[Perspective Series] The Power of Joyful Leadership With Greg De Koker

Greg De Koker is the Founder and Chief Joy Officer of JOY², a leadership and culture ecosystem that helps organizations use joy as a strategic advantage to build trust, connection, and performance. He is a brand and culture transformation strategist, speaker, and executive coach with decades of experience helping leaders build high-functioning, high-performing cultures. Greg is also the host of the JOY² — Live With Joy podcast and author of the upcoming book JOY² — The Hidden Power of Joy in Leadership. His work encourages leaders to create workplaces where employees thrive, and customers win intentionally.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [2:29] Greg De Koker discusses how JOY² helps companies build organizations that employees love and customers trust

• [5:15] Why workplace suffering and disengagement often stem from leadership problems

• [7:32] Using stakeholder interviews to uncover the reality of company culture

• [13:10] Creating customized strategies to transform and strengthen company culture

• [17:59] Greg explains why joy should be the foundation and fuel for business success

• [21:12] Balancing cultural alignment with employee performance and accountability

• [25:24] Creating emotional safety for honest feedback and crucial conversations

• [28:49] The importance of maintaining human connection with employees and customers
  

In this episode…

Many organizations struggle with employee disengagement, weak workplace cultures, and a disconnect between the promises they make to customers and the experiences they actually deliver. When employees do not feel heard, valued, or safe providing feedback, those internal problems can ultimately affect customer relationships and business performance. How can leaders intentionally build a culture where employees thrive and customers win?

Greg De Koker, a brand and culture transformation strategist and executive coach, recommends treating joy as a foundation for success rather than a reward that comes after hitting performance goals. He encourages leaders to gather candid feedback from employees, customers, partners, and suppliers to understand their current culture, then define where they want the organization to go and close the gap. Greg also emphasizes creating emotional safety, asking employees directly for feedback, setting clear expectations, and addressing performance issues before they damage the broader culture.

In this episode of The Customer Wins, Richard Walker interviews Greg De Koker, Founder and Chief Joy Officer of JOY², about building a joyful, high-performing workplace culture. Greg discusses employee engagement, emotional safety and feedback, and aligning company culture with customer experience.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• Quik!

• Richard Walker on LinkedIn

• Greg De Koker on LinkedIn

• JOY²

• JOY² Live With Joy

• JOY² — The Hidden Power of Joy in Leadership by Greg De Koker

• "Building Startup Success on Fundamentals With Brian Herr" on The Customer Wins

• "Building Trustworthy Brands in an AI World With Sasha Strauss" on The Customer Wins

• "Building Trust-Driven Tech Partnerships With Brian Hyman" on The Customer Wins

• "[Perspective Series] The Art of Wonder: Solving Problems Through Magic With Dan Trommater" on The Customer Wins

  
  

Quotable Moments:

• “Joy is the most underutilized leadership asset and the most renewable energy source inside a company.”

• “People don't quit companies. They quit leaders, they quit their managers, they quit cultures.”

• “Joy isn't the reward for success. It's the fuel and the foundation for it.”

• “The more that employees love their job, the more your customers are going to love the company.”

• “People want to be involved in decisions that affect them.”

  
  

Action Steps:

1. Lead with joy in the workplace: Treating joy as a foundation for success can help employees feel more engaged and fulfilled while creating more positive experiences for customers.

2. Ask employees for honest feedback: Proactively requesting feedback can create a culture where people feel safer sharing concerns and ideas while helping leaders identify problems before they affect employees or customers.

3. Listen to multiple stakeholders: Gathering perspectives from employees, customers, partners, and suppliers provides a more complete picture of company culture and makes it easier to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement.

4. Address performance problems directly: Giving employees clear expectations, feedback, training, and opportunities to improve demonstrates that leaders care about their success while ensuring difficult employment decisions do not come as a surprise.

5. Align company culture with the brand promise: Defining what the organization stands for helps employees make consistent decisions and ensures the customer experience reflects what the company promises.

   
   

Sponsor for this episode...

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Episode Transcript:

Intro: 00:02 

Welcome to The Customer Wins podcast, where business leaders discuss their secrets and techniques for helping their customers succeed and in turn, grow their business.

Richard Walker: 00:16 

Hi, I'm Rich Walker, the host of The Customer Wins, where I talk to business leaders about how they help their customers win and how their focus on customer experience leads to growth. Some of my past guests have included Brian Herr of StartingBlocks, Sasha Strauss of Innovation Protocol, and Brian Hyman of High Meadow Solutions. And this is a special episode in my Perspective series, where I talk to leaders who bring in a fresh view of business and customer experience. And today I'm speaking with Greg De Koker of JOY², and today's episode is brought to you by Quik!, the leader in enterprise forms processing. When your business relies upon processing forms, don't waste your team's valuable time manually reviewing the forms.

