Building Thriving Workplace Cultures with Michael D. Levitt
Watch/Listen here or on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts“I believe as the leadership team goes, so goes the rest of the company. So if you don't have that consistent and significant sustainable growth, you've got some work to do.” — Mike Goldman
Michael D. Levitt, enables thriving workplaces. He's a burnout survivor, an AI solutions consultant, a global thought leader on HR and wellness, a therapist, a keynote speaker, an author, an executive coach, and the host of the Breakfast Leadership Team Show. In this episode, we explore what workplace culture really means, why it’s more important than ever, and the practical steps leaders can take to balance empathy, accountability, and results.
Defining Workplace Culture
True culture is about togetherness.
Culture thrives when diverse skills, perspectives, and passions unite toward serving customers and sustaining growth—even through crises.
Why Culture Matters Now
Culture has always been important, but today’s complexity (AI, hybrid work, generational differences, economic pressures) makes it even more critical.
Poor communication leads to disengagement and frustration; strong communication and trust allow resilience.
Leadership Blind Spots
Leaders often over-rely on past experiences instead of listening to their teams.
Trust issues in remote work highlight a deeper problem: lack of clarity on measurable results.
Remote/hybrid work pushes leaders to define outcomes more clearly.
Practical Steps to Build Culture
Meet organizations where they are—start with what’s working.
Use small, focused changes rather than trying to “fix everything.”
Culture should be guided by leadership but informed by employee input.
Leaders must model values; if they don’t live them, the culture becomes “all talk.”
Measuring Culture
Blend quantitative (productivity, turnover, client satisfaction) and qualitative measures (conversations, team energy, engagement).
Watch for early signals of culture decline, such as inconsistent performance or trust gaps.
Balancing Empathy and Accountability
Leaders need both care and discipline.
Example: addressing a once-strong employee facing personal struggles—balancing compassion with organizational needs.
Sometimes separation is necessary, but done with humanity.
Trust and Communication
CEOs often misread culture because employees treat them differently.
Leaders must build systems of honest feedback and trust, like Alan Mulally’s example at Ford.
Culture thrives when employees feel safe to speak the truth without fear.
One Small Change Leaders Can Make
Ask your team: “If you were in my seat, what would you do?”
Listen actively, implement small suggestions, and show that voices are heard.
Listening builds trust, reduces turnover, and strengthens culture.
Michael’s Work and Resources
Works with teams on culture, burnout recovery, and prevention.
Content, consulting, and podcast available at http://breakfastleadership.com/
Host of The Breakfast Leadership Show.
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Mike: My guest today, Michael D Levitt, enables thriving workplaces. He's a burnout survivor, an AI solutions consultant, a global thought leader on HR and wellness, a therapist, a keynote speaker, an author, an executive coach, and the host of the Breakfast Leadership Team show. No wonder, Michael, you're a burnout survivor.
that's a lot of stuff, but, welcome to the show.
Dr. Andrew Wittman: Great to be with you, Mike. Looking forward to our conversation today.
Mike: Michael, from all of your experience, what do you believe is the number one most important characteristic of a great leadership team?
Dr. Andrew Wittman: Togetherness. Now, I don't know if that's a word or not, but I'm gonna move them together. I think that, in any initiative. With an organization, when you move forward together, you can accomplish great things. And I see way too many organizations that [00:01:00] are anything but together. they're siloed, they're separate.
it's actually a wonder that anything gets done.
Mike: And I'm sure that will lead us right into the conversation we're gonna be having today, which is really gonna be focused on workplace culture. and, you know, culture is one of those words that, that's, overused. One of the words that, you know, you ask 12 people and they'll define it 10 different ways, if not 12 different ways. How do you. Define workplace culture.
Dr. Andrew Wittman: Very similar, you know, with the togetherness. But I think it's an environment where you have, and I've been fortunate to be part of organizations like this in my career, where you have a diverse group. And I'm not just talking about genders and race, I'm just talking about skillset and just upbringing and everything else.
When you can collectively bring together, some people that have an absolutely. Strong passion about [00:02:00] what they do and understand their part. Of the puzzle to make an organization successful to serve, the customer's current and future needs. When you have that, that's when you can just, quite frankly, create magic.
it's when you survive pandemics and economic downturns and tariffs and anything else that the world throws at us. your organization continues to thrive and grow and serve is because you've got a strong team. That's making all of the things happen that need to happen in the company
Michael, you, we hear so much about. Culture today and probably hear that word more often than I heard it years ago.
