Steve Baue on 51 Percent Happiness, Unofficial Feeder Programs, and Self-Care for Leaders

In Brief: Steve Baue (stevebaue.com, bauemg.com), CEO and owner of Wisconsin’s premier mental wellness/mental health benefit company, keynote speaker and executive coach, joins host Dan Freehling to discuss his unique approach to business and leadership. Steve emphasizes his focus on building high-quality company that serve their clients, employees, and communities. He prioritizes employee happiness, aiming for them to be at least 51% happy with their work. Steve imagines the future of the mental health field, highlighting the potential impact of technology and increasing openness around mental health. He believes that in the future, mental health will be treated with the same urgency and importance as physical health.

Steve prepares his organizations for change by investing in employee development and ensuring that they are ready to adapt to new challenges. He also emphasizes the importance of explaining the “why” behind tasks and decisions, as it helps to motivate and engage employees. Steve draws inspiration from various sources, including books, self-care practices, and hobbies such as woodworking and meditation. He believes that taking care of oneself is crucial for effective leadership.

Recommended reading: “The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur” by Mike Michalowicz and “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek.

Transcript

Dan Freehling (00:02):

Welcome to Forward-Looking Leadership, a podcast for visionary executives building future ready organizations. I'm your host, Dan Freehling. I'm the founder of Contempus Leadership, a coaching practice that helps organizations develop the leadership pipeline through virtually unlimited coaching for their top rising talent. I'm honored to be joined today by Steve Baue. Steve is the CEO and owner of Wisconsin's premier mental health and mental wellness benefit company. He's also a professional speaker specializing in leadership and mental [00:00:30] health topics as well as a sought after executive coach. Steve is a wealth of business knowledge having worked for over 20 years at two international market leading companies, overseeing global organizational and leadership development and human resources functions at an executive level. Steve and I did our coaching training together and I've come to consider him a trusted friend and thought partner on all things leadership, management and coaching. Thanks for joining me on Forward Looking Leadership, Steve.

Steve Baue (00:55):

Wow, thanks for having me. Dan.

Dan Freehling (00:58):

Thanks so much for taking the time. [00:01:00] First question for you, Steve. What are some ways that you think about business that differ from how other CEOs might think about it?

Steve Baue (01:09):

We're jumping right into the deep end, we Let's

Dan Freehling (01:11):

Go for it.

Steve Baue (01:13):

Great question. I don't know if this is different, but I got a couple of guiding principles that I use. So as you mentioned, I worked for two big international companies, but now I bought [00:01:30] a company nine years ago and then I've started four more. And I would say two of the biggest things that I'm doing that I think are not common with CEOs, the first one is I have no aspirations in becoming a huge company, right? There's kind of this hustle culture right now. It's like get started, grow big, use your free time, put it back in the business, disappear for six months and come back change. I just want to have a good [00:02:00] company and I want to do right by our clients. We do mental health counseling primarily in our companies. I want to do right by them. I want to do right by the customers that we've contracted with.

(02:11):

I want to do right by my employees. I want to serve the communities that we're in, and I don't think being big is necessarily the right way to do that. And so if you take all the revenue from my companies, we're less than 5 million. Am I okay being 10 million [00:02:30] in revenue? Sure, but I don't want to get there tomorrow. I think the term they're using now for the small giants, right? Companies that are choosing to remain smaller and really focusing on culture and delivering a superior service, and that's what I'm focused on. The growth surprisingly, is taking care of itself. I don't have to worry about growth because listen, we're like everywhere else. Salaries have to go up, should go [00:03:00] up. Things cost more than they did a year ago, so we need growth. I just don't want growth for growth's sake. That's the first thing I would say.

(03:10):

The second thing that's probably different from a lot of CEOs is I have the 51% happy rule, which is I tell my employees on average not daily, but over a week, a month, whatever that timeframe is, I want them to be able to say they're 51% [00:03:30] happy with the work that they're doing. You might call that passionate, you might call that fulfillment, but I think everyone deserves to be happy in their job and in an eight hour day, if you're not happy, four hours and 10 minutes of that. I think there's something wrong with that. We spend more time working than we do everything else. So I tell my employees, I make sure my leadership is asking this question of saying, [00:04:00] are you averaging above 51%? Because every job, the reason why it's 51, every job has a component or components that you're not going to get fulfilled from that you're not going to necessarily enjoy.

(04:13):

I'm CEO of my own companies and there's things I don't want to do, but collectively, if we can get above the 51%, that means someone's going home. I think having had a good day, what happens when it dips below 51%? I want them to tell [00:04:30] us that. I want them to say, listen today or this past week has been really rough. Then we can say, okay, is there something we can do? Is there tweaks that we can do for your job? Was it just an off week or is there a history of this? We're a small company or a small companies I should say. There's only so much that we can do because of our size, but it'd be surprising sometimes when you're creative what you can do to make someone's job more [00:05:00] fulfilling for them. If we can't do it, then we actively say, okay, well then maybe we should consider you something else.

