The Team Culture System That Changes Every Metric, with Jenni Catron

Your strategy is solid. Your offer is dialed in. But something inside your growing team is quietly fracturing, and if you can't name it, you can't fix it.

In this episode, I sit down with Jenni Catron, bestselling author, speaker, and culture strategist, and founder and CEO of the 4Sight Group, who has spent over 20 years helping leaders in corporate, nonprofit, and ministry environments build the one thing that determines whether everything else works: a real team culture system.

Jenni unpacks why the pressure of growth exposes every clarity gap your organization has, and why culture left to chance will always drift toward dysfunction. She shares her five-phase culture framework, the counterintuitive power of building a cross-functional culture team, and why the Gallup data is unambiguous: when your team culture system is healthy, every metric you care about goes the right direction.

If you've been putting culture on the back burner while you chase revenue, this episode is your course correction.

Books Mentioned

• The Four Dimensions of Extraordinary Leadership by Jenni Catron
• Culture Matters by Jenni Catron (USA Today Bestseller)
• Just Lead by Jenni Catron

Connect with Jenni and start with her free Culture Blind Spots Assessment at get4sight.com. It's right at the top of the page and will give you immediate clarity on where your culture may have gaps. You can also find her at @JenniCatron across all social platforms, and I highly recommend her podcast as well.

Check out Dr. William Attaway's new show, The Appreciation at Work Podcast!  

Join Dr. William Attaway on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares transformative insights to help high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners achieve Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, and Confidence.

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Preview

Dr. William Attaway 0:00

It is such an honor today to have Jenny Catron on the podcast. Jenny is a best-selling author, speaker, and culture strategist dedicated to empowering leaders to cultivate healthy cultures and lead thriving organizations. She speaks at conferences and events nationwide, seeking to help leaders develop the clarity and the confidence to lead well. As founder and CEO of the Foresight Group, she consults organizations on leadership, team culture, and organizational health. With over 20 years of experience in corporate and nonprofit organizations, Jenny has a passion for helping leaders put feet to their vision. Jenny is the author of several books, including The Four Dimensions of Extraordinary Leadership and the USA Today bestseller, Culture Matters, a framework for helping your team grow, thrive, and be unstoppable. Jenny, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being on the show.

Jenni Catron 1:00

Dr. Attaway, I love every conversation we've been able to have, and it's such an honor to join you and your audience today.

Dr. William Attaway 1:08

This is going to be a great conversation I've been looking forward to for a minute.

Show Intro And Host Welcome

Intro 1:14

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host, author, and leadership and executive coach, Dr. William Hadaway.

Why Women Leaders Matter

Dr. William Attaway 1:39

This is such a great read. But I would be remiss if I did not start by thanking you for the very first book of yours I ever read, which is this one.

Jenni Catron 1:47

I love it so much.

Dr. William Attaway 1:49

When I read this book, Just Lead, which is a practical guide for women leaders in the church, it really hit so hard on something that I have taught for three decades in the local church, which is the fact that scripture's very clear on this, that we need to be uh following what scripture says, not what we were taught or what some people's preferences are. And I just I want to start by thanking you for that because that was so helpful for me and for my daughters, one of whom is feeling God's call into vocational ministry. And I just I want to say thank you for that because that made a big difference uh for me and for my family.

Jenni Catron 2:29

Well, I I I love that so much. When you told me that initially, I was so it's such an honor when a male leader honors and rec understands and is supportive of women and leadership, especially in the church context. And uh so I just love that you you devoured that and have used that to encourage other women leaders that you you support. So I love that so much. I love that we have that history. You go all the way back to my very first book, baby. So fun.

Dr. William Attaway 2:55

Well, it really was impactful. And I know still is for a lot of people. I want to I want to talk about your new book, Culture Matters. But before I do that, I would love for you to share a little bit of your story with our listeners. You know, you've quite the journey. And I'd love for them to hear a little bit about kind of where you've been and how you got to where you are.

Jenni Catron 3:13

Yeah, yeah.

