For many businesses, culture is a “tomorrow” concern. When we grow, when we scale, when we reach a certain number of employees… then we’ll focus on our workplace. But what if your culture is the very thing holding you back from growth?

Today we speak with Zach Montroy, Founder and CEO at The Intention Collective, and a leadership coach with over 20 years of experience at the executive level. We discuss how businesses can build positive, productive, and brave workplaces, growing into the companies they want to be, when tomorrow finally arrives. 

Learn more about Zach and The Intention Collective here: https://intentioncollective.co/ 

Key Points

• The importance of workplace culture to thrive
• What is a brave workplace?
• Communication is key; the importance of clear values and goals.

Happiness means different things to each of us. After doing extensive research, Management 3.0 founder Jurgen Appelo discovered a common thread: Happiness is something we create. It is not something to achieve. It is a path you choose, not a destination to arrive at.

So many of us spend our lives in pursuit of happiness. Instead of searching for it, we need to find ways to live, embrace, and implement it into our daily lives. That’s why we created the 12 Steps to Happiness at Management 3.0.

You can find more information and even download a free poster of the 12 steps at: https://management30.com/practice/

Transcript

*Please note that the transcript has been automatically generated and proofread for mistakes. But remains in spoken English, and some syntax and grammar mistakes might remain.

Elisa Tuijnder: [00:00:00] For many businesses, culture is a tomorrow concern. When we grow, when we scale, when we reach a certain number of employees, then we’ll focus on our workplace. But what if your culture is the very thing holding you back from growth? Today, we speak with a leadership coach and change agents who helps businesses build positive, productive, and brave workplaces growing into the companies they want to be when tomorrow finally arrives.

Before we dive in, you are listening to The Happiness At Work Podcast by Management 3.0. Where we are getting serious about happiness,

I am your host, [00:01:00] Elisa Tuijnder, happiness enthusiasts and Management 3.0 team member. In this podcast, we share insights from industry experts, influencers, and thought leaders about what it takes to be happy, motivated, and productive at work, so that loving your job becomes the norm and not the exception. We will be publishing every fortnite on Friday, so be sure to tune in and subscribe.

Wherever you get your podcasts.

Our guest today is Zach Montroy, founder and CEO at the Intention Collective, and a leadership team coach with over 20 years of experience at the executive level. Sorry. So thank you so much for joining us, Zach.

Zach Montroy: Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to chat with you today. Awesome.

Elisa Tuijnder: Me too.

Hey before we get started and hear about all the things that you do on the podcast, we always start with the same question, and that is, what does happiness

Zach Montroy: mean to you? Yeah, that’s such a great [00:02:00] question. I think happiness, to me is really deeply connected to fulfillment. And joy. I think that there’s, those are both very vulnerable emotions and so happiness to me is being with my family, being with my friends.

We have three boys under the age of 10. So getting to see them live their life and live their lives to the fullest and getting to do meaningful work. I think all of that really culminates in happiness and joy for me. Three.

Elisa Tuijnder: Ones under 10. That sounds like a full house. That sounds

Zach Montroy: like a Three boys.

Three boys under 10, 10, 9, and six. So it’s, we have up, we got a lot going on all the time. I bet.

Elisa Tuijnder: Hey, so you have the wonderful title of change agent. So do you wanna tell us a little bit about your career? What led you to becoming a change agent? Was it something accidental? Was it like deliberate?

This is where my path heads. Yeah. Tell us a little bit on.

Zach Montroy: On your career path? Yeah, I think, from an early age, I was always fascinated with leadership [00:03:00] and had an uncle actually who was in executive leadership and grew up in a pretty lower middle class family, knew that if I wanted to go to college, I was gonna have to save and earn my way through college.

And so in high school, that meant working and was actually promoted into a management position. Crazy in retail and really got a sense for what leadership probably is not really command and control. My first job in college, I had a very command and control type leader, and for me there was just this big crisis, right of.

This really doesn’t feel healthy. This does not feel like it’s impacting people in the right way. And from then on out just really set to set my trajectory on what does healthy leadership and have had some amazing mentors along the way and amazing coaches who really help formulate my view of leadership and really that view of as leaders, no matter your title, no matter your position we’re called to make change.

