The show’s guest in this episode is George Murray. He is an award-winning author and global operations leader. He inspires business owners & professionals to go from where they are today to where they want to be tomorrow!

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Igniting a Workforce in Today’s Employment Market with George Murray

Hey, everybody, it’s great to be here live with you today. And I’ve been thinking about problem solving because I had a problem this week, I had a big problem. I went swimming on Wednesday, I swim two or three days a week, depending on travel. And on Thursday, in the middle of Thursday morning, like early in the morning, I woke up in the middle of the night, and my arm was just aching all the way my left arm, and my hand was hurting. And I had this problem and it kept going for, for five days, like it’s still kind of hurting a little bit, but it’s, it’s much better. So yesterday, I decided, you know, I’m a big fan of single channel experiments where you can control the outcome. But occasionally, when you have a problem, you have to throw everything you have at it. So yesterday, I started at the massage therapist, and in my hand feels like it felt like I had like a red hot poker in it. And, and so I wanted to so when my massage therapist was working on it, I had him kind of look at all over to see if there was like an impact or a bruise or anything. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t move it, I was really in agony. And he couldn’t find anything until the very end, we found kind of a bruise like right on my wrist right here. And then I went to the doctor, I got an emergency appointment at the doctor. And he did like a full tour, logical exam. And everything was fine, except this one bruise. And we kind of pushed on the bruise. And that radiated into my hand. And that was kind of interesting. And then I also had a chiropractor appointment in the afternoon. And, and by then I knew kind of that I didn’t, you know, I had gotten all worried that I was having like a heart attack because was my left arm or had a blood clot or, you know, I was starting to catastrophize on Sunday night, because it had been going on for so long. And I couldn’t figure out why. And I didn’t feel like I had hit anything. But I got to the chiropractor and she said, Well, I think you broke a blood vessel and it filled your carpal tunnel. And that restricted the blood flow to my hand. And so she adjusted me and it just like it drained and the bruise went away. And all of a sudden, I didn’t have the same pain, and it started to feel like it was healing. And, you know, you might wonder why I’m telling you this story about my medical problem. But I think problem solving is similar. And what I thought was interesting was that I got feedback from lots of different people. And each one took my problem solving further. And I was so grateful. All this happened yesterday. And I was so grateful that each person was a piece in the puzzle. And each person, no one in the in the day went, Oh, well, you shouldn’t have seen your doctor or you shouldn’t have gone to the massage therapist. Each one was like, Oh, well, what did they find? And how can I use that in my diagnosis like the massage therapist, you know, kind of looked me over as he was doing his massage and didn’t find any marks or any bruising or anything. And that was useful information to the doctor. And then the neurological exam was really useful for me to say, Hey, can you look at my hand like look in this one place, as opposed to where I was when I went to him, which was, hey, somewhere in my body, there’s something bad happening. And so my chiropractor was able to just like really zero in on my hand. And I think sometimes when we try to solve complex problems, we forget to in to be super transparent. As we gather data from a lot of different places. We forget that we’re getting feedback from lots of sources. And I just thought this was a really interesting example of having good feedback loops, good partnerships, every single partner in this problem was a longtime partner, who was willing to talk to me and take the time to be a good partner. And that was really helpful to me. And they also listen to me very carefully and took me really seriously. Even though this was a health problem, it could have been a work problem. And I have those partnerships at work as well. And so I thought this was just a really good example of how when we have an important problem, sometimes we don’t have the benefit of doing slow single channel experiments, we have to slowly throw everything at it. But we can be very systematic in our problem solving. So I’m just curious about where you have a problem that you want to bring a bunch of people in or you want to have a lot of deep conversations so that you can move your problem to a new state to work on.

And I am super excited about our guest today. Today we welcome award winning author and global operations leader, George Murray. George inspires business owners and professionals to go from where they are today to where they want to be tomorrow. He has a book that’s coming out this summer, called Book engage and retain. And his challenge for the week is how can you ignite the people around you? Oh, sorry. Yeah. And so anyway, we are super excited to have George, his previous book is called hired, cut your career search time in half. And I am super excited to be here.

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Welcome to the show, George.

Hey, thank you for having me.

It’s great to have you here. So tell us what you’re up to as a leader these days?

Well, I think like most leaders, our biggest challenge right now is trying to retain our workforce, right with all the options and opportunities that employees have out there. It’s critical for businesses to have a good strategy and plan to not only ignite the workforce, but engage them, even if they’re in the hybrid workforce, and more importantly, retain them.

What do you think is hard about engagement right now?

Well, I think the last couple of years, given a lot of people the opportunity to really self reflect, Hey, am I on the right road. And if businesses aren’t really connected to their employees, given, you know, the whole hybrid and working from home aspect, there’s a big disconnect. And so you know, leaders need to get out of the office and get off of the zooms, and really get back in engage with their workforces.

So you think you think that we’re headed on a path back into the office?

I think, for at least a percentage wise, I mean, I think businesses have really been proven, even the ones that were adamant of not working from home. I’ve really been forced to kind of conform or perish.