(05:08):

And that's not a bad thing, and I think that's really where this is different from other companies is that if someone isn't that 51% happy or fulfilled or passionate, then let's go find you the job that can. And the benefit of doing that is first of all, your employees are a lot more transparent with you. You get a much [00:05:30] better vibe in terms of what the culture is and how people are feeling and what they're doing within their jobs. Second thing is that if they say, yeah, maybe this isn't the right place. You have some knowledge, then you have some clue. You're not surprised when all of a sudden an employee hands in the resignation someday you can kind of help manage that process. And then third, ultimately you're helping a real human being find something that they will find happiness. And I find [00:06:00] that when we do help, and we've done that a couple of times, that's paid back amazing dividends in terms of how that employee talks about us, how our remaining employees look at us, we remove that fear of an employee being honest with us about their job. So I'd say those two things are probably a little different than what some other CEOs might be doing.

Dan Freehling (06:26):

Yeah, it sounds that way. And it's pretty amazing that that's actually that much different [00:06:30] than how a lot of people think about business. So the small giants and the 51% happiness, those are really practical implementable ideas to keep in mind for people thanks to.

Steve Baue (06:41):

Well, I will tell you with both of those, you got to have to discount your ego a little bit because we live in a society that supposedly bigger is better and you have to be able to say, no, I'm okay being smaller, and you also have to be in that 51% okay with an employee [00:07:00] saying you're not the end all beat all place to work. But in both cases, I think if you're really honest, bigger doesn't mean better. We've seen supposedly great big companies fail and fail hard, and we've seen companies culture be torn apart because a couple employees all of a sudden one day said, I don't like it here anymore.

Dan Freehling (07:25):

That focus on the quality is really coming through and subsuming that you go to be able to do that [00:07:30] is really incredible. Steve, for the mental wellness company in particular, how do you see your field changing over the next five to 10 years?

Steve Baue (07:40):

Yeah, I think it's like every other company right now we're looking at AI and chat, GBT and these technology advances. I mean, part of me says, listen, this is the new thing, so it's shiny and new and everyone's putting all this time and energy and all this what ifs about it and reality may not [00:08:00] end up being what we think it's going to be, but at the same time, when you work in a field that is very human-driven, driven, mental health is all about sitting in a room, making a connection, diving deep. It's very similar to the executive coaching that you and I do. You don't know where that session's going to be. So how do we look at technology not as a threat, but as a tool, as an aid? [00:08:30] So if I were to look out five years from now, my guess is right now and kind of the way we're leaning towards that, those technology is going to allow us to amass a lot of information before we get in the room with somebody.

(08:50):

There's a thing called the intake, and the intake is normally the first session, what do you want to talk? Why are you here? Where do you want to get to? What's your goal from this? [00:09:00] I think the technologies allow us to get that information in a better way that allows people to really elaborate without having to look at a clock and be able to take that information so that when a counseling session occurs, we're able to get to the heart of the issue much faster. I also see it on the back end of then support tools and behaviors and things that they do after [00:09:30] the session now being supported not necessarily directly by the counselor, but tools that the counselor has at their disposal. So it creates a much richer ecosystem because right now it's show up, go through a 50 minute session and leave and there might be a little thing on before you come in a little thing after.

(09:50):

But I think what's going to happen is we're going to see the world open up and a much larger ecosystem occur around mental health. With that said, the other thing [00:10:00] is every generation that's coming into the workplace is much more transparent than the last about their mental health. And so we are seeing it, we've seen it over the nine years that I've owned this company of people being talking about their mental health, prioritizing their mental health seeking tools and resources. So I've always said, what happens the day when we treat our mental health, we treat our physical health that there's urgent care [00:10:30] and there's your doctors and you go once a year for your annual checkup and all this other stuff, what is the field ready for that type of demand? When we get to that ideal point of that where we see no difference between our physical and mental health,

Dan Freehling (10:47):

That's really fascinating. So the tech, not as a replacement for the human element, but as a sort of wraparound and being able to replace some of the elements that you would just show up to a session and do, and then even that increase [00:11:00] in demand and acceptance for mental health. I've noticed that in my coaching, so that I work mostly with millennial leaders too, and I've noticed, I think I'd say the vast majority of my clients are very open about working with a therapist concurrently with the coaching, and it's just such a shift from how it's been.

Steve Baue (11:17):

I think there's another part too, and I've talked to a couple coaches that are at the professional PCC level of coaching, the top tier coaches and they've been doing it for decades. [00:11:30] They're starting to see that Venn diagram of coaching and counseling starting to overlap more. I think in some cases that's a positive. In some cases, I think it's a little dangerous if it's not done with kind of a eyes wide open approach, but you're absolutely right. I always have to tell people I own two mental health companies. I'm not a counselor. I'm a coach, but I'm not a counselor. And there is a definitive [00:12:00] line between those two things.

Dan Freehling (12:03):

Yeah, I have a good sense of that line just for the other listeners, how do you envision that line?

Steve Baue (12:10):

Well, someone wants to said it this way and rightly or wrongly, I like it. Coaching is a go forward process. Where are you at right now? Where do you want to get to? And let's talk about the steps or what's involved in getting you there. Counseling [00:12:30] tends to say, here's where you are, how did you get here? What are those things that have occurred and what are the things that you're carrying that may be holding you back from where you want to be today? And I find that to be a really good kind of litmus test when I do my coaching and when I use coaching, this could be any leader is a coach to be able to say, listen, if it's a go forward, I can help you there. But if we're going to start digging up onto [00:13:00] the past, there's people that are licensed and trained to do so because face it, there's some stuff sometimes in those closets that we are not equipped to deal with as coaches.