Instead, get Quik! using Quik!. You'll be able to generate completed forms and get back clean, context rich data that reduces manual reviews to only one out of 1000 submissions. Visit quickforms.com to get started. All right, before I introduce today's guest in full, I want to give a big thank you to my friend Dan Trommater, master magician and keynote speaker and a prior guest on this show. Go check out his website at dan.com to learn how you can see things from a new perspective.

 All right. Greg De Koker is a brand and culture transformation strategist, speaker, executive coach, and the host of the JOY² Live With Joy podcast. Greg helps leaders build organizations where people thrive and customers win. Greg, this is music to my ears. Through his coaching, speaking, podcasts and upcoming book JOY² The Hidden Power of Joy in Leadership.

 He inspires, energizes, empowers people to live, work, and lead with more joy intentionally. His vision is to positively impact 44 million people by 2030 and ignite a global joyous squared movement. Greg, welcome to The Customer Wins.

Greg De Koker: 02:07 

Well, thanks, Rich, and thanks, Dan for connecting us. Appreciate it. Great to be here. Yeah.

Richard Walker: 02:12 

Love it. So for my audience who may not have heard my podcast before, I love to talk to business leaders about what they're doing to help their customers win, how they build and deliver a great customer experience and the challenges to growing their own companies. So Greg, let's understand your business a lot better. How does your company help people?

Greg De Koker: 02:29 

Yeah, thanks for the thanks for starting off with that. So I help my clients build organizations that employees love, customers trust and everyone raves about. And at the heart of everything I'm doing now is joy. I believe that joy is the most underutilized leadership asset and the most renewable energy source inside a company. The company's biggest competitive advantage and also the fastest path to performance.

So that's kind of the overview, you know of it. And it's really about getting clear how the company is operating. I mean you talk a lot and we've talked about, you know how people love working with you. That's because you're taking incredible and exquisite care of your team. So not every company does.

 Right. And there's a huge disengagement epidemic. You know, it's the worst it's been in ten years. There are more employees suffering. There's a lot of suffering going on in the world, too.

 And my focus is on changing the conversation. You know, I've always said like, it's a leader's responsibility to create a high functioning, high performing culture where employees win and employees feel good and they look forward to coming to work and they feel seen, heard and valued and all that stuff. But that message hasn't been getting through. So now I've changed it a little bit, and I say it's a leader's responsibility to reduce the suffering at work as much as possible. And it.

 And it sounds awkward, I know. And it is awkward because, you know, people shouldn't be suffering as much as they do. They do. Like people are quietly quitting. That's a term that came up not too long ago from Gallup, right?

 Employees are quietly quitting. They're kind of resigning without actually quitting, doing the bare minimum, checking their emotions at the door and just collecting a paycheck. And people don't quit companies. They quit leaders, they quit their managers, they quit cultures. So I really want to change that conversation.

 And, you know, one leader, one company at a time.

Richard Walker: 04:31 

Isn't it kind of crazy though, Greg? You learn about business in this box, right? It builds widgets, it sells to people, it does these functions. And you go get a job in this box. In business school, we're not taught how to build an amazing culture.

We're not taught about how to build community and happiness. And the people that we work with, we're just taught, go build a business. It's capitalism. People buy it or they don't buy it. And I mean, I've looked at this for a very long time as culture, culture, culture that is the foundation of all businesses.

 But most people I know don't think that way. So how do you change this? I mean, I actually don't want to buy into the idea of reducing suffering because of that.

Greg De Koker: 05:10 

Means.

Richard Walker: 05:11 

Suffering is part of the job. Why, why, why is suffering part of the job?

Greg De Koker: 05:15 

I know it's become part of the job, unfortunately. I mean, people are, you know, they do not enjoy it, they don't look forward to going to work there. It's crazy they're not engaged. And it's usually management, it's a leadership epidemic. It's a leadership problem.

And it's really about trying to get clear what's going on in the company. You know, you talk about culture and you also talk about how the customer wins, which I love. Two important topics for me as well. And one great, really quick way to understand a company's culture is to be a customer and experience what you're getting from the employees. In that instant.