Jenny Catron’s Leadership Journey

Jenni Catron 3:14

Well, thank you for that. It is, it's a wild journey. That's the way God always works, right? And that the unexpected twists and turns. But my career ambitions when I was a teenager were I wanted to work for a record company in Nashville, Tennessee. I wanted to work for a Christian record company, specifically a company called Forefront Records. And I set my sights on that goal and and had the opportunity to start there as an intern. That turned into a job, and it turned into eight years working for that organization. And it was a phenomenal experience, a phenomenal like first work experience, which I then realized is not everybody's first work experience. But I really did have, it was the makings of my passion around culture and leadership, because I had leaders who were deeply invested in my growth and development. And that meant both the encouragement and cheerleading and the kick in the pants when I needed it, right? And the opportunities to learn and be stretched. And to this day, I still am in contact with most of those leaders. They're still friends, they're still mentors in my life. I had dear friends, like some of my best friends. I'm going on a trip next month with two of my dearest friends from that I met in that era. And it was just challenging work, but I felt valued. I felt like I was contributing in a meaningful way. And so that was like the foundation for me of leadership and culture. I just had such a great incubator. And uh then we went through a corporate merger and I went through all the bumpy parts of what happens to cultures when two different cultures collide and when companies are merged together. And I remember thinking, gosh, this is a big deal because I went from being this highly engaged employee to somebody who was kind of doing the bare minimum, quiet quitting before we even had the term for that. And uh, and again, my job hadn't changed, but my leader, my team, my environment changed and it changed everything about my experience at work. And so that was really like a significant point. And it's what I reflect on a lot in the culture work that I do now. But then I had the privilege of going into full-time ministry. My husband and I were a part of planting a church in Nashville and it was growing like crazy. And I got the tap on the shoulder from one of our elders who said, Hey, I think you should come here and lead the staff, the strategy, the operations of the church. And at first I was like, this is the craziest thing I've ever heard. I'm a business major. I want to be a CEO of a record company. I don't know why you think I should be in ministry. But after about six months of prayer and processing and conversations with mentors, it was just clear that God would, that's where he was taking me bring bring my gifts and skills to a mission that I really loved and was excited to help be a part of. And so I had the privilege of doing that for almost another decade. And then in the meantime, I started writing books and um uh was speaking and writing and discovering a love for that because my passion had become yes, I loved the work, but I really loved the leadership part of it. I loved that we get the privilege of changing and influencing the lives of the people that we lead. And there's such a sacredness to that work. And we all know what it feels like when we're led well, and we know what it feels like when we're not led well, and we know what it feels like when we're in a great team, and we know what it feels like when we're not in a great team. And so that's the thread that became clear through my journey was that's actually what I loved. I could do that in corporate, I could do that in ministry, but being able to actually coach and develop leaders and help them build great teams was just becoming the real passion. So 10 almost 10 years ago, it'll be 10 years ago this fall, I launched the Foresight Group, which was a company, we're a company dedicated to cultivating healthy leaders and thriving teams. And uh, so that's what's gotten me here today.

Dr. William Attaway 6:59

Wow. And through Foresight, you have served clients all over the place.

Jenni Catron 7:04

We have.

Dr. William Attaway 7:05

Like all over the country and even beyond.

Jenni Catron 7:07

Yeah, a little bit beyond. We we do. We get to serve in just some amazing organizations, some phenomenal leaders in both ministry, nonprofit, corporate, small businesses. And it really is the leader who is hungry to say, I want to, I want to do this well. I want to make a mark and make an impact. And I recognize that um that people are the point, that the work that I get to do, the mission can be amazing. We can have a phenomenal strategy, but if we're not stewarding well the people that are in this with us, it's like quicksand, right? And again, we've all been there in those moments where it's like we can have an amazing vision, but if we don't have a team of people aligned and on mission with us in that, we're just we just find ourselves stuck. And so, yes, we have worked across the country a little bit in Canada, a little bit in Europe, but we just love serving leaders. That's the best part.

Dr. William Attaway 8:00

You know, so when as I was reading Culture Matters, you know, so much of this, it felt like you were sharing from that well of experience.

Jenni Catron 8:09

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway 8:09

You know, from seeing, from hearing, from sitting in those meetings, from sitting across from leaders and teams and them just being confused and bumfuzzled about exactly what's happening here.

Jenni Catron 8:20

Right.