Dan Freehling (13:10):

That's the exact breakdown I've heard in the past and really apply as well. And I do think when you can have both a coach and a therapist or some other mental health professional working with someone at the same time, it can really be great. They can do both that past work and that future looking work.

Steve Baue (13:30):

[00:13:30] And I've had clients work with my counselors and I tell them, listen, there is a brick wall between my coaching practice and me owning mental health companies. If you end up talking, working with one of my counselors, they don't tell me what's happening in your session, don't they? Don't ask me what's happening in coaching. The [00:14:00] connection point is the client,

Dan Freehling (14:02):

The client themselves,

Steve Baue (14:04):

They share what they want with each party, but I make sure that from my standpoint, there is a brick wall between the two of 'em and I think that works really well.

Dan Freehling (14:17):

Yeah, that seems spot on. Absolutely. So let's get really speculative here. I asked about the next five or 10 years of the future of your field, especially for the mental wellness one, but feel free to take this in whatever direction, [00:14:30] but what about 50 years out? What kind of changes do you foresee or even imagine might be possible?

Steve Baue (14:38):

Yeah, that is the beauty of that is you can't be wrong. Exactly. Cause I'm not going to be around probably that'd make me 103. Who knows? You could do it. If we talk about mental health, which really primarily I'm in the business of mental health and [00:15:00] really I think you could put this in any industry, but you got to go back when you talk about physical health. You could go back to Egyptian times and you can find medical journals. They were doing some crazy stuff, some for benefit of their patients and some not so beneficial, but they had created the medical field even before then. You look at mental health, right? People that had severe [00:15:30] mental health, not even severe, sometimes just what I would call middle of the road mental illness sometimes were still being locked away in the late sixties and early seventies, they were considered unfit to be in society.

(15:47):

And so you take the time difference between those two that we've been working on our physical health for hundreds if not thousands of years, but our mental health as a field [00:16:00] really didn't come to fruition until, what are we talking 50 years ago? So you fast forward 50 years on that. I look to, well, what happened with our physical health, and I think what's going to be 50 years from now is that first off, we're going to have a much greater understanding of how the human brain works and some of these things that today are causing people pain or struggle. [00:16:30] We might, it'd be like when they invented penicillin one day people were dying from infection and the next day they're like, Hey, we got something right. And it eradicates polio vaccine. I'm not saying that drugs is the answer to mental health, but we haven't quite had those leaps in mental health yet where we are able to eradicate a issue, a problem, [00:17:00] and I'm talking a little bit more mental illness than everyday mental health, but where they're able to make a huge leap where literally overnight they can remove a huge barrier to someone living their best life.

(17:18):

So I think we're going to start seeing some huge advances in the mental health field. I think we're going to see it become an everyday, just like I tweaked my shoulder [00:17:30] in the gym last week, I'm going to physical therapy on Thursday. I freely share that. As soon as it happened, I was like, oh, I got to by the second night of sleeping on it, I'm like, I got to go do something about it. Told people I work with, told my wife, made the appointment. There was no question of that's not the right thing to do. We don't do that around mental health. We have the stigma and sometimes the shame that comes along with it and well, this shouldn't be bothering me 50 [00:18:00] years from now. I hope that we don't even think about seeking out care, that there's just an acceptance of that being who we are. And then finally that the resources available to us are just there. I don't have to seek, I don't have to wait. I don't have to pay for them. They are there because we consider it a basic human need.

Dan Freehling (18:26):

Wow, that's exciting in a lot of ways.

Steve Baue (18:29):

Yeah. [00:18:30] I mean I hope I got fingers crossed as I say these things.

Dan Freehling (18:34):

Right, exactly. Always the danger of the future in technology, taking it in the wrong direction too. So that's a great optimistic outlook. So with these kinds of shifts and even that speculative 50 year shift in mind, what have you been doing to prepare your organization for change?

Steve Baue (18:56):

Another great question, Dan. A couple of things. [00:19:00] So I was in HR most of my corporate career 25 years. And while I carried the title of hr, it was really development, employee development, leadership development, organizational development. I handled succession planning and high potentials, and it was really how do we make sure the organization and its people are prepared for what comes next? And I love that. I always [00:19:30] had development in my title because that's how we would future proof the company is if you develop your people, you invest in your people, they're going to be ready or as ready as they can be for the twists and turns and changes that are going to come. And I believe that same thing in the companies I have today. We take the mental health companies, if one of my counselors [00:20:00] took advantage of every internal development opportunity that we have, that's over a hundred hours of development that we do each year.

(20:10):

It's group collaboration, small group collaboration, it's the seminar, public seminar that we put on every fall. It's the education first off, the first just paying for education and continuing ed as well as reimbursement for those things that sometimes are a little [00:20:30] outside of what would traditionally be paid for, but we invest a lot and that then moves over to my administrative staff. And I feel that when you invest in your employees, when they continually grow and development, nowhere does it sit, I have to be the guy that's preparing this company. I think if you prepare every employee now your company is ready. If you invest in saying, listen, what's [00:21:00] new, what's happening, what's on that horizon and invest in everyone in your company. That's how you can start the future proof of the organization and make sure that it's not only surviving, but thriving with that kind of a sidecar to that thought is at the same time, I don't want to be first in things. Let's take virtual counseling. The idea of Zoom or teams, the idea of not actually [00:21:30] physically sitting across from a counselor, but doing it via your computer or on your phone.

