Dr. Mitch Kusy - Why I Don't Work Here Anymore

I sit down with Dr. Mitch Kusy, an organizational psychologist, professor, and leadership expert, to explore the hidden costs of toxic workplace cultures. Dr. Kusy shares the startling results of his research into how toxic behaviors not only damage team morale but can also have real financial impacts on organizations. Whether you’re a leader struggling with cultural challenges or someone looking to understand how to make your work environment healthier, this episode is packed with actionable strategies for creating a positive, productive workplace.

“94% of the 900-plus leaders in our study said they deal with toxic work systems. 94%—it's really amazing.”

As an organizational psychologist, Dr. Mitch Kusy brings 25 years of consulting and research on how toxic behaviors and work cultures erode personal well-being, team performance, and patient outcomes. His systems approach to addressing toxic work systems has become a benchmark worldwide for improving patient safety and satisfaction, as well as healthcare team productivity. Mitch has consulted and been a keynote speaker with hundreds of organizations nationally and internationally helping create healthcare cultures of “everyday civility” with demonstrated improvement in team and financial performance.

https://www.mitchellkusy.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-mitch-kusy/

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Transcript

Jason Frazell: 0:11

Hey everybody, my guest on the show today is Dr. Mitch Kusy. I want to start before I introduce Mitch, start by saying how Mitch, how you ended up here with me today, which is really cool. A few weeks ago, I was on a coaching call with a client and she was telling me about how they had this really great speaker come to the organization and talk about culture and change and how to develop more less toxicity in the workplace. And I said, oh, that sounds really interesting. She said, yeah, you should check him out. And I looked up and said, Oh, I want like to see if Dr. Mitch Kusy would come to my podcast. And here we are a few weeks later. So lovely. Life works out that way. So cool. So Mitch, so good to have you here today. Mitch is an organizational psychologist. He's a professor at Antioch University. He's the author of six books. He's a leadership and cultural change consultant. And Mitch, I'm just so glad you're here with us today. Welcome.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 1:01

Thank you, Jason. It's really a pleasure to be here. It's a sort of serendipity all these all these stars aligned for us today Yeah,

Jason Frazell: 1:08

yeah, and also I will say at a personal level mitch lives in minneapolis. He's in minneapolis right now I was there over the weekend and he is almost neighbors with my parents, which is also really cool like right right down the street Serendipity at his finest so mitch, I think and so we're going to talk about mostly today You About culture change in the workforce and offsetting some of the financial and emotional costs that companies deal with based on culture in the workplace. And I won't even go into the list of companies that you work with, but it's a lot of them and you help companies do this work. So before we get into that, what do you think we as the audience, myself in the audience, what should, well, should we know about you before we could really dig, dive deep into this topic?

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 1:51

Oh, that's that's a great question. Just a sort of some soundbites. As you said, I'm an organizational psychologist. That doesn't mean I organize things. What it means is. I go into organizations and help them assess the work culture and what they want to do to improve the work culture and what they need to do to accentuate the strengths of that work culture. I do this in several vehicles. One is I'm, as a professor, Yeah. As you said, Antioch university in the graduate school of leadership and change. And I work with PhD students, PhD students who are all working leaders in their own right. I also do this with an organization called the healthy workforce Institute, whose mantra is to eradicate incivility and bullying in the workplace to accentuate three things. And this is my, my mantra as well increased personal wellbeing, enhanced team performance, and improved productivity in organizations. So that's a little bit about me.

Jason Frazell: 3:00

Yeah. Thanks Mitch. I have so many questions about this topic overall. As somebody who has spent Let me tell you one

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 3:06

thing. I'll interrupt you for a second with all your questions. I don't know what your questions are, Jason, but I can tell you if I'm at a cocktail party And I'm standing there and someone asks what I do. If I, if I mentioned, I help organizations deal with toxic work cultures. I can't go anywhere else. I am stuck talking to that person. You are stuck. It's evasive.

