a difficulty taking the smile off my face. It's one of those like the energy that you bring, and we're gonna talk a little bit about that because you know, when we talk about shaping workforce behaviors here, we know that culture has an impact on workforce behaviors, and we know that behavior has an impact on workforce culture. It's it's yes, it's a symbiotic relationship, right? Totally. So uh before we get in there, I I just want to I want to point out I I didn't realize this, but as you were telling your story, we actually have quite a few parallels. I've been doing this for 20 years myself. Yeah, I was an educator in the education system, I was an entertainer a long, long time ago, different entertaining. I was uh I did improv, I did uh stage performance, I did a number of things like that. And I'm now an executive and somebody that is running a company with all the so we have a lot in common there, and it seems like it seems like we might be aligned on this fun thing. Let me ask this question point blank, because I think in so many cases in the world of HR, in the world of leadership, in the world of management, I see a lot of seriousness and almost like this this blocking, you know, to not step into their fun side or anything else. And now I I imagine that they like a good movie or would love a good comedy show, but we don't see that in the workplace. So I'm gonna ask two questions here, and it's gonna kind of be a back-to-back. What do you think precludes us sometimes from bringing that sort of silly, fun, um, sometimes weird? Because I I'm also I I'm a giant and the audience knows this if they've listened. I'm a giant nerd. I love Dungeons and Dragons and I love behavioral science, right? Like, how do we why do why do we stop ourselves from bringing our true selves? And what have you done to inspire people to bring some of those pieces into the workplace culture?

Joel Hilchey 7:08

Great questions. Okay, so my my general answer is just because you take your work seriously doesn't mean you have to take yourself seriously. Oh my gosh. Like that maybe I I can share that the most the most productive teams that I have been on have been immensely enjoyable and full of laughter along the way, and we're joking our way through this thing. I I've been involved with with different charity organizations before. I got involved with engineers without borders as a as a student. I'm still involved now, a proud donor, and we just had a 25th year at Engineers Without Borders national conference in Canada. My mentor is now the CEO of Engineers Without Borders USA, um, Boris Martin, amazing guy. And one of the things that attracted me to the organization was that they were they were all driven people trying to make the world better. But we'd get together and watch a movie, and somebody brought cookies. I was like, these are my kind of people, you know, I want to be here. And and it felt joyful to do this. And I think that that there's this perception that fun is the opposite of work. And that that's not true. Like like fun, well, I mean, there's sort of two ways to think about fun. Like the the the noun, I guess, like, oh, that is fun, that is like frivolity, you know. And okay, that is different by definition than like the important thing. But if you're having fun, that's like pleasure and joy. And you can do that i with your work. You you can be uh purposeful and playful at the same time. And so that's that's my big kind of big picture, you know, uh pitch to people is that we need to combine here. Uh let me uh describe it this way for people watching. If you can if you're everybody wants fun, and I'm writing on the sky here, I know, and they want things that are meaningful. Uh time for a new marker. Um if you do things that are only meaningful, life is kind of heavy and overwhelming. If you do things that are only fun, life is frivolous and kind of empty in the end. But there is this magic area in the middle of things that are both fun and meaningful. So I call it fiendingful. I don't know. I don't I don't call it feelingful. Although I I did I um I did invent another word recently, plagiarism. I made that up. Um okay, never mind. So fun and meaningful. Uh what I actually call that little space in the middle of the Venn diagram is fulfilling. You know, if if and and I have come to believe that that is super important. It it people are naturally motivated, they they're more creative, more uh collaborative, more open-minded, they're more resilient when when we're doing things that are fun and meaningful. So some sometimes people think like, oh, you know, we got a serious problem, we better get serious. But I I think that fun is an undervalued resource.