 You get a glimpse into their culture, a huge glimpse, right? So I think it's like we've lost touch with what's important. You know, it's like, you know, that old command and control philosophy, you know, from leadership, it's like, check your emotions at the door, come in, get the work done. Let's focus on performance, let's focus on the metrics. And then if we hit the milestones, then we get to celebrate.

 Then joy is a reward. I'm trying to reverse that equation, saying joy isn't the reward for success. It's the fuel and the foundation for it. Like, let's treat people with respect and have fun. Let's do great work and have fun doing it like you do at your job.

Richard Walker: 06:26 

This is such an interesting dichotomy because we don't celebrate our wins that big here quickly. We have wins like Friday. We, we, we got a partner deal done and it means more revenue. And the customer is excited. We're excited.

I mean, it was worth celebrating, right? But it's a Slack message. Everybody's a high five. But honestly we're doing that all day long, all week long across the board across all sorts of other things happening. And I feel like if you're constantly manifesting joy in the organization, if people are happier, it's not a big spike in win.

 It's just this consistent kind of rolling.

Greg De Koker: 07:00 

That's right.

Richard Walker: 07:01 

Feeling. So I want to go back. I think I've achieved this because I'm a founder with passion, and I'm a founder who said, I want to do my best work, so I'm going to build a culture that empowers me to do my best work. And guess what? Other people want to do the same.

So they're attracted to that. But most companies are not founder-led anymore. They don't have that original zeal and passion for that. So how do you bring that to leadership when they're all about numbers and performance and not losing their job? And CYA how do you inspire that?

Greg De Koker: 07:32 

You know, one of the first things I like to do with companies that I'm working with is I want to find out what's really going on. I call it a reality check. So I'll go and I'll interview stakeholders one on one, confidentially, inside and outside the company. So I don't want just the ivory tower perspective. And hey, here's what's going on.

Here's what's working well, and here's what isn't. That's incredibly important, but it's not the complete picture. I want the complete picture in order for me to do my job and really help them create a culture that is high functioning and high performing, where employees are engaged and empowered and they don't feel managed, they feel moved. Like that's a huge distinction, right? And not moving out the door moved me emotionally, right?

 In a way that supports the customer experience and supports everything that they're trying to do internally. So I'll go and I'll interview a cross-section of internal clients. So internal employees, their clients or customers, whatever they call them, and also strategic partners or suppliers. So it's a well rounded perspective. And it really started off from my first book that I co-authored.

 It was a best selling book for five years called brand. It ain't the logo. It's what people think of you. So the first stage is, let's go find out what people think of you. Like, let's find out what your brand is all about.

 Because that other brand is culture, right? That's a direct reflection of your culture. So that's the first stage. Yeah.

Richard Walker: 08:52 

I discovered over time that our culture is our brand. They're one and the same.

Greg De Koker: 08:57 

That's right. It's synonymous. It's the only term I've been able to come up with. And we've been able to come up with something that's synonymous with the brand.

Richard Walker: 09:03 

Yeah, it is about how people feel. Over 15 years we have had three different consultancies. Do what you say. They went out and talked to our partners, vendors, everybody that they could talk to, internal, external. And what was remarkable is that the feedback mirrored our four cultural tenets.

Yeah, people would say, oh, we love working with the guys at Quik! because they're just so happy. They're so fun. And one of our things is we love what we do. And so we just saw over and over again this reflection of our cultural tenets. And I'm like, wait a minute.

 Our brand is our culture, our promise to people. So as an example, Greg and I don't want to go too far into this, but we're changing our brand promise right now to turn forms into trust. So that's a slogan, right? And it's a brand promise. But underlying that is still our culture, which is why you trust us.

 You trust us because of our working relationship and how we work with each other. But I still have argued this over and over again with other CEOs and peers of mine, like, why aren't you building a better culture? If you want the performance you're after, why aren't you focused on culture? And they just don't get it. How, how, how do you break through?

 I mean, I seriously want to understand how do you get people to wake up to this and go, no, that's the key. Go do it.

Greg De Koker: 10:18 

Well, and it's interesting because just real quickly, everything you just said, I kind of summarize as marketing makes the promise and the culture determines whether it gets delivered or not. So it's easy for marketing to kind of make, you know, and I call it the empty promise trap because most of those promises, you know, don't get delivered because it's not reflected in the culture. And employees aren't clear about the brand or the brand promises and or they are, but they don't know how to deliver it there. There isn't leadership by example. There aren't any conversations about it.