Jason Frazell: 3:32

And then my also guess is I'm, I would imagine you've heard more times. You could count. Oh, Mitch, we need you in our company. So bad. Yes, we need you. So let's talk about. Well, I'm going to give you my opinion on this, and I'm curious your thoughts on this as we kick this off, is any leader you talk to will tell you, we want to have a great culture, we want to make sure people feel supported, we want people to feel like they get, in some places, the well being, the balance, all the things. Most leaders, they're just people like the rest of us, and they want those in their organization and they understand the value, yet when it comes down to it and you talk to people, most folks that I know would say that they don't, that it doesn't land that way for them in some way, shape or form in most places. So I'd love to start by framing out this problem framing out why people like you do the work you do, like what's needed. Because to me, intellectually, we all get it yet. There's a huge gap. So what would you say is the biggest thing in the way of a great performing company? and having the no more bullying, having people feel supported, feeling the well being and also have the performance that they need to perform for their shareholders, for their employees, and everything in between.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 5:04

It's a great question. Let's take a step back and I want to talk about my research study that I did with my colleague, Dr. Elizabeth Holloway. And then we talk about this research in my second to the last book called Toxic Workplace. And I talk about it in my latest book, why I don't work here anymore. And one of the startling things that we discovered is that 94 percent of the 900 plus leaders in our study said they deal with toxic work systems. 94 percent is it, it's really amazing. And we'll talk about the devastation that occurs as a result of that, in and of itself. That's the quantitative data. I want to share one piece of qualitative data, and this was a quote because we did a extensive survey along with extensive interviews and one interviewee said the day this person left our company is an annual holiday. Yes, we can laugh at that. And then when we hear the, when we go back from the comedy of that, because it is, it is funny and we've all felt that way, we really understand the devastation that's going on in organizations. And to answer your question directly as to why, because first of all, many people get away with bad behavior. All of us at times still know how to deal with it. So that's bad. One of the startling things that we found in our study, Dr. Elizabeth Holloway and I was that the number one unsuccessful strategy. That people use is to give the individual feedback about their behavior. Why I'm not saying feedback isn't effective. It's one of the most powerful means. However, feedback without a system supporting that feedback is, is going to be largely ineffective. And when I talk about a system back to this, what I said earlier, why do people get away with bad behavior? Because the organizational consequences. If we had the organizational consequences positive in terms of when people are doing really well and negative, when there's toxic behaviors, if those systems were in place, feedback would be far more effective. Again, the number one unsuccessful strategy that people use is give them feedback.

Jason Frazell: 7:46

So Mitch, I was mentioning before the conversation, before we press record about a client I had this morning. I hear this all the time from my clients, is they get feedback on something and then they ask for examples or they ask for okay. So I want, because most people, I hope this is your experience, most people are good people. They want to improve. They want to be better. They want to be better employees, better leaders, et cetera. And I hear this all the time is I've gotten this feedback, this tough feedback for one reason or another. And then I asked for support to have it be better and it's not offered. So they'll say, so for example, you need to be more relatable to your employees. Okay. I T I received that feedback. I would like to be more relatable for my plagues. How can you support me with that? I don't know. We don't know.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 8:37

That's a great dilemma. I would take a step back for just a moment. I'm going to put my psychologist hat on. Please. People don't know. Many people don't know what it means to be relatable. I hear this all the time is like, well, you shame people in public or you shame people privately. What does that mean? I mean, I don't know. Yeah. What so that in terms of good feedback. What I believe is you need to be concrete and behaviorally specific. So let's take the example that you use and let's take the example of shaming. Let's talk about relatable. I would give that person this feedback that's giving the feedback. Don't say you're, you're not relatable to people. Or if you say that, say here are the ways that I see that demonstrated. First of all you don't, you don't greet people. People are coming in and you just immediately go to your office without trying to establish a relationship with people first. Relatable. When you when you have a team come together, Do you take two to three minutes to say something like, I'd like to ask if anyone has a very supportive message the way this team has been working and is there a way that this team can improve more effectively? That's a relatable leader doing that. Yeah, love that Mitch. Let's go to the other example of shaming. You shame people publicly or in private. What does that mean? Here's, here's a better way to say this. I noticed the last three meetings, you've interrupted people. several times. And I know you have so many important things to say. What's happening is when you interrupt people, two things are occurring. People have less trust in you. And secondly, you might discover that some of the things that others are saying corroborate your views. And when you have that corroboration, you are going to be more effective as a professional. That's a different way of providing feedback in complicated, really specific ways.