Levity In Hard Moments And Feedback

Jay Johnson 10:25

So I I'm gonna I'm gonna lean into one of the things that you said, you know, taking the work seriously, but not taking yourself. You said that I gave you the clap, and and here's and here's why. In 2009, I had joined a young person's leadership development organization. And uh I ended up connecting with I ended up connecting with somebody that ended up being uh one of my absolute best friends. So I'll I'll even call him out loud, Mike Kanda, one of my guys, right? Cool. That year, and I had just joined. I won't go into all of the details, but that year, it was like three weeks after I joined that an email chain comes out and it starts accusing the treasurer, the previous treasurer, of embezzling money. Uh oh. Come to find out that they had embezzled literally almost all of the funds from this charitable organization. Oh my goodness. And that causes this major fracture. People are leaving, people are yelling at each other. Come to find out another person had some kind of criminal record that was being hidden, that all of a sudden that pops out because of this uh fighting. Uh goodness. The the organization owned a building. Well, it wasn't related to the organization, but there was a there was uh shots fired at the building in this same, like all of these things, these massive, massive crises, massive public relations. We were in the paper constantly just getting crushed. We rebuilt that organization. So we had we had it was a membership-based organization. It had like 30 or 40 members, it dropped down to like four. I was one of the four. He was my my colleague who was one of the four. We're sitting in his basement, we're having cake and whiskey and laughing, and literally, literally laughing. Like, how absurd is this? Like, what are we in? And we vowed in that moment, we're gonna take this work seriously, but we're not gonna take our ourselves seriously, and like, because I mean it was so heavy. We ended up within two years, we ended up being like one of the top organizations in the entire state and the entire country. Wow, because of the culture that was built about literally being serious about what we got done and just like really making the impact. Yes, but having fun while we were doing it. So, what you said honestly, just like audience, if you take nothing away from this conversation, you've got to be able to incorporate, and I love how you framed this, Joel purposefulness or purpose, yeah, that was probably absolutely brilliant.

Joel Hilchey 13:09

Oh, you're too kind. You know, um, I I listened to, oh gosh, I can't remember the name now. Oh, there's somebody who has a great acronym about talking in conversations, and the acronym is TAC, and I should know who it is, but I don't. We can look it up after. Um, and the L is levity. And you've probably been in in conversations. So this is if we're trying to make it practical for you know, managers or or you know, if you're having a tough feedback conversation, one of the beautiful things that you can offer as a gift is like moments of levity. Both both sides, everybody, you know, whether you're giving feedback or or or receiving it, like if you can if you can offer a moment of of joy, of laughter, of personal connection, of humanity, then that makes everything go so much smoother. You know, sometimes one way to do that in a tough situation is just to acknowledge that it's a tough situation. You know, if if you come in and uh and just by saying call calling out whatever is happening, gosh, this was not the conversation I thought I'd be having this morning. I'll tell you that. Start with that. And what'd you think you were gonna be doing? Oh, I thought I was gonna be doing walking the dog, and I don't know. By by naming something that's hard, that's like a really practical technique. Because then the other person goes, Yeah, totally, me too. Like, I didn't think I'd be here either. Well, here we are. What do we do?

Why Mandatory Fun Backfires

Jay Johnson 14:38

Um when COVID, it's funny you say that because when COVID hit and we had like our executive leadership meeting. I mean, COVID, and I'm sure that you know this too. No speeches, no engagements, no more training, everything stops. And you know, from us, we lost $200,000 in the first two weeks. Wow, just like this is not good. And when we had our executive leadership meeting, literally, I started the meeting by going, Well, this sucks, and I kind of like I giggled. Like I was like, Oh, what are we gonna do? I have no control over this. It was like sucks, we're gonna have to figure some stuff out, team. But I like in that in that energy and in that laughing, it does it. It all of a sudden is like, Yeah, this does suck. All right, let's figure this out now. Like, we've acknowledged that. So I love what you were saying there.

Joel Hilchey 15:28

Yes. Uh, you asked about, you know, how do you bring more fun into the culture as well? Maybe the first thing, just uh as a disclaimer, is to say fun is not the same for everybody, like not everybody believes that you know, I don't know. Imagine you're like, let's have a party in the office, and we're all gonna have confetti and we're gonna go around and say what we love about each person in the office, and that'll be great. Some that's some people's worst nightmare. They don't want that at all. They I just you know, so just recognize that everybody what everybody has a different idea of what fun is. We're gonna do some fun icebreakers.