Mike: does culture matter more now with, you know, hybrid and remote work with ai, with everything going on in the world? Does culture matter more now or has it always been this important?
Dr. Andrew Wittman: I think [00:03:00] it's always been important, but. On the flip side of that, I think that the variety of generations we have in the workforce now, which we have a lot, and even Gen Alpha is gonna be coming into the workforce pretty soon if they're not already there. it's an interesting dynamic to watch because.
I'm Gen X, and what we find important and what we get out of work and what we put into work might be different than a Gen Z or a millennial or even a baby boomer. there are some variances, and I don't want to paint it with a broad stroke because I know many people, you know, in different age groups that have a different philosophy around work.
But ultimately, it boils down to this. When you go to work, you know, obviously it's there to compensate you and you exchange your time and efforts for compensation. But I think that the challenges that we face in the world has become more complex. So, kind of [00:04:00] coupling back to your question, I, I think it's more important now.
In a way, because the world today is more complex than it was even a decade ago or 20 years ago. there's so many different things, and as you mentioned, you with ai, remote work, hybrid work, those type of environments, there's been a lot of changes to the rules of in, in basically in work and a lot of leaders and employees, both.
I don't want to point fingers at either one. But both are trying to figure out how to navigate this world, and a lot of people are really struggling with it. And if there's not really good communication channels within an organization, then what happens time and time again is people get frustrated. And that frustration can come out in a variety of different ways.
A lot of times it could be bad management, a lot of times it could be. Absenteeism or disengagement, which we're [00:05:00] seeing, you know, all the studies are indicating that, you know, engagement in the workforce continues to drop, which is concerning, in many facets. But that's a long-winded answer to say it's never been more important than others, but it's always been important as well.
It's just, but there's a lot of dynamics going on in the world right now that's making it, a bigger issue than we, we've probably seen in the past.
Mike: Yeah, so, so it's all, what I'm hearing and I agree with you, is it's always been important. It's more complex now, way more complex now, and, you know, to, to. To your point of leaders having to navigate through that, as leaders are navigating through that, what do you feel like the biggest blind spot is for leaders that, because I've seen a lot of leaders that kind of think they're building culture, but they may actually be undermining it. What's, what do you see is maybe the biggest blind spot leaders have?
Dr. Andrew Wittman: I, I think [00:06:00] there's too much of a reliance of what they know and what they've experienced, and not necessarily, and this could be intentional or it could be accidental. a willingness to understand and learn from others that, are reporting to them. yes, we have mentors or we should anyway, and that can guide us in everything that we do.
But I think a lot of it has to do with just, you know, listening to your team, and trusting your team.
and I talk to people all the time and especially around the arena of should we allow remote work to continue or do we need to bring 'em in every day of the week? And I've had managers tell me, well, I don't trust my employees to do their job when they're working remotely.
And I said, well then you need to fire them right now. And they look at me, it's like I can't fire 'em. I need them. they're, they do great work. I'm like, but you don't trust them to do great work . But they do great work. I'm confused. And so are they, because their own, you know, their own head, they're confused about it because I [00:07:00] think a lot of it is they miss seeing people.
I think that's a big part of it. A lot of people say it's micromanagement and maybe there's an element of that, but I think a lot of it's just they miss the human interaction. I think that's what we're designed to do. So I think that's one of the reasons why so many have struggled. But, the blind spots that leaders see all the time is, you know.
Their own limiting beliefs and also just, you know, their own experiences and maybe not being exposed to, you know, different ideas of things that we can do.
Mike: Yeah. And going back to what you said about the idea of remote work, what I find interesting and I'm wondering what you see here, is when that, you know, back when COVID hit and remote work
was a new thing, there were. Leaders that were really confused as to how to deal with it. How do I know my people are productive if I can't see them? Which amazed me because I said, wait a minute, like, does productivity mean they're. Working long [00:08:00] hours, they're working hard. Do you have to see them or is productivity about measurable results? And I find you know what it is, what it's challenged the better leaders to do is to get better at figuring out what the measurable results are that they want to see.