Jason Frazell: 10:58

Yeah, it reminds me a lot of the the SBI framework, which I'm sure you know the SBI framework is pretty popular out there Just yes, and you keep it flat. This is what I noticed This is what I saw happen and it also but it also gives you as the person giving feedback It gives you the autonomy to give some subjectiveness. This is a situation as I see it This is how your behavior landed for me or what I saw and this is what I believe the impact is And then,

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 11:24

you know, it's interesting. I have a four step process for giving feedback. I'll share it shortly. Yes, please. One thing I think is really important is the power of the pause. So here's the four step process, intro behavior, impact, and tossback intro. Hey, I just noticed some things that were going on at this meeting. When's a good time to talk with you about intro behavior? And they say, you know what, how about we have coffee in 15 minutes, whatever it is, behavior exactly the way. And you and I are talking about that. You described behavior in concrete and behaviorally specific terms. So intro behavior and the impact, the impact is. People are listening to you less. People are are not apt to trust you as much. So intro behavior, impact, and tossback. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Jason Frazell: 12:21

Yeah, I love that, Mitch. Yeah, because it allows them a chance to process and they might disagree, they might agree, they might go, Oh, thank you, I had no idea. I hear that, no idea, and it gives, yeah.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 12:34

And Jason, if they disagree, what I talk about, and I'm a negotiator, I say, well, let's find one thing of everything we've heard today that both of us can agree on. And I talk about that as baby steps. What are the first things that we need to do?

Jason Frazell: 12:50

Yeah. Good coaching. Yeah. Put it back. What do you think we should do? I want to, I realized something Mitch that I, I wanted to address that I forgot to ask about. I don't want to assume that everybody listening knows what we are talking about when you say toxicity in the workplace. So let's define that because that is a term that gets thrown around all the time. And my experience with it is. is sometimes people will say it's toxic because they don't like the, they just don't like the way they've been treated, but it would not, I think others folks well, that's not toxic. Or, you know, you work with hundreds of leaders in these huge companies. There may be a leader that goes, that's not toxic. What are you talking about? That's normal. And somebody might, but it might land as toxic. So what are we talking about when we say toxicity in the workplace in the way that you see it?

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 13:33

Sure. I want to answer that question directly with something that not only I, but Dr. Renee Thompson and others at the Healthy Workforce Institute, where I do a fair amount of work as a consultant. We have three benchmarks of toxic. And it doesn't matter what you call it. Sometimes people call it toxic. Sometimes people call it bullying. There are three perspectives. Is it targeted?

Jason Frazell: 14:01

Is

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 14:01

it harmful? Is it repeated? Targeted, harmful, repeated. Targeted to an individual or to a group. And when it's targeted to a group, in the psychological literature, it's called mobbing. So it's targeted and it's harmful. And it doesn't matter if you don't intend to do harm. If someone perceives that as harmful, Then it is so targeted, harmful, and repeated. And the reason that repeated is so important is we've all had a bad day. Sure. I might have said something to you and I was uncivil to you and we've all had those days, but hopefully it's not repeated. So targeted, harmful, repeated, essentially they're counterproductive work behaviors that get in the way of three things, our own personal wellbeing, team performance. And ultimately organizational productivity.