(21:38):

We got a lot of push to do that. If you go back to 20 17, 20 18, when the technology was starting to be there to be able to support that, and I got pushed by a couple of companies. One was like our second or third largest customer that we contracted with for mental health [00:22:00] benefits. And basically they ultimately left us because we did not have that technology, but we did that on purpose because we didn't feel the technology was ready to handle counseling. First you have HIPAA, the regulations and rules and just the ethics that come around. Mental health is very different from physical health. It's a much higher level of confidentiality. It has to be in place. Part of that [00:22:30] is because of the nature of the field. The other part is just for that trust that a client puts in you. They have to feel that it is a hundred percent confidential because of the stigma that comes along around mental health. Technology wasn't there yet. It wasn't being encrypted. It wasn't. Think of Zoom early on in Covid, how many times meetings were getting hacked where all of a sudden people were,

Dan Freehling (22:55):

You're getting Zoom bumped.

Steve Baue (22:57):

Yeah, I mean they were just getting, someone [00:23:00] would type in a random meeting number and get lucky and all of a sudden they were sitting. Imagine if that was your counseling session, right. There was no guardrails around that. We're based in Wisconsin and unfortunately Wisconsin and laws around virtual counseling still remain very gray. And in fact, if you're to follow the letter of the laws as written, it's not allowed. We're still working under a, I can't think of the word right now, but basically an allowance that [00:23:30] was put in place during COVID out of necessity. But the basic rules and regulations still haven't been changed to allow virtual counseling. So even though we could have done it, even though the technology technically was there and there was a lot of counseling agencies that were doing it, we said, we're not there yet. And we waited and unfortunately Covid pushed us there, but it also meant that the technology was ready to go. And so I took [00:24:00] that and there has been a couple other points in my career where I realized, you know what? You don't need to be first. You just need to really understand what's happening and then be ready to go when everything lines up the right way. And whether that makes you second, third, or 52nd, that's okay as long as you're ready when it happens and why you're not jumping in quite yet.

Dan Freehling (24:28):

That intentionality there, [00:24:30] and I talk about this a lot with being in people facing businesses and social impact organizations and all of that. It's very tough to be in that Silicon Valley mindset in full of moving fast and breaking things because actual people on the other side of it, and you have to be really careful about when and how you adopt this new technology and move in those directions.

Steve Baue (24:51):

Right

Dan Freehling (24:53):

On the learning and development too. I think that's really fascinating. And I've long, I came from a learning and development [00:25:00] background and I've long thought of it as something that should be a separate skillset from that broad human resources umbrella too, just so different than the talent acquisition. It's so different than benefits. It's so different from every other element of it. And that seems like it's something that is just so distinct from that that it might even need to be its own field or its own area.

Steve Baue (25:23):

Absolutely. Yeah.

Dan Freehling (25:27):

In looking at your rising talent [00:25:30] in the company, so those high potentials, what are some unusual qualities that you look for? So there's the typical ones of people who work hard and have these kind of degrees and have shown themselves to be proven leaders and that kind of thing, but what are some of the unusual things you look for?

Steve Baue (25:49):

Yeah. Well, first off, I don't believe in this generational BSS that if you're born between this year and this year, you're [00:26:00] all going to share these common qualities.

Dan Freehling (26:02):

Everyone is exactly the same from it. Yeah,

Steve Baue (26:05):

I think that's an excuse to use, a big paintbrush to paint a lot of different people in the same color, and I don't like it. Towards the end of my corporate career, and that was 10, 15 years ago, I used to say, listen, I have terminated, and from an HR perspective, I terminated just as many people over the age of 40 as I did under the age of 40. [00:26:30] There wasn't like one generation didn't have a lock on working hard or ethics or whatever. So I don't believe in that. I like working with younger folks and younger in their careers. If you look at my administrative staff across the five companies, a lot of them are a little under the age of 30 or a little over the age of 30. That was not intentional. I didn't sit there and [00:27:00] say, I'm going to have a millennial driven organization.

(27:03):

I just was naturally drawn one to the opportunity to develop because those are the people that are normally hungry to learn and want to develop and are welcome to those opportunities when they are done in a respectful manner, not in the, well, let me teach you how the world works, young person, but done in a, Hey, okay, [00:27:30] let's figure this out. Let's look at how we can, there's a skillset that you're going to have to work on, so let's figure out how to get you that and do it in a very respectful way. What I love about the people that I work with, there is an energy that comes with that. There's an appetite that comes with that. There is, I think there's a better approach to problem solving, not in terms of process, but just the openness [00:28:00] to exploring and incorporating new ideas as well as principles that have been around for a while.