There aren't metrics or even examples or stories or meetings or, you know, that really talk about it. And so one of the things I do is once I understand what the current perceptions are, you know, after doing all the stakeholder interviews, then I find out, well, now that we know what people think of you now, what do you want people to think of you? Like, what is your essential truth? What are those desired perceptions? I called the essential truth in the book. We called it Brand Foundation seven very clear, concise and compelling elements, you know, from your core purpose, vision, mission values, position, positioning, statement, which some people call tagline and also character.

 And then we'll come up with those. And once we've nailed those and obviously those interviews help to inform those. And often they exist somewhere out there. If its founder led or not. We get back to, you know, why was the company started in the first place?

 Why does it exist not just to make money, which is the obvious first answer? That's not the reason, right? What's the real, you know, like. Let's dive into it. What's at the heart of it?

 And often, you know, now if we know where the company is at and where they want to get to, then how do we close that gap? How do we align leadership, culture and people so that they're delivering on that promise, one, that they know it and two, that they don't? So that's a huge piece, often a missing piece. Both of those, they don't exactly know where they're at and they don't know where they want to get to. So how are they making decisions?

Richard Walker: 12:06 

Oh my gosh. Right. Driving a boat in the middle of the ocean with no compass. Yeah.

Greg De Koker: 12:10 

Going to the airport and not knowing where you're going to fly to. Same same thing. Yeah.

Richard Walker: 12:14 

Some people like that.

Greg De Koker: 12:17 

That is true. I mean, yeah, maybe not, maybe not the best way to run your business. But as far as spontaneous adventures, yeah, I'm all for that adrenaline rush. Yeah.

Richard Walker: 12:27 

No, I think that's a really good point that if you haven't figured that out, and I feel fortunate that I figured out my company culture before I started my company because I was seeking, how do I fulfill my potential? How do I enjoy what I love to do? I get to do what I love to do, etc. and I came into this business with that mindset. But I know a lot of people don't know what it is, and they've just kind of built this thing and it's kind of wobbling on all the legs and they're like, what is it we have? Right.

Greg De Koker: 12:54 

Right.

Richard Walker: 12:55 

Yeah, I think that's a really good point and a hard challenge because then once you have identified it, I mean, creating culture takes a long time. What do you do to help people actually make these transitions and make them smoothly and really take root in effect?

Greg De Koker: 13:10 

Yeah. I mean, there's lots of different ways. And what I tell my clients is we're going to come up with a way that kind of honors where you are and honors where you want to get to. That's specific and customized to you. So often it's letting people know we hear you, first of all, like, thank you for participating in the survey, the interviews we've heard you and we have maybe 100 suggestions.

We can't implement all those at once, but we are like, we have now a strategic plan. We know what our priorities are. We know how we're going to close that gap. We know how we're going to listen more to stakeholders, and we know how we're going to treat people better. So one is just making that information accessible.

 So it's not an exercise in vain, right? It's not just like, hey, we did a survey, an engagement survey, survey, whatever kind of survey they did or surveys, we did some interviews and we hope things get better. That in and of itself, just listening to people already sends out the right message. But I tell clients like, this is a road that once we go down, there's really no turning back doesn't mean you have to work with me forever. I mean, I let people know, like, I don't want you.

 I don't want to work with you forever. I mean, I want to set you up so that you're, you're set up for success. You've got the tools to do it. You've got the workshops, the orientations, the ambassador, brand ambassador sessions, whatever we create for them so that they can run and they're running in the right direction and employees are running with them. And it's and everyone's aligned and we've closed those gaps from, you know, who they are and who they want to be and how they're treating their employees.

 And feedback is such a huge thing. People aren't having the crucial conversations that they need to because they're afraid to. And Rich, there is one I was presenting to you. It was a panel of mining executives, senior level mining executives, and I was talking about joy as the, you know, the hidden power of joy and leadership and the power and you know, of that. And it's the most underutilized leadership asset and trade and all that great stuff.

 And one of the guys, before I even finished my presentation, he's like, can I ask you a question now? And I was like, yeah. He goes, Greg, I love this. You know, I love your energy. I believe everything you're saying, but how am I supposed to talk to my guys on the front line, the miners about joy?

 What kind of answer to your question, Rich to like specifically? I said, well, that's a great question. And we're diving right in right early on. And I said, well, maybe it's about using that word joy. Like most companies don't say, hey, we have a joy problem.

 You know, it's like, hey, you know, you don't hear too many companies saying that. So it's like, you know, maybe there's a retention problem. Maybe they're not able to hire the best talent. Maybe they're not doing a great job of training. They're not engaged.

 People are quitting. You know, there's lots of different performances. There's lots of different things. And so I said, well, I mean, it kind of you can there's lots of different ways to answer that question. But I said, do you care about your employees?