Jason Frazell: 14:59

Yeah. And the financial and all of the financial consequences of that.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 15:04

Indeed. If one of the things that our research discovered is that just financially. If an organization they're paying$100 million for compensation to individuals for doing their jobs. Mm-Hmm, So this is all levels in the organization. The compensation is a hundred million. You know, someone's making 50,000, someone's making 250,000, et cetera. Use this as an example. A hundred million, a minimum of 6% is spent dealing with toxic work cultures. That's a minimum of 6, 000, 000.

Jason Frazell: 15:48

Yeah.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 15:49

So when you think about that and what organizations are spending to deal with this and why does it cost so much, Jason? Well, it costs so much when someone leaves. The cost of recruiting and what we know from the research is our own research found that 51 percent of individuals are likely to leave the research by Pearson and Porth found that 12 percent actually do. So first of all, the cost of recruiting new people, the cost of turnover the cost of training, new individuals, opportunity costs, et cetera. It's a minimum of 6%. Okay. So just financially alone, it's exorbitant. And if you look in healthcare, healthcare, the amount, not just financial costs, but the cost of patient safety, when people aren't communicating with each other, bad things happen.

Jason Frazell: 16:52

Yeah,

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 16:53

in health care. And we know that for example, there was a study of over 13, 000 patients and surgeons who had more complaints from their colleagues had 14. 3 percent higher complication rates.

Jason Frazell: 17:16

Wow.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 17:17

I know. Wow. It's right. And when I first started reading the literature and just healthcare alone, the research, I always thought, you know, patient safety and the patient experience was a result of the expertise of individuals. And yes, sometimes it is. It's also how we relate to each other, but 14. 3 percent higher complication rates for those surgeons that had more colleague complaints.

Jason Frazell: 17:47

That's

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 17:48

Doesn't it make you go wild?

Jason Frazell: 17:50

Yeah, wow. And well, as, as a, as a consumer of healthcare, just as just the example of using, we would have no idea.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 18:00

No, no idea. And that's why when I'm going for myself, To a physician or provider, I want to make sure that I'm looking around, that, you know, people are treating each other well, et cetera. And I've actually said things to compliment physicians and nurses, et cetera. I've also said things afterwards to say, you know, you might want to look at this because it impacts the patient experience.

Jason Frazell: 18:30

Yeah. And I know Mitch, that you spent some time in healthcare, you worked in healthcare for quite a few years. Yes, I did. So you have, you have real life experience with this. I want to, I want to ask about something that just struck me as you were talking about the toxic and the three ways to know whether we deem it as toxic and how that might relate to managing people out, performance management, and that whole topic, because. My guess is this is my guess and you would know from doing this research if you've if you've done any research around this Many people who've been managed out of a business for a variety of reasons would say that it felt toxic to them And my guess it would have meet all three of those criteria in some ways good in that case. It is literally targeted It is going to be repeated, and I'm just curious how you and the field view that and how you manage for, to performance without it feeling toxic to the person receiving it.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 19:34

Well, there's, there's two responses that I have to that. First of all, in terms of performance management, Jason, it's, it's really important that you're not just looking at isolated. Incidents and you're giving feedback progressively along the way. So that's the first piece. Secondly, and this gets back to understanding the system that allows people to get away with bad behavior. And in my book, why don't work here anymore? I have a tremendous array of system strategies, but I want to. Take one that you talked about of managing people out, and that is the exit interview thing that I have discovered in my research about the exit interview is people often don't tell the truth. Let's pretend the scenario is that someone's had a bad boss. And appropriately, the human resource individual is the person to conduct the exit interview. Sure. And let's pretend that I've had a bad boss. And you're interviewing me and you're the HR person, you asked about what my experience was and I say something like, well, you know, it was a good experience and the re and well, tell me why you're leaving Mitch. Well, the reason I'm leaving is I want a different kind of experience. I'm ready to move on to X, Y, Z, lie, lie, lie. The reason I'm moving on is I've had this person that I would call a toxic boss or a toxic colleague. I'm afraid to say anything. The question is, why am I afraid to say this? Because I'm leaving the organization. What I discovered in my research is, I'm afraid to say it because I worry that That perhaps this individual has tentacles in this new organization. I'm going to grab off me. All right. That's the bad news. The good news is what should we do about it? I'm saying change the system of exit interviews. And this is what I suggest. So you're the HR person and you, and you know that I'm leaving and you're not here to talk me out of leaving, but you say this, you know, Mitch I really value the kind of. Professional you have been, and what I'd like to do is in three to four months, may I contact you and

