Winning the War for Talent with Dee Ann Turner, Former VP of Talent for Chick-fil-A

Caleb Stevens:
And if at any point we cut out for some reason, we can just hop back onto this link and we can just pick it back up from where we left off.

Dee Ann Turner:
Sounds great.

Caleb Stevens:
All right. Well Deanne, welcome back to the Community Bank Podcast. Thanks for coming back on. It’s good to see you. How are things in your world? How has your summer been?

Dee Ann Turner:
Oh, it’s been busy. We’ve had a great summer. I can’t believe that we’re getting close to the end of the summer as we record this. And that, you know, a lot of the kids are already back in school and all of that. But it’s been a good summer.

Caleb Stevens:
Well, for folks that missed our last conversation, tell us all about your career at Chick-fil-A and tell us what you do now as a speaker, author, podcaster, a talent consultant. Tell us all about your career at Chick-fil-A and what that led you to do now.

Dee Ann Turner:
Well, you’ve covered about all of it, but I, it’s hard to believe, Caleb, I have been gone from Chick-fil-A five years as of July 31st. So it’s, I can’t believe it seemed like the last five years went by so fast compared to the time that I was there. But I did spend 33 years at Chick-fil-A and I started out, I had a marketing background, a very short marketing background. I wasn’t long out of college. went to Chick-fil-A and went to work in what was then called Human Resources. And I started out doing selection, talent acquisition for the corporate staff. And then after a few years, I began doing franchisee selection with Chick-fil-A. That was one of my favorite roles and continued to grow in my different roles there until finally in 1999, I became their head of Human Resources later called Talent. and led all of those functions that you talked about, talent acquisition, talent management, learning and development, culture and engagement, diversity and inclusion, just a long list of things that I had the opportunity to work with there. And then in 2018, along with about 50 other folks, I had the opportunity to take an early retirement from Chick-fil-A, they offered a voluntary early retirement option. And I had always wanted to write books. In 2015, I released my first book, It’s My Pleasure, and had enjoyed the process of sharing the story, which is a lot about the Chick-fil-A story, and at least from my perspective, how the culture there was developed. And then I had a contract sitting on my desk to write two more books. At the same time, this Vero became available, and I decided to take it and start my own business. I finished two more books and published those, uh, bet on talent, how to create a remarkable culture that wins the hearts of customers. And then my latest book, crush your career, ace the job, uh, excuse me, ace the interview, land the job and launch your future. And, uh, then I, the last five years between writing and publishing those books, I’ve been speaking to as many as 50 audiences a year, doing some consulting and some coaching. some podcasting. I’m a guest on hundreds of podcasts now, which I really enjoy doing. And then one of my new favorite roles, I shouldn’t say new, it’s been three years now. I’m an executive in residence at High Point University, so I really enjoy working with the students there.

Caleb Stevens:
Well, it sounds like retirement is a little more of a misnomer. Maybe a new chapter is a better way to put it.

Dee Ann Turner:
I have a friend that said, you’re not retiring, you’re refiring. And I think he was exactly right.