And so it's not like, do I trust people to be working harder or not? It's. are they getting the results that we want? And I think pre remote work, people weren't as focused on defining what those measurable results were, and maybe remote and hybrid is challenging the better leaders to get better at figuring that stuff out.
Dr. Andrew Wittman: Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's, and it was a big challenge for a lot of managers that used to manage by being seen and constantly checking in on things. There wasn't the systems in place for them to. Say, okay, how do we actually measure what we do? You know, what are the outcomes? You know, one of the things you [00:09:00] know, that I completely borrowed from a boss that I had 25 years ago was, and he, I remember this and I, I shared this on my show in other shows in the past as I remember my first day working there at 3:32PM I remember the time specifically, he came to my cubicle and said, okay, I'm just gonna lay down the ground rules.
So what. I'd like to work here. I'm like, okay, here we go. And he said, I don't care when you get here. I don't care when you leave. Just make sure you keep me updated on what you need. If you have any issues, you know how to reach me. I deliver outcomes. I tell you when it's due. I hopefully you have all the tools you need to be able to do it.
Have fun while you work here. And I sat back in my chair going, you know, I think I'm gonna be here a while. And I was there for almost four years and this was during the.com era when everybody was bouncing around 'cause they were getting big salary raises and stock options and everything else. But I stayed at that organization and they took care of me quite well.
but it was because they created the [00:10:00] environment for me to thrive and. This is one of those things where I think managers still have a lot of work and leaders of all levels have a lot of work to do. They have to figure out, okay, what do we need to get done? What's the roadmap that we know of? 'cause you know, every time you know, start a project or anything like that, there's always gonna be an opportunity for something new, uncertain, change in scope.
You name it, there's all kinds of things that can throw things off, but as long as you know. What are we supposed to produce? When is it due? What do we need to have? Who do we have resource wise that can get this done? What's the estimated time that it's gonna take? Go to it. And you have obviously built in check-in periods so you don't go off the rails.
But too often managers, because they were never properly trained, how to manage, will be there every step of the way. instead of leading back and just going, okay, let me manage this instead of trying to do it. And I see it [00:11:00] time and time again where they just get over involved in it and end up slowing things down.
And I know a lot of managers don't like hearing that, but it's like, you're actually the bottleneck. They don't like hearing that, but it's like you're the bottleneck because you're kind, you're taking them away for these 30 minute sessions. Five times a week. You don't need to do that and give 'em what they need to do.
Let them do it. That's why you hired them. If you don't trust them and they can't do the job, then of course, you know, make a change. But you gotta let 'em try. you're teaching your kid how to ride a bike. If you're on constantly riding the bike for them, they're not gonna learn how to ride the bike.
Mike: What you wrote a book called Workplace Culture. You work with clients on their cultures. What are, when you work with a client, give me a sense of how you, and therefore a leader listening to this, might think about how they can go do this. How do you like kind of, where do you start? How should a leader be thinking about the different components of culture?
[00:12:00] And it's too easy to say, man, we gotta work on our culture, or morale stinks, or, I don't recognize this place. Like how do we take it and turn it into a set of steps? What. what are the first things they ought to look at and what are the components of culture that leaders ought to be thinking about and taking action on?
Dr. Andrew Wittman: Yeah. What I do is, and I don't start from page one type of thing. You meet people where they're at and you say, okay, what? You know, what is. Your situation, you know, asking from their point of view of what they would like to improve here, what's going well? And I start with what's going well. Because a lot of times when consultants come in, it's like, okay, what's broken?
What's not working? Like, no, what's going well here? Because there might be some clues in what they're doing well that could be applied to other areas of. Improvement that they would like to see. So you find out what's going well, and then from there you say, okay, what are some things you're seeing?
what [00:13:00] are the results that you want that you're not currently getting? You know, and just kind of get them to start thinking about that and get that mindset moving of, okay, these are the things I'm not seeing. and sometimes they could be biased and they say, well, I wanna see this. Okay, but you're getting the results, but you're not getting them the way that you want them, but you're still getting the results.
So you're basically doing a little forensic work trying to figure out, okay, how do they think, you know, what is something that they wanna see? And this could be an individual leader or the leadership team, or even the front lines, you know, asking them, you know, what do they want out of things. And from there.
And we start working. Okay, let's pick one area to focus on first, because if you try to change everything at once, and I learned this in my IT days, well, if something breaks, you don't know what broke it. You know, you change 15 things, well one of those 15 broke something, but you're not sure which one it is.