Jason Frazell: 22:10

talk about

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 22:10

your experience here? And you could say something like, you know, when the dust settles and you, and, and typically the individual will say yes, and you'll get more accurate feedback. And totally. The HR person has a much greater chance of getting accurate information. And secondly, they start collecting themes and maybe there's one individual that people have left because of that. And you, you understand that more and you either try to coach that person or maybe that person needs to leave. The bottom line is why are good people leading organizations?

Jason Frazell: 22:52

Yeah. And that, that's where I wanted to go. Then that's your latest book is literally titled for the audience is why I don't work here anymore. So why is it that good people leave organizations and I will take away, let's take away some of the, just, we know some of the. They just get a promotion somewhere else that isn't available internally. So we take away the normal, the normal flow of, you know, business in 2024. These are folks that believe they're paid fairly, the benefits are good, and they like the work they're doing, yet they leave. What are some reasons? Why that happens.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 23:26

Well, what we discovered in this research is one is that it's a toxic work culture targeted harmful repeated. Some examples are, you know, and people often don't realize micromanaging can mean that it's a toxic work culture. You're not able to thrive, and it's targeted, harmful, repeated. So it could be that. It could be that you are not allowed to engage in positive ways outside of your own immediate team. Clamps are put on you. There are so many reasons for this. And and it often comes to power and people having power and wanting to engage that power for their own gratification could be some narcissism. You know, I don't know, but what's really important is. It's not that important to know why what's important to know is this is what's happening right now. How do I address this? You know, it's interesting when the title of my book, why I don't work here anymore. This is my sixth book, as you said, a little comedy here. And I had the book all written. I have an agent for all of my books, the same agent. And for some reason, she couldn't find a publisher. And all the people that have read the book, publishers, or maybe they just saw the title, the original title was No Work Jerks Allowed. And we couldn't find a publisher, and she said, I don't know, they're all saying this book has been written. I said, well, it hasn't, it's chock full of hard data, it's chock full of actual evidence based strategies. I went and worked out one day at five and I worked out at 5:00 AM I came back from my workout and my partner of 37 years, Scott. I said to him, what was going on last night? You got up in the middle of the night, writing, writing, writing. He said, I got the title of your book.

Jason Frazell: 25:34

Nice. Really?

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 25:35

But I was trying to be a good, good partner. Good partner. Yeah. Yeah. He said, the title of your book should be Why you don't work here anymore. I said, that's brilliant. He goes, yeah. I know I heard you talk on the phone. I heard you in a podcast that, you know, 12 percent of individuals leave toxic systems. 51 percent are likely 30. 7 percent of nurses knew someone who left because of this. Wow. He's really listened to me. And so I went and talked with my agent. She says, that's brilliant.

Jason Frazell: 26:12

There it is.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 26:14

And I said, it is, and it wasn't my idea. And by the end of the week, I had a publisher. Morals of the lesson. One is you can judge a book by its cover. Totally. Secondly, sometimes you should just trust your partners. Yeah, exactly. Just might know something.

Jason Frazell: 26:35

They, yeah, they just, I was going to say they know something and they also know you and they are going to be able to spot. They don't have your blind spots.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 26:45

That's right.