We’re called to [00:04:00] see potential. We’re called to cultivate potential in people and processes and ideas. And so that has meant, I started in my professional career after college and marketing and public relations, and moved to human resources ’cause loved the people side of it. Then moved to operations because there was a look for a strategy.

And so as a consultant, I get to put all of that together. I was a C O for a number of years. Now I really get to come alongside of business owners and coach them in the areas of strategy and really coupling where people development intersects with that and where healthy leadership intersects with strategy and execution.

And so that’s been the span of my 20 years professionally and now get to coach leaders and companies. To really put all of that together to hopefully cultivate brave workspaces, to cultivate companies that are growing and that are marked by health and purpose. I.

Elisa Tuijnder: That’s amazing. Yeah.

You get to wear all the hats now

Zach Montroy: and it’s, I [00:05:00] do. It’s

Elisa Tuijnder: so fun. Yeah. Yeah. It’s very nice to sometimes see all these things come together. So all these expertise from all these different times and then, oh yeah, okay. Let’s do this, let’s do that. Hey, so you founded a company called the Intention Collective, and I’m actually really curious the kind of work that you do.

So specifically you’re focused on, building happy teams. Let’s start with what is a healthy team? What is for you? What constitutes

Zach Montroy: a healthy team? Yeah, there, I think that there’s some. Markers of what does healthy a healthy culture look like? What does a healthy team look like?

I think growth is always a healthy marker, right? Healthy things grow and we’re not, just growing for the sake of growth and annihilating people along in a process. Certainly that is not healthy growth. But when we look at healthy cultures, when we look at healthy teams, we look at teams that are marked by a sense of psychological safety.

Where there’s vulnerability and trust and courage and healthy accountability, and we know how to have hard conversations and [00:06:00] conflict with one another where there’s not back channeling. But instead there’s this idea of living into our values and really living those values out in the work that we do and how we hold one another accountable and ultimately that we are rowing in the same direction.

There’s this overall commitment to the overall mission, vision, values of the organization, which call us to, to really be putting our energy in the right, in, in the same, putting it all into the same direction. And I think that there’s, there’s a ton underneath that, but when I see healthy teams, I see the culmination of that work.

And that every person on the team has a deep sense of purpose. They understand their unique genius and how that aligns to the overall mission and vision of the company and their contribution in moving that forward. I.

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah, that’s all music to my ears. And also, your trust, what whatever’s healthy grows.

[00:07:00] That is, I had all, I immediately had a vision of flowers and it’s funny you had this Yeah. Popping into my head when you were talking. Hey. So what kind of companies are you working with at the moment? And you obviously don’t have to give us any names or specifics, but more kind of, What are the problems that they’re facing at the moment?

What is the not the number one, but what are you seeing recurring and coming back to you? Yeah. Not when everything is growing and thriving, then

Zach Montroy: they’re like, no, we don’t need Exactly. I know it’s easy at that point. Yeah. It’s just, yeah. I, one of the biggest things that I think we see in one of the big biggest reasons that business owners call us in is most of the time we get to this point where we’ve just hit a ceiling.

We’re starting to realize that what has worked up until this point maybe isn’t working anymore, or we just feel like we’ve gotten stuck in the mud and we’re putting a, we’re outputting a lot, we’ve got a lot of energy going into what we’re doing. People feel busy and it doesn’t feel like anything is moving forward.

Oftentimes we see leaders carrying an [00:08:00] enormous load. An enormous weight and responsibility on the backs on their own backs and starting to get burned out. And oftentimes we see this sense of disillusionment with, why did I even start this thing? I didn’t start this thing to feel this way.

And a little bit of resentment, right? I have a team and I don’t feel like they’re doing any work and we know deep down that’s not true, but they probably don’t have clarity on what it is or where it is that you’re trying to take them. So those tend to be a lot of the symptoms that cause people to, come in for a checkup and call us.

And ultimately that’s where we get to go in and really help provide clarity and be a guide to them and get the best out of them, get the best out of their team, and really align them. To where it is that they want to go. We don’t have a secret plan for your company. Our job is to help discover your vision and help you realize that [00:09:00] through healthy execution of work.

Yeah, absolutely.