Caleb Stevens:
Yeah, no doubt. Well, for folks that missed our first conversation, you know, we did a little deeper dive into your background, how you got to Chick-fil-A. We talk about Chick-fil-A’s culture, which I think the results that Chick-fil-A has had over, you know, the last several decades speaks for themselves as a reflection of the, you know, outstanding culture that they have. So for folks that missed that, we’ll link to it in the show notes, go back and listen to that because that’s a can’t miss, but Today, I’d love to dive into just a few different topics that I think are relevant for all business leaders in today’s environment, whether you’re a banker or whether you work at the quick service industry. COVID has obviously thrown people for a loop and there’s a lot of different challenges facing leaders and HR professionals that maybe they weren’t facing a few years ago. One of the things though I’d love to get your take on before we talk about work from home and things like that You know, we talked on the last podcast about how Chick-fil-A is kind of famous for, at least in the leadership culture, HR world, they’re kind of famous for hiring on what they call the three C’s, character, competency, and chemistry. And we break that down a little bit in the first episode. But one of the things I’ve been chewing on since that conversation was, you know, to me, the first two C’s kind of seem relatively easy to define, you know, if you’re a person of character, you know, I would think that means your values align with the company’s values, you’re a person of high integrity, you know, you’re true to your word, etc. You show up on time. Competency, you know, that to me just sort of says, are you a good fit for this role? Are you capable of doing the job? Can you be successful in this role? Can you handle the workload to the tasks that the job requires if you match up with your skill set and with your strengths? chemistry, I’ve always just sort of wondered, that just seems very subjective. How do you define that? What I’d love to put to you is, what might be an example of a candidate that is high on character, high quality, high integrity person, they’ve got the skills to do the job, but they lack chemistry and maybe they get passed over for another candidate? Talk about why is chemistry so important and how do you even think about it?

Dee Ann Turner:
You know, first of all, I have to compliment you, Caleb. You were really listening in our first visit because you described the first two characters in competency perfectly, and that was a great overview of that. As far as chemistry is concerned, I’ve learned some things since those days I was selecting Talam at Chick-fil-A using the three Cs. You know, at the time I was doing that years ago, I was thinking about people who fit in with the team. You know, character is character that matches the organization, competency matches the role, and chemistry matches the team. So it was important that person, from a personality standpoint, from a way they manage themselves, their own personal energy and so forth, that it fit in with whatever team they were working with. And every team has a different chemistry, right?

Caleb Stevens:
Mm-hmm.

Dee Ann Turner:
But I’ve thought about that a lot since then, and I really think chemistry is something different, and especially today, our organizations need this kind of chemistry. To me, great chemistry is when an individual can bring their own perspective, particularly their own diverse, different perspective, to a team, and they have such high skills of collaboration that they’re actually able to influence others on the team. To me, that’s great chemistry. And that takes some time to recognize that in people. Now you can ask certain interview questions about how people have, you know, ask for examples and stories about how they’ve collaborated in the past to get to that. But, and you can certainly ask references about how somebody’s influenced a team through their perspective. But you know, if the chemistry is off, if they’re too aggressive, if they’re too over the top, then they might miss that collaboration and that opportunity to influence. If they’re not vocal enough, if they don’t interject and state their perspective, then they’re not gonna influence that chemistry is off. You’re looking for that match of somebody. I think these people are practicing, Stephen Covey’s, if you’ve read the Seven Habits of Holly. effective people.

Caleb Stevens:
Mm-hmm.

Dee Ann Turner:
The fifth one is seek first to understand and then be understood. I think that describes a behavior we’re looking for in somebody with great chemistry. So one of the things you can do is actually put this person in a scenario with the team during the interview process, whether they’re just having lunch or they’re sitting in on the team meeting and just watch how they do that is a great way to be able to observe.

Caleb Stevens:
And if I’m hearing you correctly, I mean, the first thing that my mind goes to is emotional intelligence. So in theory, you could have great character and you could be very good at a role, but maybe lacking in the emotional intelligence as far as how do I relate to people? How do I work as a team? You know, when does it make sense to your point to be vocal and to project influence? And what does it make sense to listen, you know, ask good questions, be a follower? emotional intelligence that’s required in the accounting department is different than the marketing department. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I’m just trying to think of different ways that this might be relevant, where you can have great character and great competency, but there’s still something missing.

Dee Ann Turner:
Yeah, I think emotional intelligence is the perfect words to use when you’re thinking about chemistry and, and I think having emotional intelligence is important in working on any team. So I don’t, I don’t think it matters what the role is as much, um, how it, how it’s communicated may be a little different in different environments. Um, it’s funny, sometimes we assume, you know, that the accounting people are the quieter people and the marketing people are the more.

Caleb Stevens:
Yeah.