Jason Frazell: 26:46

That's right. And there, and I, and I've talked about this with other guests on this podcast, because we're always going to be our own worst critic, most of us all the time. And our partner is going to go, no, like this book answers that question. Why don't people work here anymore? You're like, I love that. That's so cool. Good on Scott. Good. We'll give a Scott, we'll give Scott's come back. Like nice work, Scott. Nice work, Scott. So Mitch, I want to talk about two other things here before we wrap today. I want to first. address the, I'm going to address two groups of people here. And when I say two groups, they're, they're going to be intermingled because it's not a hard line. I want to first talk to all of those and get your expertise and opinions on anybody listening goes, you know what? I feel like I'm in a toxic workplace or my relationship with my boss or the person I sit next to either toxic company. Toxic boss, toxic peer, it doesn't matter. And they're going, man, this resonates so much for me. And I feel like I've been a part of this and I don't really know what to do because I don't want to leave, but I may have to. So what would you say to that? I want to talk with that person and I'll give you the second type of person.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 27:57

I'm going to answer that. Yeah, I do. I want you, you hit on something that many listeners and my own clients ask, and they ask, first of all, do you think I might be toxic? And by asking that question, there's good news here. And the good news is this in my research study, I discovered that most toxic individuals are clueless about the impact of their behavior on others. So if you ask that question, it means you've got the insight about your behavior and you want to know. So that's the good news. That's good. Now, on a soft track,

Jason Frazell: 28:38

give me your

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 28:39

question one more time, Jason. No, Mitch.

Jason Frazell: 28:40

No, that, no, that, that is good news. They have the awareness to be like, oh, is this possible? And I would, I would assert that most people at some point in their career have probably exhibited some form of toxic behavior without it. Relating to it that way. And in, in your career and in my work lifetime, this has also shifted. What used to be considered completely normal behavior is now considered completely unacceptable behavior in some places too, like, and you know, just the times have changed. But my question, Mitch is let's use this scenario. We've got a listener who goes, Oh man, this resonates. And they have a strong belief or feeling either they're in a toxic company, they have a toxic boss. There's a peer that they feel is toxic. They feel potentially bullied. What would you say to that person in terms of, but well, and, but they don't want to leave, but they don't want to leave the company.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 29:36

Yeah, that's the question. Here's what I would say. First of all, never use the term toxic or bully. Don't use it when you're giving, this is sort of a, a label that we use because it attracts people and they, they get it. But you never give feedback to someone. And I would say never that you are you're, you're engaging in toxic behavior, you're, you're, you're engaging in bullying instead back to what we started with Jason described the behavior in concrete and behaviorally specific terms, the past three weeks at meetings. Every time I was speaking first, you interrupted me. I also noticed that I'm not even able to finish my sentences. And so, and so you're providing very concrete behavior, specific feedback, and then back to that model, intro behavior, impact, and tossback. So I'd like to talk with you about this. These are the, this is the, these are two or three behaviors I'm noticing. The impact is I'm shutting down. I'm less apt to volunteer. For assignments. I'd like to hear your view. So first of all, don't use the term toxic or bullying and remember the intro behavior, impact, and tossback.

Jason Frazell: 31:00

So Mitch, you did something there that is a powerful thing in like psychology, therapy, counseling, coaching, those modalities is the whole thing you did there is you owned your own experience. My exactly, and that is such a difference from how this shows up in really like, Hey, you're being a bully. You could argue that subjective. Oh, this like my experience is this, this is how it feels to me and own. It's a feeling and do that. And there's such a difference there between that and how it goes. So many times of even go to HR. Hey, I feel like I'm being bullied. What do you mean?

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 31:37

Yeah. You're, you're absolutely right. That's, you could be a therapist with, you could even start with that. I love that language that in that intro piece, you could start with that saying, you know, I'm not saying I'm right on this. Something is bothering me and I want to talk with you about it and give me two minutes to just share this. Then I'm going to, and then go through interview and then I'm going to, I want to hear from you and to really let them know you're hearing from them. Take some notes. The other thing that we say in the healthy workforce Institute, a strategy is a scripted scripted time. So intro behavior, impact and tossback, and you put down some notes and you don't have to bring those notes with you, but it's highly threatening that the, what you just shared to talk with someone about it. And you may need to script it and try it out. With a colleague that you trust, if you're trying it out with a colleague, try it, make sure it's a colleague you trust and we'll give you good advice. You don't want to try it out with a colleague to say, ain't it awful. And one of the, one of the top behaviors that we hear from teams that are highly, if you will, toxic is gossip.