Jay Johnson 16:06

Yes. Right.

Joel Hilchey 16:10

No, right, right. One of the one of the ways to make something less fun, um, is I think to call it an icebreaker. Uh I just immediately people are like, oh man, I don't know about right. It's like it's much better to just say, hey, I want to try something. Let's would let's try this activity. Try this activity or you know, try this um experiment. A lot of people like doing experiments. Um, language matters with this kind of thing. Another way to make things not fun is to make them mandatory.

Jay Johnson 16:44

Mandatory fun is not fun.

Designing Intentional In‑Between Times

Joel Hilchey 16:46

Mandatory fun. That's like not a thing, you know? So um, and I've I've experienced this. I I remember being at you know, a staff retreat day and hearing people grumble and groan as we're playing mini putt. Like, you know, and because for them that day they wanted to be in the office, or or they didn't want to be doing that with these people. I don't know. But but it felt for them, it was contrived and like what something about that experience was not good for them. So don't make it mandatory and maybe like ask, okay, what what do people like to do? That's a that's a good thing to ask on your team. Um one thing that when people say, Oh, this is fun, they're often talking more about like the how they do things rather than the specific activities themselves. So foosball tables or ping pong tables or something that that's fun if people like playing ping pong or things. But what what might be more relevant uh if you're saying if you have an office, if you're one of those people who still have an office where people go, um, which is a sizable chunk, is uh think about like, well, it's available for people, but what they probably find fun is the personal connection they have. Why why do I why does everybody hate going into the office two days a week? It's not because they don't like their coworkers. The excuse I hear is they say, I go in and nobody's there. I go, I'm told to go in, but nobody is there. We're not doing anything. I could have done this at home. But if I go in and oh, we've got a connection day, we've got it's nice to see people. That was fun, that was a good day. You know, the the I think we need to be more intentional about how we structure the time when we're together. And that's why I'm one of the reasons why I'm interested in really like helping people create uh experiences, you know, and almost like curate experiences or or moments for people and say, how do we how do we help people have more of those connection moments or more of those moments where they're pleasantly surprised with something?

Jay Johnson 18:51

I think that's so interesting because like even something with the ping pong table or the foosball table. What I often see is, you know, maybe you have somebody that likes ping pong, like foosball, and they're playing. But where I actually end up seeing the most joy are the people that are standing around it. They're not even playing, but it's almost like it becomes this like, hey, I've picked a team and we're having, you know, we're having fun because we're jeering each other or cheering each other up. Yes. And there's these conversations that are happening organically. So even though there's two people that are dialed in and playing the game and being competitive, the people that seem to surround it are the ones that are almost bringing more of the joy, it seems like to me. Yeah.