Elisa Tuijnder: And how important is workplace culture in that, I know what your answer’s gonna be, but just how essential is

Zach Montroy: that for you? I think it’s the foundation, right? If you don’t have a healthy culture, if you don’t have a healthy team I don’t. Think you can go anywhere, right?

We see time and time again. You can have the best people, you can have the brightest people if you have a dysfunctional culture. You’re, you are not going to be achieving results for very long. No. And likely you’re gonna be burning people out. And they’re gonna be leaving.

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. Your attrition rate is gonna be through the roof and Yeah, absolutely.

You luck people were sitting out there every time and that’s horrible. And also what you said there earlier people may not be doing anything well, he knows the c e O or the C-suite knows that they’re doing something, but they’re not doing the right thing and they’re misaligned.

And that’s where a workplace culture also comes in. Getting right, getting people on the same level, knowing what they have to do, [00:10:00] giving them autonomy and trust to, to get to the point. But if they don’t know what the. North Star or the direction or the values are that they need to display or work towards yeah.

How can we actually expect them to do a great job?

Zach Montroy: Exactly. Like people don’t, I, I think fundamentally, I. I think we, it’s a better place to live in if we assume people are doing their best. And I think many times as leaders, we don’t really assume that, but let’s say everyone’s doing their best and your team’s not performing, you’re not getting the results that you want.

I think ultimately when we start to look at what’s going on inside the organization, people are probably working, they’re probably working hard, they might be working on the wrong things. Is it their fault that they’re working on the wrong things, or maybe they’re not focused on the right or best or most important things.

Most of the time when we really start digging deep, it’s because they don’t have clarity. They don’t have understanding of [00:11:00] really where are we going, why are we going there? How are we gonna get there, and what’s my contribution in us getting there?

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. There’s some studies and cool numbers around this that we, I think, Oh, I don’t wanna say that.

I think it’s 97% of the people who work in an organization tend to not have any malicious intentions. But we govern for, often govern for the 3% that do and that’s actually creates toxic workplace almost. And creates absolutely, mistrust of misalignment and. Don’t quote me exactly on the number.

I can look it up and put it in your

Zach Montroy: show notes. Sure. Yeah. It’s around, we’ll, it’s around.

Elisa Tuijnder: I know where, I know it’s on the drive. Yeah. But it’s definitely in insanely high. And it’s funny how for longest time companies were governed for those 3% that might do something that isn’t fully aligned with the company culture or the values or even, strictly legal.

Zach Montroy: Yeah. We just, we make up rules because Yeah. Yeah. We, because it’s easier to make a rule [00:12:00] than it is to really drive clarity and help someone understand their unique genius and how to put it to work. Yeah. And I think that ultimately it ultimately is an accountability problem too, right?

Because what ends up happening there is, as leaders, we’re not holding people accountable, because deep down, we know if we start doing that, people are gonna start saying, Come on. I didn’t know you wanted me to do that. When? When? Did you ever talk about that? Yeah. You never said that’s what we’re doing or where we’re going, or That’s important or why that’s important.

And so I think we skirt accountability. We skirt hard conversations and we build resentment. We start building up those stories because we have not provided clarity to people.

Elisa Tuijnder: Yep. Yeah, absolutely. I worked with a company or interviewed somebody from a company from a startup in Germany, and their first rule was everybody in this company is an adult.

And it was so silly. But they meant with that exactly this like we give you the trust as an adult, like you know best [00:13:00] in your little area, what’s to do. I don’t need to make up silly rules that bedtime is, had this thing like, and it, I thought it was so simple, but it was very effective and it permeated throughout their whole culture as well.

Okay. You’re a grown Yeah. Absolutely. Grown care center. Absolutely. Let me pretend for a second, that I’m a client and I’m thinking of starting a business or starting a business and, wanna grow it. And I want to start this with. Culture in mind. That’s how we have a blank slate.

How do we go from, how do we create

Zach Montroy: this? Yeah. I think it, I think that there’s a couple things that you have to do in tandem. Like we’ve talked a lot about clarity of vision, clarity of direction. I, you have start there, right? You can. Start working on building trust and I love Patrick Lynch uni’s model of the five behaviors of a cohesive team being trust and healthy, conflict and commitment, accountability and results.