Jason Frazell: 33:04

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 33:06

And one of the strategies that we share to deal with gossip is don't point your finger saying you shouldn't be gossiping, your language was great, take ownership, something like this. I know I've been part of talking behind this individual's back in the past. It doesn't feel good to me. So in the future, I'm going to extract myself from these conversations. I love it so much. Yeah. Gossip is way up there. Yeah. Do we, and teams and everyone does it. I do understand. And the reason it's so it, it endures is it's, it's what's called, um, secondary gain, man. Look at the way she just talked with her boss right now. We're licking, we're licking our chops and, and, and, and, and enjoying that at times. And so that's the secondary gain we have to extract her.

Jason Frazell: 34:10

Yeah. I'm curious from a psychological perspective is a lot of the, the gossip, it feels good in the moment, but doesn't it also validate our ability to be right? It's like, Oh, I believe that. I believe that Mitch is. I believe that Mitch is kind of a bully at work. Let's go talk about Mitch. And then like, Oh, I think he is too. And you're like, yes, I'm like from an ego. Yeah.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 34:32

You know, it's, it's in psychological language. It's called cognitive dissonance. Every notice when when you're about to buy a car and then you buy the car, whatever the make is, and then people will seek people. Who have a similar car saying, you know what? This is the best car. Oh God. Yes. You won't see someone that's going to give you different advice and that's called cognitive dissonance. Figure out a way cognitively to deal with our dissonance to make a right decision.

Jason Frazell: 35:03

Yeah, that's brilliant. That, that the second group I want to, and there's so many groups I want to talk to, but the one that really hit me here is the leader of people. So we're talking about a people leader now. Doesn't really matter. There's their scope or scale, just somebody who has direct impact on the culture of a team who's sitting here going. I am so committed to not having this on my team, but I just know that this happens at the company. I know I'm in a company where this is a normal behavior, we see our executives doing it, and I'm committed to something different for my team. In other words, You have to kind of like stop the buck has to stop with that leader on their team. And we're also going to talk about ideal state where these teams don't interact with other teams that have this behavior and they just get to do it. But what would you, and I'm sure you do this work all the time. How can leaders of people own this for their folks specifically? And what are some tangible things that you work with leaders on to go, Hey, I hear your commitment. Like if it was me, I hear your commitment. Here's some tangible strategies.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 36:09

Yeah, one top strategy at a team meeting, and this, the context you just presented, Jason, as if you're the team leader is, when you look at the, the, the agenda at team meetings, it's content, content, content. Task, task, task, task, task. Hardly ever does someone take the time to say, I want to talk about how effectively our meetings are functioning. And so this is the, this is the strategy. It's an A and a B. The A strategy doesn't mean better. First strategy is at every single meeting. Take five minutes and do something like this. I want to talk about something that people have witnessed the past two weeks, the past three weeks, month, whatever it is that this team or people on the team or others outside the team, what they've witnessed that helped our values come alive.

Jason Frazell: 37:12

I love that question.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 37:13

And in a non gossiping kind of way, what is something that you've witnessed? That is an obstacle to our achieving our values five minutes in a one hour meeting So that's the a part the b part is a picture is worth a thousand words Leader could say something like I just read this book called why I don't work here anymore Or I just saw this podcast And I'd like everyone before our next meeting to take 45 minutes And review this podcast and come with any questions or thoughts you might have, we're going to take just five minutes at this next team meeting. So what you're doing is you're, you're making these values in the organization. You're taking them off the plaque and all organizations, most organizations have values off, off a sheet of paper and integrating them into the fabric of what people do every day.

Jason Frazell: 38:11

Yeah,

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 38:12

I think so. That should be one strategy.