Joel Hilchey 19:34

Well, okay, so one of the principles I I have is like to try to have intentional in-between times. And I was thinking, I don't know if I've got good language for this yet, but I was remembering back to some trips, and I I remember the people that I was on the trips with. And I have the photos, but I was thinking like the photo was this like memory, but actually the relationships were built on the way to the photo op. And and I think work is a lot like that. You know, we're working on this project, and like completing it feels good, but the relationships are being built on the way, on the journey. And so in between times is a really general term, but I think you know it applies in so many spots. It's like the time between when we were doing things intentionally. So, how do you make it more intentional without seeming like a new thing? Uh, one example is like just say you have a meeting, a board meeting, uh I don't know, a retreat day, something. There's usually a time at the beginning where people are gathering and they're coming in. We haven't started yet, but what do they do? They grab their coffee, they sit down, they they maybe see a friend they haven't seen in a while. Hey, how's your sister doing? I heard she was in the hospital. What you know, how's she doing now? They reconnect as humans, and those personal relationships are super valuable to people. It also often happens that this is where people make jokes with each other. You know, they're they're talking about it's it's small talk at first, that's normal, but we elevate through though that small talk to then be able to ask the more meaningful questions. Hey, last year you said that you know you you were you were going through a tough time. What how are things now? I think these in-between times are what we lose often on uh hybrid Zoom meetings, where you know it's a black screen and it's just at two o'clock on the dot, you come on and you so okay, hi everybody. I know everybody hates to be online, so let's jump right into the agenda. Steve, how's that project coming along? And it feels jarring. Yeah, and because we didn't have the in-between time. Um one more example, maybe uh this is maybe for people who are interviewing or uh even just getting to know colleagues. I I talked with a CEO once who said, I will always, whenever I'm interviewing, I will always ask, and this we developed this from when he wasn't a CEO. I'll always ask if somebody wants a coffee or a tea. And even if they don't, we'll walk down, I will, and we'll walk down to the kitchen together because I want to see how they are when they don't think they're being interviewed. That's when people show up as their their true selves, you know. As soon as we're across the table, now we're playing a game, now we're filling roles. And and that's that's not where relationships are built, and that's not where people's authentic values come out either. So this is this is sort of strategic. I think we can use these in between times um strategically. And this is why I think the foosball table or the Water cooler. It is. It's a gathering place for people, for them to have other conversations. And it's it feels like it's off topic, but they're building connection.

Play As A Shortcut To Learning

Jay Johnson 22:47

I so I mean it's it's it's kind of spot on with the research that was done by Daniel Coyle from the Culture Code about the things, right? The collisions that we create. And as you were talking about this, you know, that's actually the tactic that that CEO is taking of walking down and grabbing a coffee. That's actually something that we have taught uh in the courses that we've done for law enforcement. Like when you're sitting across a table, you're immediately adversarial and the defensive posturing is coming up. Take a walk, take them down, you know, do this, show them something, and just have a conversation. You'll probably get a lot more information than you would expect. So you're you're absolutely, I mean, the science on that is you're dialed in on that for sure. But I think the thing that you you you made me you inspired me to think of a different place, exactly what you're talking about. I, you know, yeah, from a business perspective, I know that you've done this, and I'm sure that everybody that's uh you know listening in today has been to a networking event, and you see people like when it's like the forced, the mandatory networking portion, you kind of see people's energy just drain. Yes. You look at them beforehand when it was like, okay, it's just kind of open and people are grabbing coffee or breakfast or whatever it is, and there's joy, there's conversation, people are bouncing ideas off, people feel comfortable. It's like it's like watching kindergarten, and then all of a sudden it's like, okay, now we have to get to work and really do the networking. And everybody, oh, I don't want to do networking, I don't like networking. Yeah, like you've been networking for the last half hour, really affecting me. So uh I I really like what you had to say there because I think I think as a you know, for the trainers, the coaches, and the leaders out there that are trying to do this, mandatory is not gonna work. But if you create an environment where people can come together, you're gonna start seeing some of that interaction and then reward it, show why it's important, uh, create space for it. So I I really appreciate what you're saying on that. And I do have a question that I kind of want to follow up with on this. Yeah. Uh some of the experiences and and and maybe I kind of intuitively picked this up, um, whether it was from the stage and performing or whether it was, you know, those first trainings. When people laughed, and I realized this quickly, I'm like, all right, I'm gonna bring out the first thing, you know. Like I if I'm doing a talk on dealing with difficult people, I say, how many of you in the audience are dealing with the difficult person? Everybody raised, you know, most of the people raise their hand, almost everybody. Yes. I say, if you're not raising your hand, you're probably somebody else's difficult person. Everybody starts laughing, and then it's just like, and now they're dialed in. And now it's like, okay, we're here to have a little bit of fun, learn some things. So, my question for you in shaping culture, in shaping workforce behaviors, and and sort of obviously the theme of this podcast, what has your experience been when you've introduced maybe fun into a joyless zone or you've created the conditions for people to be like, okay, it's okay for me to play a little bit. How has that helped in seeing a transformational aspect inside of an organization? Yeah.