 And he's like, yeah, of course I do. And then I said, well, the second big question is, do they know you care about them? And he's like, well, I think so. And I said, okay, well, there may be a gap right there. So how do you let your employees know that you really care about them?

 And I said, could your employees actually come up and ask you or could you go to your employees sorry, and ask them, do you enjoy coming to work? Do you look forward to coming to work? Do you enjoy being at work? That's a huge question, right? And studies and research have shown that unless you build that trust, they're not going to give you the real answer, especially unless they're happy they're right.

 Unless they really do enjoy being there. Because if they're not, they feel if they're honest, they may get fired. Why would you want to keep an employee? He's not happy with his job. At work.

 So how do you create that safe thing? And maybe it starts off with those little questions, those little interactions, spending more time on the front line. How's your day going? Anything I can do to make it better? Anything that's in your way of doing your job, anything I can do to facilitate it and just start to bridge that conversation.

 It doesn't have to be the big question right out of the gate, which is a big confronting question for most employees.

Richard Walker: 17:08 

You know, this is really interesting because you're right, nobody's going around saying, I want to create more joy. You need to have more joy, right? It's not. Except me.

Greg De Koker: 17:15 

Except.

Richard Walker: 17:16 

Well, yeah, but you're doing it in a novel way. Yeah. I really am thinking that, like, money is an outcome of a well-run business. Yeah. Joy is an outcome of a well-run business.

Yes. That's what we're looking at is what are the things we put in place so that joy is an outcome of what you do in your day to day, in your in your month to month. Because sometimes it is freedom, creativity, sometimes it's money. I mean, people do get joy from making more money. Their lives get better for sure.

 That's an aspect, right? Other parts of business purpose and vision and mission. I mean, it's a lot of different things and it depends on the person sometimes too. So maybe joy is more of an outcome.

Greg De Koker: 17:59 

So I've, I've, I'll push back on that gently because I think that's how most leaders think. It's like it's the if then scenario. If we make, you know, hit the metrics, you know, if we meet the milestones, then we get to celebrate. Then we get to have joy. Then things are going to be great.

I'm saying, let's flip it and let's lead with joy. Let's look at joy as the starting point, as the foundation, as the fuel for success, not the reward after success. So let's embed it in it. Let's change the conversation. Let's change the culture.

 Let's make this place somewhere where people are proud to be part of, and they love being part of it. Because you know what I mean? The more that employees love their job, the more your customers are going to love the company. So if the employee experiences, if you're taking care of the employees, you're taking really good care, exquisite care of them. They're going to take incredible care of the customers and incredible care of the company.

 So let's really focus on the employees and let's not wait for joy. I think we've been waiting for joy. I think happiness is circumstantial and situational, right? When you know, joy is something that you can create and you can cultivate and you can choose. So that's why I'm very intentional with saying, let's live, work and lead with more joy intentionally.

Richard Walker: 19:22 

Yeah. No, I love that, Greg. I do, I do, I, because I think fulfillment is the root of happiness. Happiness is a fleeting moment. Like everybody talks about this.

The happiest day is the day you buy your boat and sell your boat or motor home and sell the motorhome. Right? Right. It's not, it's not all in between. And that's the wrong way to look at it.

 But I'm also kind of considering that if you focus on making a better process for your employees, less friction, less pain, less frustration, that leads to more joy and what they get to do.

Greg De Koker: 19:54 

Yeah.

Richard Walker: 19:54 

And that then bubbles out to the customer, right? It's the same thing with the customer experience. If you build a better, frictionless, smoother, easier experience for the customer, it creates more joy for them. That's why I say it's more like an outcome of your inputs of what you're doing. I don't mean only as a celebration at the end, like we had to wait for it.

I don't want it either.

Greg De Koker: 20:13 

It is both too. Yeah. 100%. Yeah.

Richard Walker: 20:16 

Okay. So let me ask a harder question then.

Greg De Koker: 20:19 

Okay.

Richard Walker: 20:19 

Because I think there's a dark side to culture. Culture is to say, I want people who are aligned with how we work. I want to feel like you're my brother, my best friend. You know, that we get along together. And that's one type of culture.

I mean, there's other types of culture, of course. Right? Right. And I think of it like Oracle, the samurai way. So there's different types of culture out there.

 But anyway, culture is about alignment of, of personalities, values, beliefs, etc. but there's also performance. If you have people who are highly aligned with culture who are not performing, there's no joy in that. No. And so the dark side of culture is you have to sometimes let people go. You have to get rid of people who are not contributing to the performance.

