Enhancing Workplace Culture by Focusing on Strengths with Marc Shaffer

What does it take to cultivate a thriving workplace culture and identify team members' strengths that help the company excel?

Join us on this episode of Leadership Levers as we chat with Marc Shaffer, CFO of Searcy Financial Services.

With years of experience building & driving organizational and financial success, Marc shares his journey and the transformative impact of focusing on strengths rather than weaknesses.

Drawing inspiration from their company's use of the StregnthFinder Behavioural Index, Marc discusses how aligning individual talents with company goals can lead to a more engaged and productive team. He recounts a successful cultural shift at Searcy, emphasizing the importance of understanding employees' adaptability and helping them find their 'right fit.'  

Marc offers actionable insights and practical advice on overcoming challenges leaders often face during cultural change or fast company growth.

If you're committed to strengthening your workplace culture, this conversation delivers strategies and real-world examples that can help you take action! Tune in for a deep dive into building a healthy and thriving work environment from a seasoned leader.

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Transcript

William Gladhart: 0:09

Welcome to the Leadership Levers Podcast. I'm your host, Will Gladhart, CMO at the Culture Think Tank. Our Culture Think Tank community is committed to advancing workplace culture and well-being. We are a virtual hub for authors, investors, leaders, managers and employees worldwide to connect, engage in candid discussions, share ideas and explore resources for cultivating a healthy work environment. We're here today to learn about the actions leaders have taken to address cultural change. Our guest today is Mark Schaefer, CFO at Searcy Financial Services. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us. Glad to be here. Thanks, will. I thought we would start by having you share with our audience a bit about yourself, your background and your organization.

Marc Shaffer: 0:59

Yeah, I've been at my company for 18 years now called Searcy Financial Services and Allos Investment Advisors. I didn't go too far from home in Topeka and went to Kansas State University, so being in the Midwest and in Kansas City has worked out really well for me. But my role has kind of evolved and maybe that's part of what we'll talk about with culture and do what probably my talents are, which I feel blessed to do because it's not so much work anymore. It's what I love to do. My hope is that's the case for everybody else on the team since we've grown over the years.

Marc Shaffer: 1:30

But comprehensive financial planning is what we provide in investment management and we have two companies we can get into why we created that and kind of how that has evolved our culture and who we serve. But been here 18 years and probably where I didn't start my career one other place for a year in St Louis Didn't like that place, the city, as much as I love Kansas City. But this is probably my last stop and I'll be here for the rest of my career and I've got a long ways to go.

William Gladhart: 1:54

Absolutely, and, Mark, in the past you've been involved in a lot of different organizations too, so you bring some not only unique perspective from a company perspective, but also from being involved in a lot of different organizations and leading there. So, we'll be discussing three questions today as a warm-up to our conversation. Would you share why you believe a healthy culture is critical?

Marc Shaffer: 2:14

I think in order for the company or organization or not-for-profit in order to thrive at its fullest, the culture has to be healthy. Good, right, you could be very good at producing widgets, making money or being a very profitable company, but if the culture and the contentment with which people are doing their tasks isn't a thriving environment, I think that can eventually catch up to itself and either people get pinged for outside opportunities right, or are always looking, or it just stalls. I always told the founder, as we transitioned a generational business from the first generation to the second, what got us here today won't get us to where we want to go tomorrow, and sometimes change is hard right, and so that's a whole. Nother thing about culture is it's got to embrace change, because that's one of the only constants we know about right.

William Gladhart: 3:02

Absolutely Well. I think those are great points. One change, but also looking to the future, and we always say that it's a marathon, not a sprint, and it's not something you wake up tomorrow and go, oh, two days from now, two weeks from now, my culture is going to be amazing. No, maybe two to five years from now, with continuous, constant work. So what do you see as the biggest challenge leaders face when addressing cultural change within an organization? Or maybe, what have you specifically faced in your own organization?

Marc Shaffer: 3:30

I think for maybe us. I'll just tell a short success story that worked for us is I forget what book it is the Right People in the Right Seats and the Bus Heading in the Right Direction. I mean, that's the main thing, right?

Marc Shaffer: 3:42

Good to great yes yes, and so that is important. What we did years ago, though, is another book that the company read, called Strength Finder by Marcus Buckingham. A lot of people are familiar with it, but we actually took action from it. Right, everybody has their strengths, and the whole premise of the book is go towards your strengths, don't try to get better at your weaknesses, and when you're in your strengths my coach calls it then you get in your flow and your sense of it's not work anymore, and time goes fast. More productive, but we took the results of what the team looks like, and I don't know if you're showing the video and I don't know if I've got it easily accessible here, but I've got this cheat sheet of all the five top strengths of our team, and now, back then there might have been six or seven of us, now there's 12 or 13. I don't even know the number. I should know that, but odd thing is is guess what? We all have different strengths, and it's color coded, so you can see the ones where some of us have the same strengths. But because of that, we really restructured. What can I do that you don't like doing, it You're not naturally talented at, and what can you take from me.