Dee Ann Turner:
Social people, but I will tell you at Chick-fil-A, we had one wild and crazy accounting department and they didn’t like to be labeled that way. So they made sure that wasn’t the case for them. But I think when you’re thinking about relationships, you want to have that emotional intelligence in any situation. So I think, you know, displaying some of those skills to be able to collaborate, to be able to influence, to be able to listen. Well, all of those things are going to lead to good chemistry and to contributing to the team better.

Caleb Stevens:
Well, I think you’re so right about stereotypes because I knew several folks when I interned at Chick-fil-A who were in the accounting

Dee Ann Turner:
Hahaha!

Caleb Stevens:
department that were the most bubbly people ever. And I actually remember not naming any names, but I remember meeting one of the top leaders in the marketing department for the first time. And when you think marketing, you think, you know, exciting, creative. And I remember meeting this guy and thinking there is nothing warm and fuzzy about him at all. And he kind of

Dee Ann Turner:
Thanks

Caleb Stevens:
breaks

Dee Ann Turner:
for watching!

Caleb Stevens:
the mold there. But he’s an incredible leader. great at what he does. So I think that’s a good thing to remember.

Dee Ann Turner:
Absolutely.

Caleb Stevens:
Well, give us your take on work from home. That’s the buzzword today. That’s what every leader wants to talk about as it relates to our team and the HR implications of working from home. And I know it depends on a number of different factors. My wife, she is a NICU nurse, and so she literally can’t work from home. If you are working in quick service, if you’re one of the team members at a Chick-fil-A, restaurant, you can’t work from home. You know, you work at the restaurant. So I know we’re, you know, we’re trying to tackle an octopus here because there’s so many different angles and so many different aspects to it. But how have you seen working from home be healthy for organizations where it’s appropriate? And how have you maybe seen it be negative? Because I feel like I see two camps out there. I see a camp

Dee Ann Turner:
I see

Caleb Stevens:
that

Dee Ann Turner:
a

Caleb Stevens:
says…

Dee Ann Turner:
camp that says,

Caleb Stevens:
If you don’t let

Dee Ann Turner:
you

Caleb Stevens:
your

Dee Ann Turner:
don’t

Caleb Stevens:
people

Dee Ann Turner:
let

Caleb Stevens:
work

Dee Ann Turner:
your

Caleb Stevens:
from

Dee Ann Turner:
people

Caleb Stevens:
home,

Dee Ann Turner:
work at

Caleb Stevens:
then

Dee Ann Turner:
home.

Caleb Stevens:
you just

Dee Ann Turner:
They

Caleb Stevens:
have

Dee Ann Turner:
just

Caleb Stevens:
trust

Dee Ann Turner:
have to rest

Caleb Stevens:
issues

Dee Ann Turner:
this season.

Caleb Stevens:
and

Dee Ann Turner:
That’s

Caleb Stevens:
that’s

Dee Ann Turner:
on you,

Caleb Stevens:
on

Dee Ann Turner:
not

Caleb Stevens:
you

Dee Ann Turner:
neck

Caleb Stevens:
for

Dee Ann Turner:
to

Caleb Stevens:
not

Dee Ann Turner:
neck.

Caleb Stevens:
hiring

Dee Ann Turner:
People who

Caleb Stevens:
people

Dee Ann Turner:
are in

Caleb Stevens:
who

Dee Ann Turner:
the

Caleb Stevens:
are

Dee Ann Turner:
camp.

Caleb Stevens:
reliable. And then I have other camp, another camp where I see people saying work from home is terrible. It destroys cultures. It hurts relationships. Nobody knows each other. What’s your sort of take on that? How can it be healthy and how can it be a drawback?