 So I'm wondering from your perspective, how much that comes into play when you're helping people do this transformation? How much of it requires quote unquote cleaning house?

Greg De Koker: 21:12 

Yeah. And almost every time. Yeah. I mean, there's and it's really, it's about how, what's that strategic decision making filter that we're using now to make those decisions. And usually, you know, and I point to the essential truth and I coach and consult that.

Let's use this essential truth, those seven elements to decide are they living the brand, but also to. It's. There's that balance between when you hire someone, you've really. You got to do proper training, onboarding orientations. You have to set them up for success.

 So there's that responsibility piece and accountability piece. As a leader, as an organization, I do take really good care because if you fire someone too quickly, that sends out the wrong message to the team. And also if you don't fire them quickly enough, if they're not performing and you've and you've tried everything and it's just not working out, they're just not a good fit for whatever reason or reasons. If you don't make that decision sometime sooner than later, that also sends out the wrong message to the team, right? Because it's negatively affecting the culture and them, right?

 It's the bad apple, it's the weakest link and all that. But the thing is, you got to take responsibility for, you know, for taking care of your people. So I think it's looking at both. But there's also always a cleaning house aspect, but the strategic decision making filter, it helps to manage personal preferences as well. Because now you've these are company designed, company aligned, right?

 So you're really looking at that. And it helps when you're managing personal preferences, it makes those conversations easier. And I remember, you know, when I've had teams in the past, I've always said like, I like when I'm hiring them. Like, we are so excited to have you here. And we're welcoming them.

 We're onboarding them. And I said, hey, if anything comes up, you're not happy about me, with the team, please let me know. You know, like this is a, I want to create that kind of communication. We'd have check ins, you know, at the beginning of our meeting, like, how's everyone doing? How's your day going?

 And sometimes like people will come into work and they, maybe they had an argument with their spouse and it's like, okay, well, what do you need? You know, I get that, you know, it's like, it's, it's kind of impossible to check your emotions, emotions at the door. So, you know, what do you need at that moment? And maybe they need to go walk, maybe they need to make a phone call. Maybe they just need to say it out loud, just so, hey, that's kind of in my space right now.

 Give people permission to kind of, you know, be themselves. And it's not about navigating all their personal problems at work, but at least it's honoring who they are and knowing that people have a lot going on and we don't always know what's going on. So with the strategic, you know, personal preferences, like when I would hire someone, you know, I would, I would or this, you know, like the strategic decision making filter. I would always say, if I decide to let you go, I promise you it will not be a surprise 100% promise you because we will have had countless conversations, we will have done everything we can to try to work through it and work it out. And if we decide it's not workable, you know, then that conversation will not come as a surprise.

 So that's always my promise to my team. And that's what I coach as well. You don't want it to be a surprise. You want them to know you're not giving up. You want the other employees to know you're not giving up on employees too quickly, but also not that you're not letting it drag out either.

 It's a long answer to your question.

Richard Walker: 24:22 

No, no, no, but I hate laying people off. I hate firing people. It's the worst part of being a manager and leader. Yeah. I've cried more times than I can count having done it.

And it's just it's no fun for anybody. But I'm always shocked when they're shocked. Yeah. They're surprised by it. And I'm like, how can you be so surprised by this?

 You know, you're the one who said quiet quitting to other people on the team. So obviously or whatever. There's two other things I want to mention. I think the whole quiet quitting thing is a matter of not having had that performance review and not talking to people and not hearing them and not having that kind of communication. Yeah.

 So I think that's actually a result of a dysfunctional company that somebody is at that point. It could be dysfunctional for them too. But it goes back to when you had somebody on the team who wasn't performing for an extended period of time, and the people around them saw that, got frustrated by it and said, well, then I'm not going to perform. Right. Right.

 And that's the quiet quitting foundation in my mind. But I want to.

Greg De Koker: 25:24 

It's a safety thing too. Just real quick. It's emotional safety as well. I mean, they don't feel safe sharing their feedback. And one of the things that, you know, I've coached, you know, teams to do is like I remember sitting in a room with probably 50 employees, you know, these three fly fishing lodges.

And there was a lot of internal strife going on. Three separate lodges. Sister lodges, but they didn't feel like a family. There's a lot of sidebar conversations, a lot of bickering, a lot of negativity. It was spilling out into the customer experience.

 And I remember we're all sitting together and I had spoken to all of them, so I knew what was going on behind the scenes. They knew me. They knew they could trust me. And I'm not going to give specific details or any kind of context. And I said, guys, I want to ask you a straight up question.