You can work on those things certainly, and you should start there and at the same time, you [00:14:00] have to start providing clarity on where we’re going, how we’re gonna get there what’s most important because. Otherwise you’re gonna decay trust. You’re gonna, you’re not gonna be conflicting around the right ideas because no one knows what they’re actually supposed to be working on or why they’re supposed to be working on that.

We let that, I, I think it’s I can’t remember the Parkinson’s law. Like we, we fill our time with work. And so we filled our time. Our whirlwind is great. Yet we’re, we don’t have clarity of direction. And so that leads to a lot of toxicity. So I think you have to be working on both, right?

Like what’s the mission? What’s the vision, what’s the direction? Then I think we say what are our core values? What are the values that are gonna guide our work, are gonna serve as a boundary a covenant in the chaos? That this is how we do work and what are the habits?

Behind those because your values plus your habits and habits are the things you invest. Time, effort, energy, [00:15:00] money behind those equal your culture. Yeah. So if I want my culture to be marked by trust and healthy accountability and shared commitment and mutual accountability, my values plus whatever those habits are, how we run meetings, how we do evaluations, how we have hard conversations, how we share in community with one another.

That is going to equal your culture. So you’ve gotta have a direction, you’ve gotta have a roadmap. People have to understand their unique genius, and we have to get really clear on the boundaries of our values and the habits that we are and investing time, effort, energy, money into that are gonna get to a healthy culture, that formula there.

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. And you make it sound, so easy, but it’s there’s a lot of work that goes into that and a lot of thought and a

Zach Montroy: lot of certainly, yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

Elisa Tuijnder: Is that the same if you have an established company and you know the workplace culture isn’t exactly what you wanted or it is going in the wrong [00:16:00] direction, is that the same thing what you do?

Do you just go back to the drawing board or are there other mechanisms that you should be working on first?

Zach Montroy: Yeah, we, I mean it really we really pride ourselves in having a customized approach. We have a couple of different assessments that we use to really evaluate, and especially if it’s a, a client.

We’ve worked with clients who’ve been around for 30 years, and so there’s a lot of legacy, there’s a lot of nostalgia there. And so we really have to examine what’s going on. What are the things that we’re holding onto or fists are tightly gripped on that maybe we’re not even really consciously aware of that or consciously doing that.

What do we, what are the personalities involved? What’s our, tendency towards risk. How are we communicating? What are the, in, in a, an organization of any size that has been around for a while, there’s a lot of habits, a lot of, let’s say habitual action, that’s probably not even intentional or conscious.

And so [00:17:00] how do we bring awareness to that, bring to the conscious some of these. In competencies or some of these habits that maybe we need to say you served us in the past. They’re not serving us well now, and we need to create some new habits for where we wanna go. Yeah,

Elisa Tuijnder: I was listening to a talk the other day about the importance of being, brave enough to cut things in your company or strategies or systems or, pathways to something.

And that is ’cause you can add on and add on, but if you don’t actually look at the ones that are existing It’s, they need to

be

Zach Montroy: cut at times as well. It’s interesting that you say that, right? Like I am one of the things that my wife has said to me before, she’s if you buy a new shirt, you probably need to get rid of a shirt in our closet, right?

Yeah. But it, truly we cannot say yes to everything. You, we do not have the capacity to do that, and if we are saying yes to something, we are saying no to something else. Yeah. Usually. Or potential with [00:18:00] some other things. Yeah. Okay, yeah, we can do this new thing, we can do this new initiative.

That means maybe though I don’t have the bandwidth to do that in my work time, so what am I gonna do? I’m gonna sacrifice time with my family, or I’m gonna sacrifice self care as a part of that. You are always saying no to something else in order to say yes to something.

Elisa Tuijnder: Yep.

And it’s so important to keep your mind that it is the hidden costs not just in work, but also for yourself.

And I like that you

Zach Montroy: mentioned Absolutely. Yeah.

Elisa Tuijnder: Just that the word brave as well. And I know that you’re a prolific speaker. You talk a lot around and you often discuss bravery and you specifically kinda encourage companies to, to build brave workplaces. So what are brave workplaces for you?