(28:12):

And I love your coaching, Dan, because you, you're right in the heart of the people that I really love to work with now. I do executive coaching and they tend to be a little later in their careers. I do that because that's where I came [00:28:30] from. That's where I'm at. So some of the experiences they have, I've had. So there's kind of a shorthand that develops, but you go on When it comes to my own companies, I just love that energy. I love the problem solving. Now, to your question about things that are unusual, it's not an every time hands down will always happen, but I am fond of saying, give me someone who's been in the active military, give me an NCAA athlete [00:29:00] from college, or give me a farm kid and I'll hire them all day every day. Oh, interesting. And the reason being, I lump those three together because they know how to work hard and they know how to schedule to get stuff done.

(29:18):

The NCAA athlete in college who's getting up at 4:00 AM to hit the gym, who's traveling on away games during finals weeks, who's [00:29:30] working on their nutrition, there's a responsibility, I think in all three of those farm kids, NCAA athletes and active military, there's a responsibility for them to figure out how they're going to get everything done and working hard. Now, if you were to go through and ask all my employees, what's your background? You're not going to find a lot of them in here. There's a lot of other things that leads to someone [00:30:00] getting hired here. But I do love when I find someone that tells me a story or gives me a snapshot into their life that shows me how they were able to create the opportunity to strive, but then also keep a balance to know that work is not the end all beat, all that. There are other things in life that are more important than work. [00:30:30] So it's the people that can put that puzzle together and know that they're better for having done that. Those are the people that I love to take a long hard look at

Dan Freehling (30:40):

The first time I'm thinking of this in full, but there seems to be something of these sort of talent development, almost like feeder programs that are out there that you can take a look at of whether that's the military, whether that's the college athletics, whether that's growing up on a farm. I think for me, I was very [00:31:00] cool in college obviously. So I was in Model un, and even that was this really intensive organization that you were part of, and we were running these big conferences and traveling all over the country and competing in debates and that kind of a thing. And it's making me think of how many of these types of things are out there that are doing that work of basically proving and helping people hone their responsibility, their discipline, their balance of interests and passions and work [00:31:30] and all of that out there. That's a really interesting one, Steve.

Steve Baue (31:34):

I mean, it's a very cliche question, but I love asking people, okay, so what do you do for fun? What do you do to balance your life out? And there's the people that really have thought about that and do it intentionally. And then there's the people that are still, they haven't quite figured that out yet. But I love that question because that's when you get to see the [00:32:00] real person when they all of a sudden their eyes light up talking about something that really holds a special place in their heart that they do not because they're paid or because it's going to pay off dividends professionally, but they're doing it just for the love of doing it. And when you find that, then conversation gets really interesting.

Dan Freehling (32:22):

That's so fascinating. So for the longevity of keeping them engaged in the organization because they have other things that drive them, and then also [00:32:30] bringing that energy and that passion as side benefits to the work itself.

Steve Baue (32:35):

And listen, I don't hire anyone anymore thinking that they're going to work for me for 30 years. A lot of how we structure things, counseling, take counselors, counselors normally, if they stay three years, then they'll stay five to seven, but they normally max out at seven years. I call it ghosts in the walls, [00:33:00] that the counselors, just because of the intensity and the stories and all of that, that either at the three year mark or the five to seven year mark, they need a change of scenery. They need to go. And oftentimes because we deal, we're traditionally known as an employee assistance program or an EAP, that's short-term, mental health counseling. A lot of times they want to go get into group therapy or they want to go work at a behavioral health center where they're getting more into mental [00:33:30] illness and inpatient care versus our outpatient, but I have no false beliefs that I'm going to hire someone. They're going to stay forever. So it's much more into that, how can we align our wants and our needs over this period of time so that we both walk away feeling really good if it ends at some point.

Dan Freehling (33:57):

Yeah, it sounds like that partnership and [00:34:00] the respect to your earlier point is there and has to come from both sides. And it's not just your company is going to do everything that everyone who works for them wants all the time. There's still that trade off there of they have to also show up and perform and be great at their roles, but there is that mutual respect and understanding there.

Steve Baue (34:21):

I think I shared this with you before, Dan. I mean, listen, I'm not the greatest place to work. I'm a pretty decent place [00:34:30] if you align to what we're doing and how we're doing it, and hopefully this doesn't come across as bragging or egotistical, but in the height of the great recession for two years, we had zero voluntary turnover during when everyone seemed to be changing companies and looking elsewhere. We went two years without anyone saying, I don't want to work here anymore. We kept the [00:35:00] whole team. Now we had a couple of retirements and some other things happened, but no one tendered a resignation for over two years. And to me, that's I think speaks to the culture, but also our hiring process of making sure that we're understanding who is this person or what do they want and are we able to provide that for them?

Dan Freehling (35:26):

And having that upfront as opposed to either [00:35:30] desperately trying to hang on to people or just having people who are misaligned throughout. So that seems like that's really important for you. Yeah,

Steve Baue (35:37):

Yeah.

Dan Freehling (35:38):

What's a really thought provoking either leadership or management or business idea that you've come across recently? Steve,

Steve Baue (35:47):

I'm going to go with one that on its surface is not thought provoking. It's this whole idea of work from home right now. Now because fascinated by it. I [00:36:00] think so many companies are getting it wrong right now. So I'm going to give you a Steve Baue view of the world.