So it's like, let's start small, build some momentum, and then we can, you know, continue from there. But that's, you know, the [00:14:00] exercise that I walk them through. And then of course, you know, it's like, okay, what does. culture look like to you? What does that look like? And it might be, again, biased. You know, they may want the environment to be this way where the employees and the management team.
They want something different. So you gotta, and that's why you talk with as many people as you can to kind of get an idea of how many organizations you're dealing with there. Because in many cases, and you've seen this of course too, where you go into an organization, they say, well, we do this. And you ask, you know, like I said, 10 people and they give you 13 different answers of who you are.
And you're like, oh, okay, well I see the problem or one of 'em anyway. You guys don't know who you are and let's figure that out and then address it accordingly.
Mike: is the definition of culture driven from the top down or is it driven by what employees want? Is it driven from the bottom up?
Dr. Andrew Wittman: for the longest time, I always have [00:15:00] felt, and I still do to a certain extent , that, you know, the culture is dictated by the leader. when I took over a toxic workplace and reduced turnover, dramatically, it was because of me and my team and what I saw the team would do and how they could do it.
but. In unison. I did that by, you know, seeking the guidance from the team to ask 'em what type of environment they wanted. So I wasn't in this boat of, it's going to be this way. I wanted it to be what felt natural and. Welcoming and comfortable to a certain degree, to the team.
You know? 'cause if you give 'em everything they want, well then you still may not hit all your goals because, you know, people tend to lean towards comfort avenue instead of Challenge Road. And sometimes Challenge Road helps you grow and serve more people. So I still think it's the tone and the direction is from the leader.
But it would behoove the leader [00:16:00] and the managers to get the input from everybody to make sure that is the direction that everyone. You know, and you know, it doesn't have to be everyone, but what the team naturally gravitates to. Because unless you wanna do a complete turnover the team and bring in new people that agree with your vision, and sometimes you have to do that because you, things are just so entrenched.
It's like, oh, we gotta use a Jack Welch term and dehire a bunch of people. I prefer not to do that. I don't like doing that. I never have, but sometimes it's necessary. But I, again, to answer your question, I do think it's the leader that sets the direction and the tone of what the culture will be, but they have to understand who their team is because if you set a culture and the team isn't capable of doing that, then you know you're gonna run into a lot of friction, for quite some time.
Mike: Yeah, and I think the opposite of that, if you, if it is bottoms up where you're like, Hey, what does the team want? You know, I have, you know, teams [00:17:00] that do an exercise around what their core values are and they ask everybody in the organization. And they kind of boil all that up and say, here's what's important to everybody. That sounds nice. The problem I've had with that is if the leader of the company doesn't model those core values, if they're not a model of the culture, it becomes all talk. Right? if you say, here's our culture, and the leader does something different 'cause it's not who they are. then, you know, you've got a really big disconnect.
Dr. Andrew Wittman: Most definitely. You cannot say, this is how we do things, and then not do those yourself like. They say, okay, we want, you know, in office five days a week, which a lot of organizations are doing right now. and if you as the leader, aren't there five days a week, good luck. there's, people are gonna say, oh, I guess it's not for him or her.
And that's not a good thing. You [00:18:00] have to demonstrate and act. The act. And. If that's difficult for you, then again, it's a growth opportunity for you to say, okay, this is the culture I want. Well, then you have to behave and act that way and set the tone because many people mimic, you know, the behaviors of their leadership.
You know, whether it was, you know, people coming in late and all of this stuff and the leaders, you know, the first one there, all of a sudden you start seeing some people, I gotta show up a little bit earlier. and not that they're gonna beat you to the door, but you know, maybe they might. I've seen that where, you know, I tend to be an early riser and get in early
And I found that some people that tend to be a little bit later, all of a sudden, they just started coming in earlier. I didn't say a thing to them. I didn't say anything about their attendance, what time they came in and all that. I was, you know, borrowing from my former boss. I don't care when you get in here, just as long as you get your work done, you know, we're good.
I'm more concerned about productivity than okay. The hours that you were [00:19:00] here, you know, if you're really efficient and you get everything that you're supposed to get done in five hours instead of eight. Okay. You know, I'm not, you know, one of those people that, oh, you gotta gimme those extra three hours.