Well, I and you know, I think it’s part of the problem with the restaurant industry, you know, people wet, I don’t want to go to the rest. I don’t want to work in a restaurant. Let me I can retool pretty quickly. I think people, at least in Canada, people use their government dollars to go and reskill. So, you know, we have help wanted signs everywhere in the restaurant industry. So they’re definitely looking for ways to engage. I think, and I, you know, I have people who are had guests who come on and are saying, you know, this is the new way, you know, the online, workplace is the new reality. I hear people saying, I’d like to be back in the workforce, I have clients who are grappling with workers who don’t want to work, but they’re not they’re also not working from home. So, you know, I’m, I’m curious about what do people do to become successful at today’s environment?

Well, you know, even with the retail and the food industry is right, you talk to the people that you go to the restaurants that you go to a frequent, there’s definitely people that have been there 15 plus years, right, even after post pandemic, and the critical piece in all of it is the manager, right there managers engaged, they’re thinking of them, they help them I mean, how many, you know, the good restaurants that you go to that have that environment where the managers are coming and checking up on you, as well as the employees? And, and that’s the feedback you’re getting right is because they’re out there in the trenches with the folks listening, observing and helping not barking orders.

Yeah, I think that’s very true. So how do we I’ve got to I’ve got a small team, we’re remote. How do I engage them? How do I how do I make their lives better? How do we create a better sense of team?

Well, here’s an example. I was working with a client and CHRO Chief Human Resources office, and she was having some challenges well in that hybrid workforce, and was really concerned that she was probably potentially going to lose some key assets, you know, the the employees themselves, and just talking with her realize that a we self realized that some of the folks she wasn’t really paying in the market, so she was leaving the opportunity open for others to come in and really take their best talent. The second thing was engaging the people, not just on the overall term zoom meetings, but one on one Right, just having a checking in, how are things going? Is there anything I can help you with? But then the third thing was is that, you know, I asked, I said, you know, when’s the last time you’ve had a team meeting right to kind of identify how the strategy’s going? What are the challenges? Oh, yeah, we had one last week, I said, I’m assuming that in the traditional brick and mortar, you brought in lunch, yes. I said, Well, what about the folks that were remote? Did you send the Door Dash to them? Well, I didn’t really think of it that way. I said, it’s those little things that really resignate with the people that say, I feel involved because you’re forcing those people not to only be ready for the meeting and prepare, but also they have to cook and prepare, while the others just kind of showed up.

Yeah, it’s there. I’ve heard all sorts of interesting strategies. And I’ll also point out that the data shows that you can use money like you can use money for retention, if you’re under paying, then that’s the first box you need to check up. You want to you want to fix that in your workplace, but you can’t use money for retention. Once you get to, you know, you’re paying fair market value. After that you can’t use money to retain, unless you use kind of crazy amounts of money.

It’s a short term motivation,

It’s a very short term motivation. I had a guy I knew who used to call it mafia money, you can use my money for some time, but it doesn’t create engagement at all, it just creates a sense of kind of crazy. And, and I’ve heard different strategies, I heard from one guy who was a wanted to, to have people want to come in, who started ordering really great lunch in person. And, and so, you know, for people who have the option to come in who are opting out, you can use it as an incentive. He didn’t want to compel them to stay home. But for teams that are actually in remote locations on purpose, then I think the DoorDash or UberEATS, or whatever, however you get your food delivered, is a really great way to say I care for you.

Absolutely. But you know, it doesn’t have to spend a lot of money. I think, you know, with all this technology, we’ve got all these reviews and everything that are totally online, there’s really lack of that human connection. Right? So if you have leaders that intentionally are having those one on ones to say, Hey, what’s going well kind of recognize that? What’s not going so well? How can I help you? And then you’re providing that path for their success? They’re more willing to lean in versus kind of opt out?

Yeah, I think I think those are interesting things. And I think that it’s, I think just taking a minute to think about how you might care for your team probably will get you figuring out a way to care for your team. I’ve noticed, we were in a period, on our little team of running really hard for a long time. And every meeting was, I often use a productivity positivity scale, every meeting was super productive. And then all of a sudden, we got to this place where we didn’t have anything to run toward, we could have canceled all those meetings. But instead, we just started talking about our families. And at one point, I was like, gosh, these are kind of expensive. And I was like, we’re not like we need these so that when we run hard again, you know, we have this foundation, we know each other we care for each other. So I think there’s balance I think I think that’s in there as well.

Yeah, leaders. I mean, I’ve really kind of it kind of worked right that you’ve really got to be part psychologists, part motivational speaker, you know, because there’s times when people are down, it’s part of your responsibility to lift them up, reach down and pick them up.

What do you do if a team is having problems? If you need to? course correct with a team? How do you handle that?