Dee Ann Turner:
Well, I think all the above is true and it rises and falls on leadership and how well a leader is engaged. So I’ve seen examples of teams who are working at very high performance levels because the leader is ensuring that even though they’re spread out globally, that they’re coming together, that they’re working together, that they’re totally engaged in what they’re doing. If you have the right leader. I think it can be very successful to have a global workforce on your team. And not to mention, you know, from a talent acquisition standpoint, that’s a real plus, but I really do believe that it depends on the leader and it, and it requires, in my opinion, um, to do this work from home and this remote work, if you will, I think it requires so much of the leader because they have to engage. Um, they don’t have that FaceTime, so they have to put in so much more effort. when they’re not, you know, they’re not seeing somebody around the coffee maker or, you know, walking down the hall and away the restroom or whatever, or going out to lunch on, you know, weekly basis. They have to, they have to really work at the engagement levels. And when I speak of engagement there, I’m talking about actual connection to each of their team members and pulling the team together as a whole. So we’re seeing examples of it working. We know it can work. But I think the leader, it’s pretty stressful for the leader to make that happen. I think personally, and I do think we have no choice at this point. I think we were headed that direction. COVID just accelerated that process and we are here where we are. And I don’t, you know, for jobs that can be worked remotely, I don’t believe we’ll ever go back to 100% in the office. as a predominant work culture. I have two sons and this is the flip side of all this. I have three sons, but two of them are involved in working. One works one day remotely in a highly structured environment. In fact, he’s in banking. So

Caleb Stevens:
There you go.

Dee Ann Turner:
he works in a very structured environment when he’s in the office and then from home it’s pretty structured too. And the remote, I guess the one day remote was an opportunity to give a little more flexibility. It’s probably a talent acquisition move just because there’s a generation that’s looking for more flexibility. The other one works about three days from home and really pretty much can go to the office when he wants to. He enjoys working from home because he enjoys when it’s cut down in his commute, et cetera, et cetera. But both of them feel like when you look at it from the employee side, they feel like they miss something and that missing. is, you know, how do you get promoted if you miss that visibility

Caleb Stevens:
Mm-hmm.

Dee Ann Turner:
of just working side by side or how do you get mentored or how does my boss really know how I’m doing when he or she never sees me? So I think that’s the flip side of it. I think there’s an assumption that this generation wants to work at home or wants to work remotely given the opportunity. And I think that’s true some of the time they like some flexibility, but I don’t think as a generalization, they’re all looking to work remotely 100% of the time. I’m sure some people like that, but for a lot of them, it’s a generation who already wants more feedback and more assurance of their career path, et cetera. And they feel like that’s a little harder to, for it to be tangible when you don’t have in-person connection with people.

Caleb Stevens:
Mm-hmm. Right, right. And I’ve even seen, and I don’t really have a fully formed opinion on this. And again, there’s so many other factors, but I’ve seen some companies experiment with a four day work week. So we’re all in the office four days, but we know that you’ve got doctor’s appointments and errands and things that you would take off for work otherwise, because you can’t do those things on the weekend. So we’re going to give you whatever, you know, Friday to do those things. And I think there’s. probably been some mixed results, good and bad, that maybe have come from that. But I’m just sort of excited to see where this all goes. You know, the 40-hour work week concept was sort of a holdover, it seems like, from the days when you would work in a factory and they didn’t want you working more than that and say that you had to pay overtime and these laws got passed. And you know, in this new world of work, I’m just personally kind of excited to see where it goes and I think it’s a great opportunity for leaders to say, okay, How can we create an environment where our people are highly valued? We’re going to hire people based on the three C’s. So they’re high character. We know we can trust them. You know, we know they have lives and things that are important that require flexibility, but at the same time, we want to build a great culture that values relationships. And to your point, it really is hard, I think, to move up when you don’t have visibility with, um, with your team. So, uh, yeah, I’m just sort of personally excited to see where things go in the future.

Dee Ann Turner:
Yeah, it’s a, I mean, it isn’t just a much more flexible, you know, even than what I was used to. I was in the office, you know, pretty constantly. And it was, so it’s a very different vibe. But I know that for my kids, I see why it’s important that they get a little bit of that flexibility. And I know it’s made a big difference for their work balance, life balance as well.