'cause we all know what productivity does. You know, if you're getting three hours of productivity outta somebody in an eight hour day, you're doing pretty good just because of all kinds of different factors involved in that. But it's, again, you have to, as a leader, you have to demonstrate the behavior that you want.
Because if you don't, well then you know they're gonna mimic you. And they're gonna say, well, he's just all talk. Or she's all talk. And why? Why would I listen to them? And all of a sudden the trust factor starts to erode or be completely gone. And then you have a really big challenge on your hands.
Mike: How do you know when you talk about. When we talk about productivity or results, that's very quantitative. We could measure that. When we talk about culture, and I'll use the word you used at the top of the show, togetherness is a way to [00:20:00] think about it.
When we talk about culture, that feels a lot more intangible, that feels a lot more qualitative and not quantitative. How do you, or can you, in your opinion, measure. Culture in a way that shows whether you've got an empowering culture or a disempowering one. If you are working on some culture change activities, is that culture, are those activities working or not? Is there a way to measure culture?
Dr. Andrew Wittman: There is, depending on what you again, define as culture, if. You want a culture where everybody is being, you know, productive. You can measure the productivity numbers, you can measure satisfaction scores. If you survey your clients on things, you can also survey, okay, what's attendance looking like?
Again, not being, you know, someone that's. Overly managing being say, okay, what time do they come in? What time do they leave? All that kinda stuff. You can also just [00:21:00] measure it in hallway conversations, or even if it's in remote teams, types of situations. You know, how are people interacting with each other?
Before the quote unquote meeting officially starts. So if, you know, if people are, you know, chatting, you know, in a group setting or something like that, or, you know, they're just, you know, making light of situations that are going on right now and just trying to be happy and jovial, or, again, there's a lot of intrinsic factors you can look at.
And that's, again, this goes down to, and this is not a micromanagement thing, but it's also the, you know, the check-in with your team.
And I remember during the pandemic, I was running a non-profit at the time, at the beginning of it anyway. And I remember when the first time we could collectively come together in person.
We were, you know, obviously separated in a big room in a boardroom that was big enough where we could keep distance and everybody was masked up and all of that. And normally for those meetings prior to the pandemic starting, [00:22:00] everyone would give a debrief of what's going on and, You know, basically, you know, they said, okay, let you know.
Let's go and start the meeting. And, you know, the first person starts said, well, here's the update on this. And I literally stood up and I just did a timeout. I said, okay, this meeting, we're not gonna talk about anything about work. We're gonna talk about. How are you doing? What's working for you? What challenges are you facing?
Anything you've learned to help you navigate what's going on right now in the world as far as getting access to things to share with everybody else. So if they're looking for help or guidance or where can we find toilet paper or you know, where can we get this or. Is there any places that you're hanging out and meeting with people?
And so we did that and at the end of the meeting,I asked, okay, is anything going on? And there was like two or three things that they need to bring up. Normally, you know, using Parkinson's law, let's fill up that meeting hour, where this, there was like a couple things that quite frankly could [00:23:00] have been an email when it came to the work related issues.
But it was a, I right now, I just care about. You as a human being, which I always do, but specifically now because this is pretty catastrophic of what we're going through. And that created an environment where people just could relax a little bit and they knew that, hey, you, if you need to do something to take care of something, do it.
Family comes first. we'll sort everything out later. And that was the environment that I wanted to have and thankfully did have there and inherited a lot of it there because it was already kind of there from the previous, person who was the founder of the organization that, unfortunately passed away.
So I came in replacing somebody that had been there forever. So that was obviously a, an interesting dynamic as well. And there was obviously a lot of concern about. Me coming in with my background going in and changing everything up and making it a business and all that, and it's like, no,I wanted to meet people where they were.[00:24:00]
Mike: How do you balance it? So, so you, that's a good example of being a leader that really cares not just about the business, but caring about your people. And, you know, I have seen over my 35 plus years coaching consulting is there are some leaders that really do care about their people, but they're not necessarily,they don't have that same. talent may be the wrong word, but they don't have that same focus on holding people accountable and having the difficult conversation. I've seen other leaders that are pretty good at holding people accountable and having the difficult conversation, but they don't show a lot of caring towards folks, how do you balance. Those two. if you know, you, if you're a CEO, you wanna create a culture that genuinely cares for people. How do you balance that with, the discipline and accountability [00:25:00] around getting results?