Marc Shaffer: 4:42

So from a workflow standpoint, everybody looked to do different things. That helped us a ton. An example was I didn't mind calling. Well, that's a bad example. Strengths can change in what you like too. I didn't mind calling and talking and meeting with people, but I didn't want to do the behind the scenes investment research, which is a big part of what we provide right Investment management services. Well, some people didn't want to meet with people and saw that as a non-productive use of time and they'd rather be doing the researching. So it kind of shifted the workflow and that really helped. But because of that it increases culture, because then you feel like you're adding value at whatever you're good at. Whether it's revenue producing, that doesn't matter. What matters is everybody's content and where they're at and when they are, they look for more opportunities to improve on what they're good at and just embrace that and that's worked out really well for us.

William Gladhart: 5:30

That's really cool. So I think you know you kind of alluded to the next question in sharing that example about your own workplace in the streets. So what do you think that leaders can do to address the challenges they are facing, or is there something unique that you've done?

Marc Shaffer: 5:48

That was one thing we've done. I think as companies grow, a lot of people think that they need to hire the person that's just like them. We took the different approach and although we didn't have somebody do the culture index I'm sorry, culture index, another tool we use or strength finder, we didn't have them do the strength finder to hire them. We kind of were very strategic and what aren't we very good at or what are we not proficient at from a talent standpoint and higher towards that. It's kind of when you're a small company, you got to be good at a little bit of everything and as you get bigger you can have economies of scale. And then higher towards the weaknesses, and we knew that there was a second generation business here. That's what's happened.

Marc Shaffer: 6:20

But also identifying owners and career paths is very important in terms of culture and knowing that job security is there. And job security doesn't mean you have to become an owner to have security. It just means that you know someone's going to be there to continue the business if you're not there to be an owner. But guess what? Even if you're not an owner, it's very important with your role in the company, to be around because the whole works because of you, right, you're only as weak as the weakest person, and so I think that the career path, stuff for creating culture and the unknown is known, because if you want to get to here, here's the things you need to accomplish to get there. And, by the way, if you never want to get there, that's okay too, because it's very important for us to know where you are and where you want to be, so that we can hire around it If you get comfortable with where you're at.

William Gladhart: 7:05

I really like those points, especially from having a game plan for identifying people that help grow and excel your organization and help strengthen that culture, but also from a talent standpoint. It's giving people a roadmap for next steps and letting them know where they're going to go in your organization and where they provide that value. Because, as you said at the top of our conversation, those individuals could very easily be poached by another company or they have an antenna up and they're looking to go somewhere else because that organization is providing that roadmap or those resources for them versus one that's not so. You shared a couple of really great points today. Is there anything else you'd like to add or share for other leaders?

Marc Shaffer: 7:44

The other thing I was just going to mention is make sure that everyone's on the same page. I think it's big that we continue to do a strategic planning meeting with everybody, not just the leadership. We have an executive strategic planning and then we have the leadership and we're remote. Half of our team isn't here, but bringing them in person is important for that. That could be a whole nother conversation of culture in a remote environment is interesting, but bringing them together for where we want to go, you know you have the people that are the change agents, excited and on fire for change.

Marc Shaffer: 8:11

And I'm kind of one of those quick start from a personality standpoint just tell me what to do. I don't. I don't even want to talk about it, but guess what? You need to slow down and talk about it so that I know what I do need to do. And everybody needs to participate in a way that has a voice. Whether it's someone that's very important or high up or an owner, it doesn't matter. Everybody's voice becomes the same. And where we're going, because if someone decides we're going here and the other eight say we're not on board for that, it becomes a problem, even though it might not be obvious from the beginning as you work towards whatever that looks like. So same page playing to strengths and talents, that's huge.

William Gladhart: 8:44

Yeah, and I think you know, you've highlighted as well, you know, effective communication through all levels of the organization, because that's another key component of culture and being able to have everyone speaking. You know, not necessarily the same language, but aligned, at least in terms of next steps for the organization and those pieces. So any other tidbits you'd like to add before we close out today?

Marc Shaffer: 9:05

No, I think the one other thing. Personally, life coaching has been really good for me. Not everybody on my team does it, but that's a personal plug for my coach or anybody doing that. That helps me get a reality check on what I'm thinking, but others aren't illustrating to me Like it's just outside perspective is healthy from a life coach. That doesn't work in my office and I think everybody should kind of look to that for personal and professional development.

William Gladhart: 9:29

Yeah, no, I think that's a great point to mention too, especially. I mean, many of us as leaders you know have found an executive coach, have found someone that you know to walk along beside them but also be that outside voice to kind of whack you upside the head a few times and go, oh, have you really thought of that? Or, you know, maybe there's a different opportunity for you to take with your organization, or have you thought about how you work with your employees in this way? So I love that you bring that up, mark, I've enjoyed having you on our Leadership Lovers podcast today. Thank you so much for your insights. Thank you Will. Thank you for joining us on the Leadership Levers P odcast. You may find all our Leadership Levers episodes in our Culture Think Tank community at www. culturethinktank. ai. Join the community at no charge and tune in weekly as we invite leaders to share their experience in strengthening culture, one action at a time.