(36:12):

Think about work. It took us, what, 120 years, 150 years to develop work as we knew it back, let's go prior to Covid, it was well over a hundred years of evolution to get to the workplace as we knew [00:36:30] it. And that workplace was designed by companies. The first thing it was, it's a workplace. It's a place you went to work. Where are you going? I got to get to work. So it was removed from everything else in your life. It was a place that you went to. Second thing was there was a time set to it. You have to be there by seven 30 and you're going to work until four 30. So now here's the place, but here's the time [00:37:00] that you have to be in this place. And then so what is this place designed for? It's for work. You're going to show up at this time to this place and you're going to do work. Why was it designed that way? Because it made leading people there easier.

(37:19):

I could be at that place during their hours and everyone that I was responsible for, or everyone that was doing a job for my company or whatever would be [00:37:30] there and I could see them. You're all in one place. You're all there At one time. I could go around and watch each of you work, and that made my job as a leader really easy. So a hundred years to evolve to that point, COVID hits work from home, happens, blows the whole thing up now. It's not a place. Work is actually happening in the home. Those used to be [00:38:00] two separate places. Now they're one place. Work was happening outside normal working hours. I use the air quotes. People were able to do it as it fit into their calendars, and surprisingly people liked it. They thought, Hey, this isn't bad. Not everybody loved it, right?

(38:18):

And let's face it, COVID did a real number on our mental health. It Rocket fired us into a mental health crisis that we're still dealing with today, but it opened up the parameters [00:38:30] of what work could be. So now that was going to be okay, there's the new norm, but now we have it swinging way back the other way where companies like Walt Disney and Zoom and these others saying, Nope, you got to show up. You got to be here. And they're putting a lot of terminology on why they think it's important. It's creativity and it's team building and it's blah, blah, blah. What's funny about it is that companies that are so [00:39:00] diligent about data really don't have any of the support. That idea that you need it for creativity or team building or productivity. In fact, in some cases it's flying in the face of it.

(39:14):

So what that leads me to believe is why there's such a push for getting people back into workplace. Then it goes back to that old model of leadership that makes it easy. They're in a place, they're there at a time, and I don't have to figure out how to lead differently. I [00:39:30] can lead. I would've always been leading. So when we talk about that idea of thought provoking leadership, all my employees have the option to work from home with counselors. If it's an in-person session, it has to be in one of our clinics, but if it's virtual, we have it set up where they can do virtual sessions from home and if they wanted to, they could set up where they do virtuals [00:40:00] all virtual appointments on Tuesdays and Thursdays and they do it from home. What we have found though, is that with a lot of our counselors, they intermingle those virtual sessions because they like having the place to go to.

(40:15):

They like that this sets in their day a certain way, but they know they have that flexibility there. Administratively, I work from home two days out of the week. I'm in the office [00:40:30] three days, I work from home. Two days a week I get stuff done, but it's not between the hours of eight and five. I was working last night, I didn't work on Friday, I didn't do anything related to any of the companies on Fridays last night I logged in around four o'clock, I worked till seven. And my administrative team has that same ability. I have not seen a drop off in productivity. I haven't seen a drop off in our team working as teams. I haven't seen a drop off in our ability to [00:41:00] take care of our clients. What I have seen know is that I and my leadership team have grown in terms of how do you lead when the person is not sitting right in front of you?

Dan Freehling (41:16):

Yeah. It's just such a shift from leadership being a position that is for the leader's benefit of I've become a leader and I've achieved leadership and now I'm going to reap the rewards of being a leader. [00:41:30] And it's toward that. How do we bring people together in this organization and work toward our common objectives here? And I think it's such a difference of is this to make the leader's job easier? Is this to have optics of looking productive or is this to actually be productive and thinking about that? And I think there's certain companies and organizations that have a physical plant or something where it's like you need to be there [00:42:00] in person and it makes sense for the Disney example, even for maybe Park leadership has to be on site, and that makes total sense. You have an operation that's running there. But for a lot of companies where they're just doing straight up knowledge work or innovative work, it doesn't make a ton of sense. And you're totally right. It's not backed by the data. And yeah, it's a real shift of what is leadership about? What is management about? Is it about me or is it about actually doing a good job?

Steve Baue (42:30):

[00:42:30] I think the companies that are really going to thrive and be a true attractor of talent are the ones that are, to your point, when there is the ability to be flexible, they are flexible.

Dan Freehling (42:43):

It's refreshing to actually hear a thoughtful approach to this too. I feel like there's so many ideological caps on it where it's just like everyone needs to always be remote all the time, or everyone needs to be fully imperson or else you're not really working. We need to check on you. And yeah, it's nuanced [00:43:00] and it's something that's a conversation and a dialogue and where you're going to lose people if you go in a certain direction. And you have to take that all into account as a business owner, as a leader of what am I willing to do in terms of trade-offs here?

Steve Baue (43:17):

Right.

Dan Freehling (43:20):

What's a leadership book or other management resource that you find yourself coming back to the most often?

Steve Baue (43:30):

[00:43:30] I'm a big reader, so I read 24 to 30 books a year, and they're split between fiction and nonfiction. I like murdery thriller books that gives you,

Dan Freehling (43:46):

It's important to not just be on the business stuff.