 Like if one of your teammates was doing or saying something that was having a negative impact on your team or the customers, they call them guests, would, you know, like or sorry if you were doing something that was having a negative impact, would you want to know? Like, and neither the guests or the team, if you were doing something, you know, intentional or not, and I'm assuming it's unintentional, but would you want to know every single person raised their hand. Of course, because I knew how much they cared. Right? I said, well, look around the room.

 Everyone's raising their hand. You're giving each other permission to give you feedback. Now how you give it, that's a whole other conversation. We'll talk about it a little later. Right.

 But here, but here's the next level of feedback. Like if there's a challenge between you and a manager or you and an employee, I mean, it's one, it's one thing to wait for someone to give you feedback and to be open to it. It's another thing to ask for feedback, right? It kind of can take the pressure off and it can make things a lot easier. Hey, you know, I know we had some challenges before and I've been doing my best to kind of work, you know, work through those.

 How am I doing? Is there anything else I can do differently or vice versa? However, asking for feedback is a great way to create that kind of a culture where people feel safe giving feedback, sharing feedback, and having those conversations where they don't feel like if I'm really honest with my boss or my teammates, I'm going to get fired. Yeah.

Richard Walker: 27:26 

Man. Greg, this is such a good example. You just laid out such a good example of something that I think a lot about what you do in private is what you enable to do in public, right? So what you do at home with your family spills out to the public. If you want to change something in public, change it at home.

And so I think the same thing about our, our ability to talk to customers and hear feedback from them starts with how we talk to each other and get feedback from each other.

Greg De Koker: 27:52 

Yeah.

Richard Walker: 27:52 

And we just went through this this summer. We had a terrible experience for our customer and we feel terrible about it. And we sat down with them and we expected heat. My gosh, we expected a lot of frustration, anger, etc. Thankfully, our clients are amazing. They're calm, they're level headed.

They're just like, look, we got to get the problem solved first. We'll come back to the other second.

Greg De Koker: 28:12 

They trust you and they like you and they love you. So that's a big part of it, right?

Richard Walker: 28:16 

Yeah it is. It is. And I'm grateful for that. I'm so grateful. But at the same time, I listen to my own team, not just me.

I listen to my team members ask for feedback from this customer.

Greg De Koker: 28:27 

Yeah. Wow.

Richard Walker: 28:28 

And the things we learned are improving, how we do things going forward. And it's, and it's in hindsight, it's like, oh my gosh, that was so obvious. Why didn't we do that? But when you're in the moment, you don't think to do that one thing, for example, right? But you wouldn't get that if you don't have that trust to talk to your customer.

And I don't think you get that if you don't have that inside your house, inside your own organization.

Greg De Koker: 28:49 

I agree, I think it's how we, it's how we do one thing. How we do one thing is how we do everything is kind of the general statement they make about that. And again, there's consistency. I don't believe in compartmentalization. You know, I think that, you know, who we are at home is who we are, you know, at the office.

I love that your team was asking the customers questions because I don't think that happens enough. You know, and I've talked to clients before, and whether it's a budget thing or they're just like, they don't want to hire someone outside. I said, whether you hire me or someone else or not, it's still important to talk to your stakeholders, right? It's better that you ask your employees questions, and I'll give them the questions that I ask too. I mean, or it's better that you ask your employees questions than no one.

 It's better that you talk to him and ask him for feedback than no one. And same with strategic partners and suppliers. It's another perspective and same with customers. It's incredible how we're doing so many different surveys, but we've lost that human connection. We've lost that like one on one.

 Just really having a conversation with someone. It's like that illusion of connection, like social media. And I like social media and I think it serves a purpose and sometimes can keep us connected. But there is an illusion of connection because sending you a text or an email or a like on social media is completely different than you and I are having a conversation that we're doing right now. Totally different.

 right?

Richard Walker: 30:10 

Yeah. Man, I love that insane curiosity and being open to asking questions. Yes. This sounds so funny to me. We asked a customer, why are you paying us on credit card versus just ACH?

And they're like, we don't know. We're like, they said, we prefer ACH. I'm like, we'd prefer ACH. So they switched to ACH. Greg.

 That saved us $1,500 a month in credit card charge fees. Oh, geez. Nobody was thinking to ask this question for years. And finally somebody asked like, well, we don't like it either. We just thought that's how you wanted us to pay.

Greg De Koker: 30:43 

Right.