Caleb Stevens:
Yeah. Well, you hit on something really important a second ago. You said the younger generation really values and is looking for feedback. And I think that’s a great segue into performance reviews. I’d love to know at Chick-fil-A, how are performance reviews handled? And again, I kind of see a couple of different camps here. I see some people say performance reviews are pretty, pretty much worthless because If you need a performance review for someone to tell you how you’re doing, then they weren’t doing a good job of communicating all along, so there shouldn’t be any surprises. But then I see some people say, no, this is a great time to sit down and kind of take a step back from work, have honest conversations, regroup, make sure you’re on the same page. How did y’all at Chick-fil-A think about performance reviews and what were the benefits?

Dee Ann Turner:
Well, I talked a little bit more to the evolution of it at Chick-fil-A, just because it’s a telling, you know, since I haven’t been there in five years, I’m not sure how they do it now. But I can tell you a little bit about the evolution because I think it’s similar to what a lot of companies go through. And when a company is smaller and there’s a lot of face-to-face interaction and opportunities for almost daily coaching and feedback when you’re sort of entrepreneurial, people don’t necessarily feel… performance reviews are all that important because it either worked or it didn’t, you either met a goal or you didn’t and everybody knows it because you’re so small, right? And you’re where you are. But as an organization grows and you are, and really you think about again, a generation that wants a more clear cut career path, then you really need performance reviews. in order to create a level playing field for people to know what’s expected of them and to achieve those expectations and to be sure that their leaders are tracking what their performance is. So we began that process when it, you know, as the organization got a little bigger, then we didn’t have a real structured performance review process. We just told, asked every leader every quarter to have a conversation with every person on their team. And the things that we wanted them to talk about is what went well, what didn’t go well, what do we want to do differently, and talk about some goals for the next time period or the next quarter. And so for years, we did that. We documented it. We made notes on that, but that was how we did it. Then again, the organization kept getting bigger. And yes, so you have this gap between senior leadership and maybe somebody who’s more entry level. how does their performance get noticed so that they have opportunity? So long story short is we eventually ended up in a performance review system so that everyone was having a similar experience and being evaluated in a similar manner. And all of these performance reviews were based on goals that the supervisor and the employee agreed with. And so they set their goals at the beginning of the year. They had touch points along the way to discuss how things were going. And at the end of the year, it was a pretty simple evaluation about, you know, these were the goals. Did you achieve them? If you didn’t, why didn’t you? What was in your control? What wasn’t you did achieve the goals, you know, the appropriate recognition. And then you set the goals for the next year. Um, and that was, that was pretty much how we did performance management. Um, and again, it became more. systematic, it became more sophisticated as the organization grew to the point that it was all automated by the time that I left. But then the other part of that is so from performance review, one of the things we had to do, one of the reasons we had to get really serious about performance review is because the company was growing so fast. We

Caleb Stevens:
All right.

Dee Ann Turner:
recognized that we were going to need so many leaders in the future because of the size of the organization. Well, we couldn’t, if we’d wanted to, we couldn’t have selected all the leaders. So what were we gonna do to get all these people ready? Well, they had to have performance review and we had to have a leadership development process.

Caleb Stevens:
Mm-hmm.

Dee Ann Turner:
So performance review really fed into that. It’s like, okay, well, who are top performers? Now let’s evaluate them to see if they have the leadership skills to be a leader also. So that rolled into our leadership review process that became a. company-wide process for identifying leaders. So, you know, I think people think sometimes, oh, performance review, it makes me nervous, it’s a negative. If it’s done well, it should be one of the most positive things in your organization that helps you grow your organization, grow the people in your organization and even enhance the culture. People like to know what’s expected of them and they like to know whether or not they’re meeting those expectations. And that’s really all performance management is.

Caleb Stevens:
Yeah, I think it was Patrick Lynch, Yoni and his book, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job. One of them

Dee Ann Turner:
Heh.