Steve Baue (43:49):

Yeah. Oh yeah. So I have some interesting escapism. We have a murdery book club here in the office where we trade books [00:44:00] around those. And then the other half are nonfiction and I read 'em. A lot of 'em are business books and the two, so I'm a book guy. The two that I always, I don't go back physically, but I think a lot about, the first one is called the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, and it's written by a gentleman, Mike Michalowicz, I think is how you say it. There's just a lot of vowels and consonants [00:44:30] in his last name. He's written a whole bunch of books. He's a Gen Xer, so I get all his movie references in his books. I know you're a big movie guy too, and he swears and whatever, but his toilet paper entrepreneur was his first book. And I read it shortly after I bought my first company, had left corporate.

(44:53):

And it was really about how do you start a company and what's the mindset you have to have and how do you do some really basic [00:45:00] things? How do you go get customers and how do you decide if you should hire an employer or not? And what I loved about it and why the book is called The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur is he says, listen, if you go into the bathroom and you sit down and you look and there's only two sheets of toilet paper left, he said in that moment, you become an efficiency expert when it comes to toilet paper, toilet. You become the world's greatest problem [00:45:30] solver as you look around the bathroom and try to figure out what your options are, if it might require more than two sheets of toilet paper. So his whole thing about it is when you sit down and there's a full roll of toilet paper, you're like, Hey, you're blowing your nose and you're wiping your shoes and you're doing right, you're taking 30 sheets at a time.

(45:55):

But entrepreneurs, you have to keep [00:46:00] that problem solving efficiency because it's so easy to fall and you make some money and then all of a sudden you're like, I should have an office. I should have a nice desk, I should have employees. I'm not cheap. But I do carry that thought along of saying, well, if I had no money, if I had no asset assets to leverage, how would I do this? And then I work from that [00:46:30] point. And I think if you're going to own a business, that idea of what's the most efficient way, what's the quote, cheapest way I could do this and then work from that point to decide what you're going to do too. You get a couple of clients in and you got some cash and all of a sudden you might make some commitments that all of a sudden things get lean aren't going to be helping you anymore.

(46:56):

So that's one that I keep going back to philosophically. The other one is [00:47:00] the classic of Simon Sinek. Start with Why and again to the folks that you're working with. And a lot of my, especially my administrative staff, boomers, gen Xers, again, to use those age generational tags, we were just told to do it. And then that's how we emulated our leadership was just, well, I'm the boss, you do it. If you want a paycheck, you're going to do [00:47:30] it. But when you approach something with why, and again, it's why I love as each wave of college graduates come in, they're asking that question. It's rising from the 10th question to the fifth question to now, oftentimes the first question, why are we doing this? Why is this important? And as a leader, I think the more you start with that why, where you consider the why, the more [00:48:00] that you get the best out of someone.

(48:03):

I do. I used to teach a leadership class and now I do some keynote speeches around leadership sometimes how it intersects with mental health. But I have an exercise that I love to do. I have someone come up from the audience and in the Midwest we have Culver's, it's burgers and fries and frozen custard and have a gift card, $5 gift card to Calder's. [00:48:30] And I ask for a volunteer. I say, Hey, come up here. I'm not going to embarrass you, but come up here and if you just help me with this, I'll give you a gift card to Calder's. And I have 'em stand against the wall and I tell 'em, I give 'em a post-it note, and I say, I just want you to reach up, keep your feet flat on the floor. I want you to reach up as high as you can with your right arm and put that post-it, note up as high as you can.

(48:54):

No strings, no tricks, whatever. They go ahead and do it. I give 'em a $5 gift card. And I said, now listen, [00:49:00] here's the deal. I'm going to give you another one if you do that again. And normally they're like, sure. I said, okay, but I want to tell you something first. Not only am I going to give you a $5 gift card, here's the deal. I need you to put that post-it note two inches higher than the first one. And if you do that, not only are you going to get a $5 gift card, everyone sitting around you is going to get a $5 gift card to Culver's. In fact, I want you to think of [00:49:30] those people, not as random people sitting next to you or coworkers who came to this conference with you. I want you to think of them as your family.

(49:40):

And this isn't just a $5 gift card. This is Food man. This is love, right? This is burger fries and Frozen custard. I mean, there's nothing better in world who can ask for more. And if you can just put this post-It note two inches higher, everyone's going to feel that love from you. I have never, in the 10 [00:50:00] years I've been doing that exercise, I have never had anyone not be able to put that post-it note two inches higher. And the reason I love doing that exercise is because I explain to people that two inches is discretionary effort. We all, we work every day, every time we have a task to do, we figure out what is an acceptable level to do it at. What does good look like that other people would say, yeah, that's good, but we always leave a little in the [00:50:30] tank.

(50:30):

That's never a hundred percent all out. We save that for when something's really important, when we understand the benefits that it will bring. And that's why I love Simon Sinek's start with why. Because the difference how people get that two inches more is because I explained what will happen and why it's important. And so I use that thought a lot when I'm introducing something, [00:51:00] I'm going to explain something. I'm going to ask someone to do something. I need to explain that why to 'em. Because when they understand that they're going to give you more than if you just say Do it.

Dan Freehling (51:15):

Right? And even being restrained with how often you do that as a leader, I think is key of figuring out what things are actually important to move the needle on what we're trying to do. Why are we trying to do that? And [00:51:30] then people will stretch. But when you just use it as super transactional, people get burned out really quick.