Dr. Andrew Wittman: Yeah, it's, yeah. Sympathy is a big thing. And I, and a lot, I know some people, you know, aren't very sympathetic or empathetic. I have a colleague that I've known for almost a decade, and she actually went and sought out professional empathy training because she did not have it. and she recognized that and she wanted to have it.
So, that was,I commend her for doing that, but, and I, it brings me up to an example.
I remember in running a healthcare clinic, I had a. a nurse that was absolutely amazing. just stellar. I didn't want to call her bunny rabbit 'cause that's not a, you know, but when she walked, she bounced. She was that happy.
and then she had a personal situation in her life that took a toll on her and she was no longer that happy go-lucky bunny rabbit. She was pretty down, making mistakes, [00:26:00] a lot of absenteeism. I am pretty sure there may have been some, addiction issues that were arising up. So it was front from, you know, your a number one all star employee to someone that is definitely having some challenges.
So, you know, had those difficult conversations and said, okay, you know, share what you can, 'cause I don't wanna get too personal, but. it's impacting the work here and do you need to take some time away? And so, you know, she took a couple weeks off, came back, wasn't bouncy again, but was a little bit better.
And then it reverted back to being, you know, problematic. Absent and all that and what was happening, the rest of the team are going, well, if she could take time off, so am I. And all of a sudden you're like, oh, great, now we have a problem. we have, this is contagious. Alright, we have a contagion here.
What are we gonna do about this? So, brought her in again and said, look, you know, we're, we can't have this, I know you're going through some difficult [00:27:00] times. Do we need to adjust your schedule, cut your schedule back a little bit so you can address whatever you need to do personally, but need you here. And when you're here, I need you also here.
And again, there was a little bit of a rebound, but then it went back again. I'm like, okay, so, you know, basically you brought her in and she said, you know what, I think I need to step away. I think I'm gonna quit because, you know, this is not good. And I said, well, for you to get unemployment insurance and continued benefits and things like that, why don't I, let you go so you know, and make sure your benefits continue for a period of time. Give you a little bit of a severance and send you on your way and hope, please get your help. And I saw her a year later and she had cleaned up, rebounded life was good again, was in a good role. I gave her a reference, and corrected the issue.
Was it difficult to go through? Yeah, but it needed to happen because otherwise I would've had several people doing that thing. And [00:28:00] again, that it's a one off type of situation, but we're dealing with human beings and sometimes we wanna use this boiler plate, template to say, okay, the next step, this and this.
But humans are messy. And sometimes you have to get in the mud a little bit to kind of figure out, alright, what do we need to do here to hopefully help the employee return to being a productive one? Or, you know, look for an opportunity to, make a change, as, as pleasant as possible to make that situation as pleasant as possible.
'cause it's never pleasant.
Mike: We, we talked earlier about the importance of the leader. That CEO of the organization, defining and modeling culture. One of the challenges that I've seen is the leader of the organization or even the leader of a team. Might be partially blind to what's really going on in that team.
There's an assessment that I [00:29:00] do with teams and it assesses all parts of the team, and part of it is some questions around whether they have a powerful, resilient culture. And what I find is almost always the CEOs believe the culture is stronger. That everybody else believes. And part of it is that people treat the CEO in a certain way because their name's on their checks.
They're gonna treat them a certain way, and the CEO doesn't necessarily see how that person is treating. Someone else, I've had a leader say, oh, this person, real challenge. they're pessimistic. they're not collaborative with team members. They're disrespectful to, and the CEO says, wait a minute, are we talking about the same person? Like, they never act that way towards me. And it's like, yeah, 'cause you're the CEO people treat you a certain way, so. [00:30:00] For the CEOs or even the team leaders, listening to this, what are some signals that they should look for to tell them that their culture is sliding to tell them that their culture isn't as resilient and empowering as they think it is.
what should a leader be looking at to help them understand if they've got a problem.
Dr. Andrew Wittman: Yeah, I think there's several things. One, you know, the metrics, you know, look at performance. If performance is sliding a little bit or is not where it could be, that could be an indicator. Another thing that, and this is a really a slippery slope, you gotta be careful with this. you have to have trusted advisors.
and what I mean by that is, you know, have people that are in the, using a union term, rank and file, that aren't a manager. You know, maybe they're. You know, and just, you know, I, you know, not a manager, but just a, one of the [00:31:00] employees there. Create an element of trust where they can bring things to you, not a spy or a mole kind of thing.