Caleb Stevens:
is a measurement. You don’t know if you’re doing a good job or not. And sometimes you got to be creative with how you put measurements to your job. But it’s really important because if you’re in the dark on that, you know, you may be in for some unexpected surprises when the performance review comes around, I would think.

Dee Ann Turner:
Yes, exactly.

Caleb Stevens:
You know, one of the things too, that I vividly remember when I had my performance review at Chick-fil-A, and I don’t know if this was something that was practiced across the entire company, but this really stood out to me as being unique. And it’s something that I think every leader should practice is when it came time for my performance review, my leader sat down beside me instead of across from me.

Dee Ann Turner:
Mm.

Caleb Stevens:
So it felt like we were looking at something together and it felt more like a coaching moment than a, I am now judging you, I’m evaluating you. It felt like we were on the same team working towards something together. And it’s such a subtle thing. But that was one thing that stuck out. And the second thing is when I asked for feedback and I said, you know, please be honest with me, you know, what are some things I can do better? When he gave me constructive feedback. he gave me very specific concrete examples to back that feedback up. So there was no sort of, well, I don’t know about that. And I’m not sure, you know, it was real clear what he, the feedback that he had in mind because he had seen it and it gave me really helpful examples and some things to work on. Is that just sort of unique maybe to that manager or is that something Chick-fil-A practiced across the company?

Dee Ann Turner:
Well, I think that every manager does things differently. And so in the organization, at least when I was there, there was nobody who said, hey, sit next to somebody to do that. I think that’s a very astute manager to think that way and to lead that way. I think the other thing that can be really unique about performance, you know, the manager, by the way, often gets as nervous as the employee about a performance review. If it’s done well, if you have set goals, then if I’m the manager, the first thing I’m gonna do is listen. And I’m going to ask that employee to come prepared. They would have self evaluated on those goals and let them talk through it and listen to them and hear what they have to say about it. Now I’ve made some notes of things I might’ve observed along the way about the way they approach their work or whatever, good, bad or indifferent, but. One of the things I want to do is listen to their perspective. And if I’m really listening, then I might even change what I thought my perspective was by letting them explain their work. And I think that’s a nuance as well. Now, I’m not talking about people with, you know, if you’ve got somebody who has a severe performance deficiency either because of willingness or capability, they almost fall into another category because you’re managing that much more closely. And, but… I’m talking about, you know, your average to top performers that are doing a good job. When they come to a performance review, they should be the ones who are talking about their performance. Then, of course, before it’s all over with, they want to hear the atta boy or atta girl from you and what you specifically saw that they’ve done well or what you’ve seen that would help them improve their performance.

Caleb Stevens:
Mm-hmm.

Dee Ann Turner:
But letting them talk about their performance, I think, is a nuance that managers could employ as well.

Caleb Stevens:
Well, gosh, it feels like time’s flying here. We’re coming up on our limit

Dee Ann Turner:
Oh.

Caleb Stevens:
of time. But I’d love just to end with a couple of quick questions. Gen Z, this is the emerging generation in the workforce. And I hear stats all the time about how they’re job hoppers. I think it was Till Melmore who said the corporate ladder is now the corporate lily pad. And they’re

Dee Ann Turner:
Mm-hmm.

Caleb Stevens:
averaging maybe staying at a job, I think it’s like 2.3 years or something like that. And so they’re going to have. several jobs before they turn 30. Is this just the new reality that we’re in? Is this a reflection on a lack of loyalty? Is this a reflection on companies maybe not developing and showing pass for growth for these folks? Is it a combination? Just what are your thoughts on this new world of job hop?