Joel Hilchey 26:07

The the main way that I think it it shows up is that people are more honest. You get better conversations, and so everybody in the organization has a unique perspective to bring, right? From your frontline people to the managers who are overseeing you know patterns of things and data. Everybody has a unique perspective. Um the executives who who have a vision or who see, you know, um departmental things and big picture priorities, um, if they won't talk honestly with each other, you lose the benefit of the team. Right? The biggest benefit of a team is not just that you've got more hands to do the work, it's that you've got more minds to do the thinking. And and you harness some of that sort of wisdom of crowds by making sure everybody has a way to contribute to the conversation. When people have fun, or when people feel um so fun signals safety. Fun also signals learning. Um, there is a a great thing done. Oh gosh, I should know it off the top of my head. It the research said it took something like I don't know, 400 repetitions to learn a new skill, unless it was taught through play, in which case it takes 12 or some some silly thing like this. That brain force, you know.

Jay Johnson 27:35

We learn this as and and it's interesting, it's not just humans, animals teach and learn through play. They play, yes, you know, they play grab, you know, and and tussle and stumble with their their parents, and that's helping them learn their hunting skills or their skills. Yeah, I mean, play is a huge part of our childhood development. Yes, and and it's almost like we for like when we grow up, we forget that, and then like, no, I can't I can't be silly at work, right?

Culture Carriers And Positive Contagion

Joel Hilchey 28:07

Right. And people confuse, they think if you're being silly, maybe you're not taking the work seriously. No, no, no. It's you gotta like disconnect those things by by signaling safety and play and some fun, and we're gonna laugh together and we're human, right? What what what is it about being human? We make mistakes sometimes, we're not perfect, and that shows that hey, I don't have all the answers here, but maybe we can figure it out. What do you think about this? And you get better conversations. I sometimes when I'm uh working with the management teams, I'll do something silly like, okay, let's bring a little ball, and everybody gets in a group, and just you bat this ball around and you try to hit it 12 times or something, and then you start introducing new rules. And okay, give a give a high five to the person on your left after you hit the ball. And it gets chaotic, and people are gigging giggling away. And this is what I learned from the days of facilitation is that it's almost never about the activity itself, it's about the conversation that it creates afterwards. So then you ask a question like, hey, okay, how did that activity represent work on our team? And immediately somebody will go, Oh, well, I mean, we were all trying to just grab the ball, nobody was talking to each other. And uh, man, I I didn't even pay attention to what you were doing over there, you know, and and they'll start a conversation. And if if you just ask the question, hey, um, what are some of your team's flaws and your personal tendencies when it comes to sharing work? You're gonna get a totally different response, and it's gonna be a flat response. So by uh this is sort of retreat-based, I suppose, you know, but I what I what I really love are little structures or um activities, games, uh tools that you can use. Any manager can can facilitate a meeting in a slightly different way to get more conversation flowing. I really like that, Joel.

Jay Johnson 30:08

And I I see that is this one of those things where you need the first brave person to step into fun, then the second person, and then the third person, and because like I and I think about this a number of times that I've heard somebody say, like, oh, I don't I don't like that. And I'm like, I I'm thinking to myself, like, what you don't like fun, like you don't like play, or or whatever. Or I've even heard people go, Well, I'm I'm not the fun one. And like, you know, I I hear that, and it's it's one of those where do you see something like kind of a critical mass effect? All right, this leader is stepping into fun. Now this leader made it okay. And yes, is is it build or is it something that is, you know?

Joel Hilchey 30:53

Yes, it yes, all of the above. It's like a an uh a living, growing thing. It's like culture, as you talked about, this kind of uh feedback y, you know. So our experiences shape the culture, but then the culture reinforces and helps create the experiences for people. You've probably seen this as a marketing person too. Um, you ever hear the thing? You're not trying to convert anybody, you're just trying to telegraph what you believe in so that the people who believe as you do will find you.

Jay Johnson 31:26

Yep.

