There was a time not so long ago when leading felt
simpler.
You hired the right people, offered competitive pay, provided basic
benefits. People showed up, they did their job, and went
home. But fast-forward to today, and that world feels like such a
distant memory.
And it’s made me obsessed with this one single question, which is this:
how do we create a culture so good where our people feel
so cared for that they never want to leave?
And after looking at every metric, the single greatest factor is
this:
whether or not your people feel cared for by their direct leader and the
people around them. It’s as simple as that.
And as crazy as that sounds, learning this lesson for me started when I
was 14.
I’m sitting in the backyard with my dad, and I turn to my dad and say, “Dad,
how do I build something great in life?”
He thought for a second, and he said, “Find what you love and you’ll build
something amazing.”
I loved boxing. I was training for my first amateur
boxing fight, working at the local boxing gym, and I turned to my dad and said,
“Let’s sell boxing gloves.” He said, “Let’s do it.” And over the next
several years, I’d go on to outfit thousands of athletes all over the world,
UFC fighters, world champion boxers, Joe Rogan, and more.
Those Diamond MMA guys, those guys are pretty dedicated.
I went on to build a multimillion-dollar manufacturing company, working with
brands like Peloton, Traeger, Birchbox, Gravity Blankets, and
more. And what I learned during that time was that care wasn’t just a
strategy. It was the backbone of our success.
It fueled trust, sparked innovation, and was the greatest thing that kept my
team engaged during rapid times of growth.
And then the hardest thing in my life happened.
After losing my best friend,
my dad, while growing my business,
my mom was diagnosed with cancer.
When it’s cold outside
I’ve got the month of May
Those months were transformative for me.
I realized during that process that everyone on our team carries a whole
world with them outside of work. They’re welcoming little ones into the world.
They’re caring for aging parents.
They’re experiencing moments of joy and moments of loss.
And when they come to work, what makes the difference is knowing
their leader and their team truly care for them,
and that realization changed everything for me.
When you take care of what matters most, your people, they’ll take care of the
rest. They’ll take care of your customers, they’ll take care of your business,
and they may even go as far as to make the company mission their own.
After over a decade of building companies and working with organizations all over
the world, here’s what I’ve learned.
We fundamentally misunderstand employee engagement and
retention. People will stay longer and give their best when one
single thing is present: when they feel cared for by their leader and
each other. The three areas where individuals will feel most
cared for is when they feel safe, understood, and connected.
Safety is the most foundational building block of all great culture.
What I mean by safety is they want to know they’re in a safe environment, where
they’re safe to make mistakes, where they’re safe to speak up, where they’re safe
to challenge the status quo, but also safe in their job.
In order to understand our people, we need to first let go of
assumptions. As a leader, making assumptions about our people is one
of the most dangerous things we could do.
Yet people make assumptions all the time.
An acquaintance of mine recently in healthcare, she called me the other day and she
goes, “You know what, Danny? My people are so hard to motivate.
All they’re interested in is money.” And I asked her, “How do you know that to be
true?
Have you even asked them?” To which she said, “No.”
When our employees feel understood, not surface level, but
deeply understood, you’ll unlock their very best.
If we want to get the best from our people, we need to seek to
understand what they’re going through at any given time, both in work and outside
of work. Because the better we can understand our people, the better we can
serve them.
My invitation to all of you
is to go beyond your given role, to be more for your people,
because you can.
Look, as I think about the future of work, I can’t help but think about the
impact we can have on those we lead.
We have this incredible opportunity to give our people the greatest gift,
a level of care so deep that it impacts their
life beyond just their role.
Maybe the question we need to all be asking is this:
how do we create a level of care that is so profound that our people can’t
help but care back?