Zach Montroy: Brave workplaces are, and if we want to use a more clinical term it really is psychological safety, right?

And really at the heart of that is we are creating environments where people can show up as their wholehearted selves.[00:19:00] I can show up with in, because. Our best work comes from a place of wellbeing. Our best work comes from a place of purpose and meaning, and we can’t get to that if we are not creating an environment where people can actually show up and be seen and heard and understood and can bring all of who they are to work and you know that for many of us, we were taught you need to check certain parts of who you are at the door when you walk into the office, when you walk into the workplace. And we know as humans, we actually can’t even do that. Our brains are not wired in that way. And so when we talk about brave workplaces at the core of that is a place where we can be vulnerable.

Where we can show up and be seen and not have to have everything figured out, but that there’s a commitment to getting it right collectively [00:20:00] instead of being right where everyone’s voice is heard. No matter your position or your title, your opinion, your perspective matters. The work that you do matters.

You’re valued, you’re seen as who you are. Because when we can cultivate that kind of environment, we go back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, right? Like our hierarchy, human needs are being met where we can connect with one another. And no matter whatever you’re doing, we’ve worked on warehouse floors, we’ve worked in, the C-Suites of Fortune 500 companies.

When we can create that kind of environment where, Armor protectionism isn’t needed. It’s not rewarded. The work that we do is so much better, so much more meaningful, and frankly, we as humans enjoy it. We’re hardwired for connection with one another. Absolutely. And so that allows that to, to [00:21:00] happen.

I

Elisa Tuijnder: immediately see, or, from the conversation, that’s really good for happiness that work on an individual level. Few people feel, forget they don’t have to have, wear this really heavy armor, but it’s also really good for the workplace, right? Also good for the bottom line and for the organization.

So do you wanna expand

Zach Montroy: a little on that? Yeah, absolutely. From, yeah, from a business perspective, you’re gonna, you’re, you are going to achieve results faster, better. It’s not, I wouldn’t say easier. It’s definitely not easy work whatsoever. But Harvard just came out with it’s not, they didn’t just come out the past couple months.

They came out with a study that said the cost of replacing an employee. So when you look at attrition, really they are averaging about a hundred to 120% of the annual salary of that person. To replace them. So when you look at when you look at the cost of replacing people, when you look at the cost that an unhealthy culture [00:22:00] is I is costing your bottom line, the impact of that is huge and the investment in people.

I was just talking to someone yesterday. They have people on their team that have been there 10, 15, 25 years. Yeah. And in a space where the average tenure of an employee is 24 to 36 months the, it’s rare to see those long tenures. Really rare. And it really speaks to the culture that they’ve created and they continue to achieve.

Amazing results together. And that, I think from a bottom line perspective, it’s own that it’s an investment that is going to pay off over time.

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. Yeah. Talk about Harvard. Harvard and Oxford came out with a study in May that basically said that if you invested that it was, it’s a great study if you haven’t seen it yet.

Like it’s they analyzed a lot of data from Indeed. The website and they basically looked into, they ranked it’s them on employee happiness and employee wellbeing, et cetera. [00:23:00] And then they pretended to play on the stock market with with a thousand fictive bucks, basically a thousand thousand dollars.

And their return on investment was 30% higher with companies that were good on wellbeing than with any of the other ones. On the s and p 500. Wow. So it was like really hardcore data that I love to slip in. Now it’s guys, this is really good. It is. It’s getting pretty, I know there’s now 20 years or 30 years of research almost on, on why it’s good, but we’re still here trying to convince people that this is the bottom that is so

Zach Montroy: important.

Yeah. You feel a little crazy when you’re like still trying to convince people hello. We’ve learned a lot over the last 30 years. How are you not applying this? And

Elisa Tuijnder: then I come in companies and I’ll tell them these things. And they’re like, yeah, but no, it maybe works like that in new age companies and like these cool startups.

And I’m like no. It also works here.

Zach Montroy: Yeah. Just because your generation didn’t talk about these things doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. Yeah. [00:24:00] And yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Elisa Tuijnder: And often it’s, even, often it’s even young people in, companies that are actually in some, the older, some of them actually fairly new, that have this extremely outdated.