Three Leverage Points: Onboarding, Meetings, Recognition

Joel Hilchey 31:26

Absolutely. And I think that this is true. I don't know if every organization can be a fun organization. It's maybe not in the DNA of some organizations. That said, there are people, I think everybody wants to have some fun. And if you can find, well, what is fun for this group? Maybe fun is like working 80 hours a week for some people. They're you know, that is purposeful and playful, and they love it. They're they they just are driven by that. For some people, fun is having great connections with their coworkers or honest conversations, or being able to like have a moment where they introduce their dog on the Zoom call. You know, like that's fun for some people. Like, oh, we got a great culture. Uh culture is much more about the small moments than it is about large statements. You know, a lot of people think like values on the wall, like that's our culture. Um, or they think, well, I like the people. These the behaviors in the halls. Correct. The behaviors when nobody's watching, when you know, it's like, how are decisions actually made here? Those that's what the values are like, and so you can watch if if people, you know, buy into the fun activity. Well, we went mini-putting and everyone had a miserable time, and then they went back to the office, and they were probably miserable there too. But but like, or you if the culture says, like, well, we just try to make things fun. There are certain people who definitely have an outsized impact on things. You probably think of everybody listening. Think of the teams you've been on, and you can probably name a person in like a meeting that like always chimes in with a joke just at the right moment, or but also is insightful. But it's almost like their role on the team is this like moment of levity, moment of levity, moment of levity, and they keep propelling the group forward that way. I think there are people who do the opposite, who shut that down as well. And this is where the managers come in. Managers need to find what is killing the culture and what is building it and helping it grow and thrive. Bad bosses kill culture and they drive away your top performers. The the good news, I mean, in writing this this book, um the so many people have stories. 80% of people identify as accidental managers. They they didn't plan to be a leader, they you know, they weren't gunning for it. It was just like, oh, you you seem to know what you're doing. Like the other guy just left. Like, why don't you lead the team?

Jay Johnson 33:54

You're good at this. Yes, you're good at this engineering thing. Now go lead people, a very different science.

Joel Hilchey 34:00

Totally different people, and ever so if you're listening and like, oh yeah, I'm I'm an axe little manager, you don't have to be perfect at it. But in my experience, somebody who approaches you know their their role with both fun and meaning, they're gonna get people on board because they say, gosh, I'm not perfect at this, I don't know what I'm doing. It's you know, I'm gonna try my best. What do you need? What do you think? Tell me what you want. What what do you think this role actually is? And you'll have better conversations and and be more human about it. Um, and you probably won't be terrible. You know, you'll probably make some mistakes, but gosh, if there's one big thing, it's pay attention to the people. If there's two big things, it's pay attention to the people and pay attention to what is either inspiring or driving away your top performers because every team has some key people on it. And if your actions as a manager are driving away those people, it's tough to win a championship without superstars. Not everybody has to be a superstar, and championships are not championship teams are not all superstars, but it's tough to win without a few. So pay attention to that. I don't know. Have you seen that as well? Those kind of like key people, there's sort of butterfly effect, uh, you know, things that happen. Um, the small moments create uh big ripples.

Jay Johnson 35:25

So there's actually there's some incredible, there's some incredible research that was done where basically they took organizations, uh, they took research subjects, put them into a team, and then they sent a researcher into the team. And the researcher's job, their only job, was to disrupt the team with negativity, yeah, kind of like sighing and everything else like that. And they were trying to see, like, okay, this group didn't have the researcher. How did they perform? This group did have the researcher trying to subvert it, and there was one outlier, and they went back because one team, despite having the researcher, was really, really successful. And they were like, What's this anomaly? They went back and they looked and they just and and they found somebody in that group that is exactly like what you're saying. Whenever this person went negative, the the person, the subject, the the was like key player that yeah, just brought everybody back up. And the researcher even reported the researcher that was sent in to be sub subversive was like, I found myself like pausing before I was doing my job because I was like, This this person was so positive, and like, even if I was being ruthless and mean, they'd be like, Oh, that's hilarious! That's everybody listen to that. That's so funny. You're so right. And it was just like they brought this joy and completely threw the researcher off their game, and that team was successful. And it it's so what you're saying there's yeah, and and I see this. The the culture of an organization is the sum of all of the behaviors, and behaviors are patterns, and behaviors are infectious. So if I mistreat you, you mistreat me, we go back and forth, and it gets really toxic and negative. If I treat you with respect, you treat me with respect, and we go back and forth, it gets really positive. If you've got those influencers that are embedded in an organization that are driving some of that positive process connected behavior, it stands to reason that you're probably going to have a decent culture. You lose that influencer, you're losing a big part of your culture.