Steve Baue (51:37):

Absolutely. But to sit there and go, listen, if you do this, here's the downstream upstream implications. Here's what our purpose, all of our, the five companies my wife and I own, they all share the same purpose. We care. We help. That's why they exist is because we want to work [00:52:00] with people that genuinely care about others and they want to help them. And it's amazing how those four words, when we talk about what does that actually look like, what is the impact that we have? And we share that information later today, the leadership team, we have my monthly meeting. That's the third Monday of the month. We go through all the numbers and we go through all the data points that tell us how the impact that we're having. And then I do a skinny version. [00:52:30] I record it and I send it out to all employees, and we talk about the surveys and we talk about times to appointment, and we talk about where the bonus pool is at. Tell 'em, here's our revenue for the month. Here's our expense for the month. I'm explaining so that when I say, Hey, listen, we lost this customer and here's an action we have to take, they already know that we have to take that action. They already understand the why behind [00:53:00] that customer and their impact that they have for us and what we're able to do because of it.

Dan Freehling (53:06):

It's so much of a connection to a lot of these other leadership concepts too, of ownership and enterprise mindset and everything of helping people understand the purpose behind what they're doing for the business. I just love that. Outside of business, I know you mentioned the Murdery Books Club

Steve Baue (53:27):

Where let's not make that the headline

Dan Freehling (53:29):

Exactly [00:53:30] right? Yeah. It's going to be the podcast title

Steve Baue (53:33):

Where you get your leadership inspiration. I read a lot of books about serial killers.

Dan Freehling (53:39):

Steve Baue on Murder. Where else do you draw inspiration as a leader? Yeah,

Steve Baue (53:47):

I'm a big, it took me till probably four or five years ago to understand how important my self-care was [00:54:00] to everything I was doing. And so the things that I do, where am I drawing inspiration from? I share it freely. I stopped drinking almost four years ago. I live in Wisconsin. I live in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It's the drunkest city in the drunkest state.

Dan Freehling (54:19):

It is the epicenter,

Steve Baue (54:21):

Right? So stop drinking in this place is something, but I didn't like the role it was playing. I didn't like the time it was taking for my [00:54:30] life. I wasn't getting better at it. And that right there made a huge difference. So I got after that, and then a guy who owned two counseling companies. I didn't see a counselor regular. And now I do once a month I have a counselor and I tell her that part of her job is just to let me data dump everything in my head so I don't overwhelm people, and I also don't keep it bottled up. And we've worked through some stuff that [00:55:00] was hidden in the closet that I wasn't aware of. I went last year, last fall, I went on a meditation retreat. I'd never meditated, never done yoga. And it was five days on a mountaintop in North Carolina. And I learned meditation. I learned basic yoga, and we did silence. We were in silence for two and a half days. No books, no music, no reading. We did meditation. We went for walks. That holy cow was at a game changer [00:55:30] in terms of my stress level and having a tool to stress. Two years ago, I started working out with a trainer a couple of times a week. And last year I changed my diet.

(55:44):

Now I'm starting to develop hobbies. I love woodworking. And I took a great class in July up in Northern Minnesota, automata, which is little wooden mechanical devices. They're just whimsical little gears and [00:56:00] things that you make out of wood, and their only purpose is to bring a smile to your face. And I learned to do that. And next month I'm going back up to learn figure carving. It's a hobby that has absolutely nothing to do with business, absolutely nothing to do with numbers or it's all creativity. All of those things that I just described have paid off incredibly well in terms [00:56:30] of being a leader and being a business person. It's brought me perspective. It's brought me a level of calm, it's brought me energy, it's brought me the ability to unplug. It fills little buckets of joy that I didn't realize those buckets existed for me. All of those things that mind, body, spirit, [00:57:00] fill in, fill your heart, all of that I now bring to work with me as a leader and man, I can feel the difference.

Dan Freehling (57:11):

Wow. Well, thanks for sharing all that. It's an inspiration to me, and I'm sure to a lot of people listening too, of that self-care being so important to your role as a leader. Steve, thanks so much for joining us today. It's been a real pleasure and I've learned a lot, and I think a lot of people will have a lot of takeaways from this. Where [00:57:30] can listeners learn more about what you're up to and get in touch if they'd like to?

Steve Baue (57:34):

Yeah, so I'm going to give two websites. One is bauemg.com. It's short for Baue Management Group. That is all our companies has our links to the five companies. Also gives a little background on how my wife and I ended up at this point. The one if you want to get into specifically the coaching [00:58:00] and keynotes, that's stevebaue.com. That takes you directly to the Coaching and keynote website that you can also get through the first website as well.

Dan Freehling (58:15):

Thanks so much. I had really encourage people to check Steve out. He's really a wealth of knowledge and a great resource on this, and I'm just working in a ton of these different spaces. So really encourage you to check him out. Listeners, thanks for joining us today. If you got something out of the show, [00:58:30] if you could please share it with a colleague or leave a quick review on the podcast app you're using. It'll really help spread the word so others can find us. And Steve, I wanted to thank you again for joining me. I really appreciate it.

Steve Baue (58:42):

Oh, Dan, listen, I think the world of you, you're doing great stuff, man.

Dan Freehling (58:45):

Thank you so much.