You don't want that because then that creates all kinds of different dynamics that you really do not want to have, but you wanna talk with some people and kind of get the pulse and get them, and this is hard. But to earn their trust where they can confidently share with you some insights.
And like the example you said, you know, there could be an employee that is constantly kissing the CEO's butt, but you find out that they are, you know, an absolute horrible person to work with, or problematic. They don't collaborate. they take all the credit and do none of the work kind of thing.
And if you're aware. And again, it's difficult. This is not a skill that everybody has. It's something you can learn, but it's not a skill everybody has where you can be aware of situations and go, okay, yeah, I'm seeing this, but the feel is a little bit different. there's something off here and you just approach it in a way and you [00:32:00] can ask questions that can kind of flush some of those things out, but.
Bottom line is you have to create an environment where people trust you and can be the real version of you. Yes. There's always gonna be that looking up to the CEO and you're the thank you so much for this job, but one of the things that I do is I want you to be real with me. I want you to have.
Those, you know, if you need to bring something to me, do it. You know, I think of Alan Mulally when he took over Ford Motor Company and it was bleeding money and all the reports that he was getting was, Hey, we're doing great, which was just complete bull. And finally one person showed up, with a report that showed, okay, we're in the red on this and this, and Mulally cheered.
And then the next week everybody showed up with the true reports and they realized. Okay. Wow. we're in bad shape here. And he was thrilled. He's like, finally, okay, now we can start doing the work we need to do. 'cause everybody's afraid CEO will fire me. Well, yeah, the CEO EO can fire you of course.
But you know what [00:33:00] a way around that is, you know, go in, do your job to the best of your ability. and you know, hopefully everything works out for the best. But it's, again, for me, from my vantage point, it. Earning trust is a daily exercise. It's not a well, they trust me now. And then you just, you know, put it on autopilot.
No, it's, it is an everyday exercise and being a leader and a CEO is not an easy task, but it's well worth it.
Mike: Yeah, and I love the Alan Malali Ford story. And by the way, if you're interested in learning more about that, there's a wonderful book called American Icon that tells that story. and I know that story well, and the gentleman you're talking about is Mark Fields who decided he was gonna be honest.
And what I love about that story. Is around that leadership table when Mark Field says We're in the red. and everybody else, you know, thought he was gonna get his head chopped off because that's what would've happened in the previous administration. Alan said, thank you for your honesty. Let's all [00:34:00] figure out how we're gonna help Mark. And all of a
sudden everybody realized, oh crap. we're a team here. This is not about individuals.
Dr. Andrew Wittman: And Mark ended up being CEO of Ford for a while too. So it's, it speaks volumes to that. You know, I had the fortune to meet Alan at a conference several years ago, and, you know, I told him, I was, you know, basically, I originally from Detroit, so, had some ties. I thanked him for,
the courage that it took for him to take that role. 'cause yes, you, you get offered a role and you take it, all that stuff. As a leader, there's an element of courage, especially if you're taking an organization that is bleeding, which it definitely was when he. Took over the reins and you know that Ford was the one of the big three that did not take, government money.
GM and Chrysler both filed bankruptcy, during the Great recession. Ford did not. And a lot of that had to do with, the work that Alan did to prevent that from happening.
Mike: Yeah. Love that story. Love that story.
If, you know, as we start to wrap up, I wanna. [00:35:00] To help, our listeners come up with one action they can take. So, so if a leader could make just one small change to create a thriving workplace, to create a great workplace culture, if a leader could make just one small change tomorrow to start improving their culture, what would you advise them to do?
Dr. Andrew Wittman: When I turned over a healthcare organization that was averaging almost 90% turnover annually, that's nine out of 10 people leaving master's level and above educated clinicians in doctors leaving. Every year and after my first year there, I reduced it to 6%, so less than one out of 10. What did I do? I went in and I met with everybody and I asked them this question, if you were in my seat, what would you do?
I said, nothing's off the table. You're not gonna get in trouble. I'm not going to [00:36:00] fire you over anything. You say, this is a safe place right now. I basically went into therapist mode. It's like, this is a safe environment. I'm not gonna hold it against you. this is your truth, this is what you feel. What would you do?