Views where basically if somebody stands at a water cooler for two minutes, somebody pops up and goes, okay, say, sorry, what are, you guys don’t have any work to do, or oh my gosh.

Zach Montroy: Yeah.

Elisa Tuijnder: That’s just, yeah, you get like a little ooh, thinking

Zach Montroy: that. Exactly. Oh

Elisa Tuijnder: we’re on the mission, both of us to convince people and we’re not alone.

There’s a bunch of people out there trying to convince us, so hopefully. It doesn’t take another 30 years, but we’re every new company or every person we convince is a little win,

Zach Montroy: yeah. And then you think of the impact around them too. It’s, it absolutely is. From a meaningful work standpoint, the I think the impact that we’re gonna continue to see in the workplace is only gonna serve people, companies, the world, in a much more meaningful, better way.

That’s why I

Elisa Tuijnder: [00:25:00] love working in the space. I, started out as wanting to work for NGOs and these kind of things. I was very idealistic when I was younger, and I figured out that actually doing this work, I make more of an impact in people’s daily lives. If they’re working in companies that value them, that support them to support their wellbeing on many different levels, I’m really making a difference in people’s lives.

On a daily basis. And yeah

Zach Montroy: I really love it. Absolutely.

Elisa Tuijnder: What leads to a happy life? What are the various ways to be happy? Happiness means different things to each of us. Get after doing extensive research management 3.0, founder Jurgen Appelo. Discovered a common thread. Happiness is something we create. It is not something to achieve. It is a path you choose, not a destination to arrive at.

So many of us spend our times in pursuit of happiness, yet instead of [00:26:00] searching for it, we need to find ways to live it, embrace it, and implement it into our daily lives. We created the 12 Steps to Happiness at Management 3.0. You can find more information and even download a free poster of the 12 steps at Management30.com/practice.

So you just mentioned the word meaningful work, and it’s one of the things that you also like to talk about, especially in a relationship with accountability. So what do you mean with meaningful work?

Zach Montroy: I think it is it really comes down to our job as leaders, and I love Brene Brown’s definition of leadership.

A leader is anyone who sees potential in people, processes, and ideas, and has the courage to develop that. And so I think as leaders, our first and primary services in service to the people that we are responsible for leading and [00:27:00] caring for. And I think part of that care, part of that leadership, Is development and really helping people understand, and I keep saying this term, but they’re a unique genius.

They’re what are they best in the world at? What are their strengths? What is it that they only bring to the table? And so when I think of meaningful work, I think that there is a deep connection with who I am, what I’m best at, what I love doing. And I’m able to do that in a wholehearted way, and that requires a brave workplace.

But where, I’m not just seen as a widget maker, even though maybe it that is what I do, but here’s why. I do it. Here’s why I do it. Here is. Really how I’m able to put my gifts and skills to work. And so when I think of meaningful work, I think it starts there. People understand who they are, what they’re gifted at, what they’re skilled at, and how they put that to work.

And then the environment is a huge part of [00:28:00] that, right? That we’re affirming that we are seeing that in people that we’re encouraging further development in those skills and giftedness and ability. That we’re holding one another accountable, right? We know that, part of being vulnerable is, holding one another accountable, and that’s part of building trust with each other.

And so all of that really is that formula behind meaningful work. We help people understand who they are, what their gifted at. We let them. Put that to, to use, we direct outcomes. We’re not micromanaging people, like you said, we’re giving them autonomy. And I think all of that really adds up to meaningful work.

We’re caring for the human, not just what’s being accomplished. Yeah. And also

Elisa Tuijnder: in that field, there’s been so much growth over the last. 20 years as well. Helping people find out what they’re good at. ’cause everybody is really good at something. And just companies that support that and also support like shifts within the company, even outside of the [00:29:00] company sometimes.

I really support that. And then can I, allowing people. To find those paths and connect with those strengths that they have. And each one of our combinations is unique. And yeah. Fostering that is, is also a really

Zach Montroy: nice thing to do. Absolutely. Absolutely. I. Hey, so

Elisa Tuijnder: going back to growth for one more second.