Jason Frazell: 38:15

Yeah, brilliant. And to kind of wrap with this before we talk about where people can connect with you and find you and all the beautiful things, what gets in the way of all these things? Because it sounds, it's like most things, it sounds simple. And what gets in the way for leaders of doing these

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 38:31

things? What gets in the way is leaders perceive appropriately. So that they have all these tasks. They do often do not recognize one of their tasks is to build a team. And they'll say, yeah, I understand. I got to build the team, but what are you doing to take time during your day? In a team meeting to build the team. Oh, we're going to go in three weeks off to a team building session. That's fine. But what are you doing to sustain this? Every day. And so if you have a weekly meeting, a meeting every other week, take 5 to 10 minutes to talk about what, what do we need to do to live out these values better? What do we need to do to make sure we have a respectful work culture? Whatever that is, what are the obstacles to our achieving that? Five to 10 minutes at every meeting. Yeah, it is simple. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's like most things in life. Yeah. That doesn't handle everything because one of the things that I do as an organizational psychologist, and I do this through the healthy workforce Institute we, and I do this on my own as well is to look at what do we need to do as an organization, and there's an, at times it's an elaborate three month assessment process to say, here are the things that are getting in the way. Here's what I've noticed. Now, let me help you put together a plan or strategy for dealing with this.

Jason Frazell: 40:05

Well, Mitch, one of the things I love that you said there is too, you're sourcing ideas from others. It's not just, just on you as a leader to go, Hey, it's like, cause the team is, the team is arguably going to have better ideas than you are because they're actually down doing the things. Exactly. And maybe feeling this way. Exactly. Really, Mitch. Brilliant. Let's wrap here. Let's talk about, so you've got, I'll just give you a little bit of a, not even a little bit. I'll give you a plug here. So Mitch has, you have six books. Yes. And you go on a variety of speaking and like I mentioned at the top of the podcast, we're here because one of my clients saw you speak at a big health organization, which is just so cool. So Mitch, you're a speaker, you're a, you're an author. Where can people find out more about you and connect with you?

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 40:45

They can find me a number of ways. One is through the healthy workforce Institute. You can easily Google that they can find me through LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn and they could email me directly. And it's my email was really easy. Mitchell koozie at gmail. com. It's Mitchell, which is where I found you earlier for the listeners. I grew up on the East coast and when I go back. home and see friends and family. I'm still known as Mitchell. So I kept that really not Mitch. So it's Mitchell Koozie K U S Y at gmail. com. So any one of those ways you could find me.

Jason Frazell: 41:28

It's amazing, Mitch. Well, I really want to appreciate my

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 41:30

website, www. mitchellkoozie. com. You can pull up all of my articles. that are available in public domain for free.

Jason Frazell: 41:40

Awesome, Mitch. We'll have all that in the show notes. Mitch, I want to thank you so much. I'm so, I'm so glad that the turn of events had us end up here. I really love the work you're doing. I know as somebody who kind of does opposite work and I mostly speak to individuals, this is such a common topic that people feel, and it would make. And I have worked with so many folks that would have stayed if they hadn't felt this way. Yeah. They're more aligned. It's a great work you're doing.

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 42:06

Thank you, Jason. Just remember the quote from my research study that when we started today the day this person left our organization is an annual holiday. You don't want to be saying that in your organization.

Jason Frazell: 42:19

No you don't. Thank you so much, Mitch. We'll have you back on again soon to talk about what's next. You're a great interviewer as well, Jason. Thank you. Oh, thanks,

Dr. Mitch Kusy: 42:24

Mitch.

Jason Frazell: 42:25

Appreciate it. Take care.

Speaker: 42:27

Thanks for listening to another episode of Talking to Cool People with Jason Frizzell. If you enjoyed today's episode, please tell your friends, follow us on Instagram and Facebook, and give us a shout out, or take a moment to leave a review on iTunes. If something from today's episode piqued your interest and you'd like to connect, email us at podcast at jasonfrizzell. com. We love hearing from our listeners because you're cool people too.