And everybody, more or less, you know, shared some ideas, insights, some more than others. And I looked for low lying fruit. I'm like, okay, is there any of these things I can implement right away? And I had approval from the board to do it. So I did. I implemented a handful of things and next thing you know they went, we have a CEO that listens to us.
And that turned the page and it took time, but we got it. And thankfully with that team, you know, I didn't have to let go anybody, and I didn't give out raises either, you know, that was one of everybody thought, oh, you just gave 'em a bunch of extra money to quiet 'em up. No, I didn't. I didn't give anybody a dime.
I made them feel like their voice would be heard and that [00:37:00] I made it a point to. Understand them and what they felt was important, what they wanted to do in that healthcare setting. And it changed outcomes. It improved performance. Yes. I eventually gave people salary increases, but not right then I was like, let's change this environment.
And I think that was a big part of why they had so much turnover is there was just no trust. No one would listen and everybody just felt like they were on an island by themselves. And I'm like,no. we're all on this island together and hopefully we can,do something great with it.
Mike: So, so sounds simple, but it's not to execute what you're talking about. It's having the good, open, honest conversations, really listening and then taking the right action, which doesn't sound like rocket science and it's not, but it's just. Something most leaders don't prioritize the time to do so. I love that.
Michael, how,
well, I mentioned some of these things, a whole bunch of these things, you know, in your intro, but tell me a little bit [00:38:00] more about the different ways you work with clients and the types of clients you work with.
Dr. Andrew Wittman: Yeah, for me, I'm fortunate to get to do a lot of different things. Obviously I have my show, which you'll be on later today, which is really cool to get to have two conversations the same day with awesome people, so I'm very thankful for that. So, the Breakfast Leadership Show available on all the podcast platforms.
do a ton of content creation on our website, breakfast leadership.com. Just look for the link articles. There's all kinds of content that gets created there all the time. working with teams and individuals, mostly teams right now I do, a little bit of individual work from time to time. I'm a cognitive behavioral therapist and neurolinguistic programming or NLP is a whole lot easier to say, therapist.
And, you know, I obtained those certifications a few years ago when I kept running up against the same issues time and time again with people and why they were stressed and why they were burned out. So I work with teams to help them with. You know, their culture to figure out, you know, [00:39:00] what's the culture that they want, not the culture that I prescribe.
This is how you should do it. I want what will naturally fit for that organization. For that organization to grow and thrive because it's a. As a citizen of this great, beautiful blue planet that we're on. I want organizations to thrive. I want them to be great. Why? Because they make great products and services that we all get to benefit from.
So that's my mode on that. And then of course, you know. Too much work, unfortunately, on burnout, recovery, I'd much rather do prevention, but as we know in healthcare, it's all about recovery. not as much time and focus on prevention, but working with people to kind of help them get back to their ideal state for them.
And then if they're willing to do the deeper dive to figure out why in the world did I burn out in the first place and make whatever adjustments they need to do. So I'm very fortunate that I get to do all the things that I get to do.
Mike: Yeah. Beautiful. and where should people go? You quickly mentioned the breakfast leadership website, I think, [00:40:00] but what's the best place for people be? For people to go if they wanna find out more about you and how you might be able to
help them.
Dr. Andrew Wittman: Yeah, breakfastleadership.com is probably the best place. links are all there where you can find all kinds of different things to do and, you know, enjoy that rabbit hole. 'cause I get to do a lot of fun things and I enjoy doing. Everybody tells you, you know, focus on something. I'm like, I'm trying, but.
You know, I have too many interests and I want to help too many people. So I like, I adapt, I do the writing, I do the podcast. I, you know, there's, you know, the coaching consulting, there's music and there's a music link there. You know, write some music. So there, it's just, which is really interesting 'cause my original career was an accountant, and you're not supposed to be creative when you're an accountant.
So, thankfully I left
Mike: That's why you're not an accountant anymore.
Dr. Andrew Wittman: Yeah, it's like, no. Creative accounting gets you in jail, so you don't wanna do that. but yeah, so, just breakfastleadership.com.
Mike: Excellent. Well, I always say if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team. Michael, thanks so [00:41:00] much for helping us get there today.
Dr. Andrew Wittman: Thank you so much, Mike.