Yeah. ’cause obviously, it’s such a, it’s been such a challenging time, as we all know, COVID and then companies go from quiet putting to loud quitting to to having to deal with inflation and and extreme energy crisises and these kind of things. Is, do you think, is it harder to scale grow a business nowadays than it was before?

Or are we just, do we have so many more opportunities and as well, because we are now so radically interconnected and, we have the rise of AI now and all of these things?

Zach Montroy: Yeah, I don’t, that’s a great question and I don’t know that I have an answer for it. I don’t know if it’s harder or if it’s just [00:30:00] different.

I think. The environment that we’re in is obviously different and unique and there’s a lot of nuance to what’s happening now that’s different than, pre pandemic and like you said, the rise of AI. I. But there’s always been something, right? There’s always been something on the horizon that, we, I’m old enough to remember when people were like, the computer’s gonna take over.

Or I’m not the internet email’s gonna take over my, my life and I’m not gonna use email. There, I think there’s always been sort of something, or e-commerce is gonna. Kill X, Y, Z. And so we, we pivot, we change, we adapt, we change, we iterate, we evolve. So I don’t know if it’s harder but I think, and part of the reason we called ourselves the intention collective was think, growth and scale requires deep intentionality.

Yeah. Yeah.

Elisa Tuijnder: I love that. I dunno the answer to it either. I’m not even sure whether. It’s an important thing to answer. What I do feel like it’s faster. I think the [00:31:00] changes are probably following each other in a, at a higher pace than certainly a few years, maybe few years, definitely like that.

A hundred years ago.

Zach Montroy: Yeah. Oh, certainly. Yes. Yes.

Elisa Tuijnder: Hey here on the podcast, we’re super good fans of tangible practices. That’s within our ethos. We will always wanna leave people with things that they can start trialing with implementing tomorrow. And we’ve, discussed a bunch of things, but are there, is there anything that you wanna share with our listeners today that is like small?

Feels more tangible that they can start implementing, start working with, start playing with or toying with so that they can move their culture in a, better or maybe even, braver direction to use that

Zach Montroy: beautiful word. Absolutely. We actually have a tool on our website, and our website is intention collective.co, where they can run a diagnostic and see what areas that they, they may need to focus on first.

We don’t want people to feel like they have to boil the ocean. And we have actually a couple tools where they can self implement. They can really look at what are their values, how do they operationalize them, [00:32:00] what are the habits behind them to hopefully equal that culture that they want to create.

A number of tools that they can really start to look at culture and then examine, do I have clarity on where I am headed, where a company is headed? What’s that destination? How are we gonna get there, and why is it important? What’s in it for the rest of my team? So I, I always recommend starting there.

You can’t, I’ve never heard anyone say, My boss, my leader, my, the owner of my company communicates too much. Never heard that one. It’s too clear. No, I have never heard

Elisa Tuijnder: anyone say that

Zach Montroy: either. So I think work on clarity and, just become fanatic about communicating that, communicating the why you’re gonna be better for it.

Your team is gonna be better for it. There is nothing

Elisa Tuijnder: more frustrating than not knowing what’s going on. I always use the example of, when you’re on a train or a plane, It’s not going at the time, the designated time, but they’re not saying anything. They’re just letting you sit there and they’re [00:33:00] not giving any reasons.

Just think about how frustrating that is and see how that actually is in your company at times as well.

Zach Montroy: Ambiguity is no one’s friend, right? It

Elisa Tuijnder: really is not. It’s definitely not mine. It makes me

Zach Montroy: crazy, right? It makes most people crazy, I think.

Elisa Tuijnder: Hey, so intention collective.co is where we’ll need to go and check out this tool and probably find some more information about you or get in contact with you if any of our listeners want to do that.

Zach Montroy: Absolutely. We’ve got a number of free tools there. They can find us. We’d love to connect.

Elisa Tuijnder: Amazing. All right, Zach, thank you so much for this conversation. It was really nice. It was great to end my day on. I know you’re starting yours. I’m ending mine. But yeah it’s always nice to end on a high note.

So thank you again.

Zach Montroy: Thanks so much, Elisa. It was great to talk to you. Thanks for having me as a guest. And yeah, love, love the show. Love the work that you’re doing.

Elisa Tuijnder: Thank you. Same for you. Thanks again. Bye.[00:34:00]

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