Richard Walker: 30:44 

This idea of being open is so refreshing. And I think if people do more of that with their team, they're going to hear things they didn't expect. I mean, yeah, there could be the negative. If you're at a really dark part in your business right now, I want to share with you the outcome though. Yeah.

Because this is something I experience as a leader. And I, this is one of the reasons I absolutely love what I do and love being a leader. So you said you ask your team for feedback. Constantly ask them for feedback. I don't have to do that that much because they're giving me feedback.

Greg De Koker: 31:16 

Yeah.

Richard Walker: 31:17 

I have so many meetings where people are like, oh my gosh, I'm so excited to be here today, or I'm so excited about what we're working on or this has been the best career choice I've ever made. And it's just amazing to me that I get this feedback from the people I'm talking to, that they're happy, they're getting what they want out of their lives. And it's not just about money, it's about fulfillment and other things. So I want people to hear this because I don't think it has to be a very, very special one off instance where maybe I have this magic formula. I don't think it's a magic formula.

I think anybody can do what you're saying and create joy in their universe of employees.

Greg De Koker: 31:51 

I agree, and you created that. I mean, you, you know, you led that, you modeled it, you co-created it with your team. And then they've, they're carrying the torch. Now that's a perfect example. I mean, you created a culture that is high functioning, right, where people feel safe.

And that's huge if most employees don't feel safe providing feedback, giving feedback, having those kinds of conversations, that can be crucial. But what if we stop looking at them as crucial conversations and just, you know, that's just part of who we are. You know, we, we just dive right in. I mean, that's part of our culture. Everything's crucial. Everything's part of the business.

 We want the employees to be happy. We want the customers to be happy, the suppliers and everyone in between. You want families to be happy. It's the ripple effect too, right? Because it's like if employees aren't happy at work, imagine how they are with their spouses and their kids?

 How are they on the drive home? How are they with their neighbors, their community? Right? There's just too much suffering going on and there's a way to reduce it. So being intentional with joy is a big part of it in my world.

Richard Walker: 32:54 

Man, I don't want to stop this conversation. I want to talk to you for another half hour minimum. But this is a really good stopping point because we are running out of time. But that was just well said. Okay.

So before I get to my very last question, what is the best way for people to find and connect with you? Greg?

Greg De Koker: 33:10 

I think if they I mean, I'm on LinkedIn. Also, if you just go to my website, so www.JOY².ca, it's got all my socials, including LinkedIn email, cell phone. Yeah, reach out on any of those platforms and I'd love to connect.

Richard Walker: 33:28 

Perfect. All right. So there's always one of my favorite things to do at the end of the show is ask this question. All right. Who has had the biggest impact on your leadership style and how you approach your role today?

Greg De Koker: 33:39 

Yeah. You know, it's my dad for sure. And today is actually his birthday, ironically. So the podcast timing is perfect. And I remember him telling me when I was 28 years old that, Greg, people want to be involved in decisions that affect them.

Very simple, but not all leaders involve people in decisions that want to affect them. Right. So that was way back when. And other little nuggets like Henry Ford's quote, one of his favorite quotes, which is whether you think you can or you can't, you're right. You know, it's mindset and really just believing in yourself.

 And, you know, even if it seems impossible that you have a greater chance of succeeding, if you believe you can do it and ask for support and ask for help. And it's okay to be wrong and learn from our mistakes and not look at them as failures, you know, it's like failing forward. And, and what's another one of his favorite quotes? And I don't know the author of this one, but if it is to be, it's up to me. And again, that's about accountability.

 That's about there's no entitlement. I mean, I learned a long time ago that, you know, the entrepreneurial formula is to create value and you get paid for that value. It's not sitting back and expecting, you know, things just to come to you. So I've been an entrepreneur since I was eight. And, and thanks to my dad, you know, I've had a great path and I've enjoyed working with a lot of great clients and people.

Richard Walker: 35:07 

Oh, I love that. Such great, great lessons there. All right. I want to give a big thank you to Greg De Koker, founder and CEO of JOY², for being on this episode of The Customer Wins. Go check out Greg's website at JOY².ca.

And don't forget to check out Quik! at quickforms.com where we make processing forms easier. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this discussion. We'll click the like button, share this with someone, and subscribe to our channels for future episodes of The Customer Wins. Greg, thank you so much for joining me today.

Greg De Koker: 35:36 

Thanks, Rich. It's been a pleasure, really, and I can't wait to have you on my podcast next week.

Outro: 35:43 

Thanks for listening to The Customer Wins podcast. We'll see you again next time. And be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.