I think the first thing you know, and this is kind of something my father said early on in my life that doesn’t resignate until I got much older was kind of gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason. Listen twice as much as speak. So I think going in and understanding Hey, oh, epic, asking open ended questions, right and saying, you know, what are the challenges, you know, they’re not going to ask, they’re not going to open up. But I think you as you probe those questions and really get a sense of commonality, then you start to get that information to flow and then communicate that, hey, these are the two three things that I’ve heard that are really resonating with all and that we’re going to focus on these things together.

One, I noticed that a question that I use a lot in my life with my team with others, you know, if I noticed, gosh, they’re not where they people aren’t where they said they’d be like, Hey, I noticed you’re not where you said you’d be Are you okay? Because often they’re just not like, Oh, I’m sick the dog, you know, my dog got hit by a car, like I mean bad things happen in people’s lives. And then you go Oh, and if you’ve jumped to a conclusion, and I’ve had people jump to conclusions with me, it feels really bad when people jump to a conclusion, like, oh, you screwed up, you know, while I didn’t really screw up, I was doing the best I could, and you jumping to a conclusion just really hurts our relationship. It doesn’t really change the fact that I was doing the best I could, I couldn’t have done any better, even if you wanted me to. So those are interesting things. And I’m curious, you’re a leader, you lead your own business, your own work, what do you do for self care for yourself?

I think really, it’s important, you know, to start off your day strong. And I learned this in my my first book, I talked about, you know, kind of creating a day in the life, you know, the morning ritual, whatever that might be listening to a podcast, something that’s going to motivate you meditate, you know, defrag, all the bad experiences in your mind and kind of pump yourself up with morning affirmation, and then do some kind of exercise, whether it’s swimming, walking, running, all that is part of the morning ritual that kind of gets you on your pace of success each and every day.

Cool. And can you give us your book?

HIRED: CUT YOUR CAREER SEARCH TIME IN HALF

Yeah, the first one is Hired: Cut Your Career Search Time In A Half. And basically, you know, one of the things I find them writing about are the gaps. This was gap in career transition for me, because I was first time I was in career transition. And so I found best ways through a lot of networking to create a good process that each and every time thereafter, I’ve cut my career search time in half. And it’s all about a process and evaluating over a period of time. And then, of course, the second book that’s coming out in June, I’m really excited about it’s really helping business leaders and businesses really ignite a workforce, engage their teams, whether even if even if it’s in a hybrid or work from home atmosphere, how do you work? How do you engage those folks so that they’re part of the team and they feel a part of the team. And then finally, retaining the talent. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s a talent war out there. So you’ve got to do all kinds of things. And a lot of the things that are in the book are very simple things, right?

How do you win the talent? Like, I feel like that’s like a talent game right now. Like, what? Like, it’s, it’s like, your your plan, your plan, the talent Olympics, when you even go into a search, like, it’s crazy out there. If you’re not fast, you know, first to the first to the offer, you may somebody may have accepted another position. You know, I’ve I’ve heard all sorts of stories where people are like, ah, our HR just didn’t get the offer out and they were gone. Like, you know, we’re never gonna get anybody because anybody who’s left by the time our offer goes out to somebody we don’t want, you know, it’s, it’s, what else do you think is a part of this current environment? Right?

When the new book coming out, it tells about, you know, there’s certain things like you just stated, you know, that hiring process really has to be quick and swift, right? If you want to get the best talent. You can’t I mean, I’ve been in my own interviewing processes that go on for five months, that’s not going to cut it anymore, right. And in retaining the first couple of weeks, that onboarding process is so critical, hey, set the expectations, make sure you’re there you’re a lifeline help them be successful in their new role, right?

Well, and I’ll put in a pitch for coaching, anybody who’s taking the high level, especially tech job right now, your first 90 days, you should have a coach. And if you’re hiring somebody into your organization, having an executive coach to help them understand your culture is a really good idea. In absolutely days, like it’s so important. It’s so important that people have somebody to talk to that isn’t their boss about the challenges that they’re facing? Yeah, just helps everybody succeed. And searches are so expensive for everybody.

Agreed. Yeah.

Where can people find you George?

They can go on my website georgeclaystinmurray.com. So it’s all one word. My middle name is quite unique. After my great great grandfather, CLAYSTIN. George Claystin Murray where you can find me on LinkedIn.

Sounds great. Well, it has been such a pleasure to have you on my show today. I loved having you here. So fun to talk about engagement and hiring and all of those things. Thanks for being here.

Thank you for your time.

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Well, it was so fun to talk with George about how to, you know, just pay attention as a leader about all of that and I have a challenge question for you. How can you ignite the people around you to engage in the things they love to do? That’s my challenge question to you this week. Go experiment.

Important Links: 

• George Claystin Murray – website
• George Murray – LinkedIn

George Murray

George’s is an Award-winning author, Hired: Cut Your Career Search Time in Half, is based on his own experience—when he found himself facing two job transitions in less than three years.

From both his military training and operations background, he learned that career transition also has a process.

George has 25 years in Global Operations managing working in four industries: Automotive, Contract Electronic Manufacturing, Industrial Automation, and Capital Equipment Manufacturing.

He is passionate about helping individuals and businesses become better.

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