Dee Ann Turner:
Well, I think that it’s, I think it’s indicative of what employers are doing as well. You know, I worked for Chick-fil-A for 33 years. That a 95% retention rate of corporate staff during that time that I worked for them. And why is that? Well, the loyalty worked both ways. But if I constantly saw an organization that was shifting their business strategy, that was… selecting talent only to turn around six months later and lay off talent and that was a constant churn, then I would not see myself as staying with an organization that long. And I think that’s what a lot of Gen Z faces going into the marketplace. And some of it is not leadership, some of it’s leadership driven that you have those behaviors and some of it’s the nature of the marketplace. You know, a startup today, how fast they go from idea to venture capitalists to being sold to new leadership and then that creates some of this turnover you see too is just the way organizations are birthed and they grow and then they you know they’re off in a totally different direction and I think that has a lot to do with it as well. I don’t see us going backwards. I mean that’s just we just are a fast. moving marketplace now. We have technology that allows us to do that. We have, I mean, think about the educational levels of this generation. I mean, people move fast, they think fast, and I don’t think it’s going to be a whole lot different. We’ll have to see. Another generation may be a new generation of loyalty, but as long as organizations are showing that they’re not loyal, I don’t think that we can expect more out of this generation that they’re going to be more loyal.

Caleb Stevens:
Okay, well, last question. And this is a COVID related question for sure. This is a biggie. It seems like just about every service based business you can think of is having all kinds of tough sledding as far as retaining their frontline hourly team members, whether that’s restaurants or banks or hospitals, people that are on the front lines and they’re interacting with customers. They literally can make or break your customers. a sense of loyalty and whether or not they’ve become a raving fan of your company. And yet it seems like in today’s environment, it’s become a lot more expensive with inflation. It’s harder to attract these folks. They’ve got all kinds of options. What do you see the best companies doing to attract and engage their frontline team members?

Dee Ann Turner:
they’re caring more than anybody else about their people. And they show that in a lot of different ways. And I’ve seen, I mean, I have to say, some of the best in the business are Chick-fil-A franchisees. And I watched them do this, may not work there anymore, but I’m a customer many times a week. So I see this happen. And so I’m gonna just give you a couple examples of some of the things I’ve seen. Chick-fil-A franchisees that during COVID, of course, what they were accomplishing, because they were one of the busiest restaurants at that time, because they had the technology and they were doing a great job of serving guests, but their dining rooms were closed. And so they had these big condiment stations. Well, they filled them with the favorite candies of their team members. I mean, I’m just talking about one tiny example to major examples, you know, helping them live out their dream, where they’re No, it’s the franchisee I know that he helps team members that want to get their teeth straightened. He provides orthodontic care for them. If somebody, their dream is to go on a mission trip, then some of those franchisees find ways to make that happen for people. Single mom who took the bus to work at Chick-fil-A every day and the franchisee gives her a car. So she didn’t have to do that anymore. I mean, I could just go on and on, but I think that’s the big difference right now is that people wanna know that they matter. And

Caleb Stevens:
Mm-hmm.

Dee Ann Turner:
so it’s not, money’s important, sure. I mean, that’s why people go to work. They need the money, but they’re also gonna go where they feel the most cared about. And that’s incumbent on the leader. And the leader creates a culture where people feel cared about. And that bleeds over into your guests. Suddenly they… I mean, they feel cared about, the employees feel cared about, then they’re caring for each other, employees caring for the customers and the customers caring for the employees. I’ve seen that happen. But I think that’s the secret sauce is how much do you care and how do you show it every single day to your people who are on the front lines?

Caleb Stevens:
Well, Deanna, folks want to book you to speak if they want to check out your books. How can they engage with all the resources that you provide to help leaders?

Dee Ann Turner:
The best place is to go to my website, which is D-A-N-D-E-E-A-N-N, turner.com. You can also find me on Facebook at D-Ann Turner Author, on Instagram at D-Ann Turner, on whatever they’re calling Twitter these days, at D-Ann Turner, and of course on LinkedIn. And you can engage with me in any of those places. You can find my books, I bet on talent and crush your career on my website or wherever great books are sold.

Caleb Stevens:
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for joining us and just thank you for being a much needed voice in today’s business world.

Dee Ann Turner:
It’s my pleasure, Caleb. Thank you so much for having me back.