Resources, Book, And Closing Reflections

Joel Hilchey 37:36

That's huge. What a what a great insight. You not only the productive people are your key people, there are culture key people who are who are like linchpins. Yeah, there. That uh that's fascinating. And you know, if if people are listening and they're thinking, well, my organization, it's we're okay, you know, how where do you start? My my suggestion, um, a lot of people think, well, start with the big things, or let's start by restating our values. They they take sort of an informational approach to it. And it's it's true that the values matter, but what matters more are the moments that demonstrate those values. Um, and it's shown up much more in the little things, but big big things are good demonstrations of those values, you know. So if you're if you've got a big annual retreat or annual meeting, yes, you should put time and energy into planning that, but also put time and energy into how you run your Tuesday morning meeting. You know, the how do you want that to feel? Because those are going to be repeated, though they're gonna be regular. From my perspective, this is part of what I uh share with people and teach people, is I think there are three big leverage points that they can access um for changing or shifting the culture. The first is onboarding, the second are meetings, and the third is recognition. The way just because first impressions are so important, onboarding matters so much. Um, meetings are the you know, they happen regularly. There, they are as far as most people are concerned. If you say, What's it like to work here? Most people imagine a meeting of, you know, what's it like to be in a meeting with this person or my colleagues. And recognition is is the thing that uh it's like the fuel, the reward, the dopamine hit. Yeah, yes, we all want to contribute and we want to feel good that you know our skills are valued and how um the culture honors uh people. Yeah, I talked with a leader at a large organization, I can't say which one, but she said, you know, we know how to party, but we don't know how to celebrate. I thought, oh, that is so true. They can have the big annual event and everyone goes and you know parties it up, but they don't know how to honor and and celebrate the achievements of we did a thing that mattered, um and and you matter, and we we're grateful for you. So those are three little like leverage points that you know we can talk again about it. I know our time is perilously close to finishing here.

Jay Johnson 40:14

Well, and Joel, I this conversation has been so fun. I think we could have probably carried this on for two hours. Totally, totally. New long form podcast. That's right.

Joel Hilchey 40:24

If if if the audience wanted to get in touch with you, how would they reach out to you, Joel? You know, the the best way uh through my website, joelhilche.com. And um actually the the uh you can try if you like your very own self-assessment, a highly defective boss assessment uh at joelhilchy.com slash bosses. And uh you of course you can get the book wherever you like if you if you want, you should all buy it in triplicate. But uh the six and a half habits of highly defective bosses, is that correct? Six and a half habits of highly defective bosses, not because you're defective, uh listener. No, no, because we're you're accidental and we're all trying to be a little less terrible. Of course.

Jay Johnson 41:09

We'll make sure that's in the show notes. And uh, Joel, I just want to say thank you for your time, your energy. And like I said, I haven't stopped smiling literally since we started this conversation. This has not only been fun, but I know it is chalked full of great opportunities for this audience to walk into their next meeting, to their next onboarding session, to their next uh whatever it is, and create the conditions for connection. And that's really what I've been hearing today. So thank you so much for being here and sharing that. Uh, it's been a real privilege.

Joel Hilchey 41:40

Keep taking your work seriously, but uh, you can go easy on yourself, you know. Great. Thanks so much, Jay. This has been a uh it really has been a great privilege to uh to chat with you.

Jay Johnson 41:52

I feel the same. So and thank you, audience, for tuning into this episode of the Talent Forge, where together we are shaping workforce behaviors.