Dr. William Attaway 8:20

Like, yeah, why, why did why do we feel like this? And I love how you wrote about that because I think a whole lot of our listeners might be in a similar spot. You know, they've got the strategy. Strategy is so important, got the strategy, got the tactical plan ready to roll. But it's not working.

Jenni Catron 8:39

That's right.

Dr. William Attaway 8:39

Something's off.

Strategy Needs Purpose And Culture

Jenni Catron 8:41

Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway 8:41

And you know, one one of the things I highlighted, you you wrote strategy only succeeds when it's aligned with purpose and with culture. Talk with that for a minute, because I think culture is something a lot of people misunderstand. And I've heard more than a few leaders say, Oh, yeah, we'll get to the culture thing, but right now we're focused on revenue.

Jenni Catron 9:01

Yeah, yeah, exactly right. Gosh, I love that. That I first of all, I love that you caught the, yeah, it's from being in the trenches. Like I had another mentor of mine that said, Jenny, this was a book you could not not write, right? Like they were like, it's a new that you had to get it out, you know, and and that's true because uh it is my lived experience both in the trenches as a leader and coming alongside so many leaders over the last couple of decades and seeing how we get so stuck around this. Because William, I've yet to meet a leader who doesn't want to lead their team well, right? I I've not met a leader who says, yeah, these people, like, I mean, we might joke about it occasionally, but by and large, it's like we do want a team of people who are aligned and on mission with us. We don't want to be frustrating them or, you know, causing them to be disengaged. Like, but every one of us is asking the question, how do I do it? And that was where I was. So I went through that experience, great first experience in my job, went through the corporate merger, realized the impact of culture and how it was shaping me. And then I find myself in this executive director seat at my church. And we are rapidly growing in that era. It's like everything is up and to the right. It's a rocket ride. We were what one of the fastest growing churches for multiple years in a row. So it was just, it was just a wild ride of growth. And for as much as I love culture, as much as I knew it mattered, I got into that seat and I'm so excited because I'm like, I get to shape this. Like I'm leading it, I'm getting to shape it. And then it occurred to me that I don't actually know how to do it. Again, I know what it looks like, but how do I actually do it? And that's the question I found myself facing. And again, we're growing like crazy. I'm adding staff regularly. So it's just this crazy hamster wheel of trying to keep up with the growth. And of course, then the question is yes, this culture thing sounds great, but I've just got the impending realities right in front of me, right? And in ministry context, Sunday's coming every week. So there's just, you know, there's just this churn of activity that is all consuming. But I knew it still mattered. Like it was like here in the back of my mind. And then when it really stood out to me, William, was when, again, we're feeling all of that growth and that pressure of growth. We had in the early days just a such a unified team. Like everybody was in it. We all loved the mission, we loved the work, we're so committed. But all of a sudden, we have 30 staff at two different locations and scattered in different office spaces all over the buildings because we're just busting at the scenes. And the the pain points started showing up in that where we used to like lean in and support each other, people were getting territorial, where they used to, you know, be unified and aligned. It was like they were doubling down on what their team needed or their location needed, or, you know, I was hearing this language and seeing this behavior that I was like, that's not the best of who we are. Like that's not how we historically operated. And that's when it hit me that I was like, time out. The pressure of this growth is creating fractures in our culture. The pressure of this growth is putting pressure on one of the arguably the most important thing, which was the culture and our people who are helping us achieve it. So that's when I did the timeout and I just said, I can't leave this to chance. I can't keep operating like it's going to be okay and hoping, cross my fingers, hold my breath, and hope everybody does okay because it's not going the right direction and nothing drifts towards health, right? Like when we see something that's not going the right way, our job as a leader is to intervene and say, no, we've got a course correct. We've got to bring the clarity that helps everybody understand my definition of culture is clarity of who we are and how we work together to achieve the mission. And so that was the pain point for me, if you will, is that I was in the in real time feeling it, believed it mattered, wasn't arguing with the importance of it, but the the activity and the busyness of where we were in the season we're we were in kept giving me an excuse to leave it alone until I started seeing the symptoms that made me say, no, if I if we continue on this course, it's not going to be healthy. And so that's when I paused. I started experimenting with what is now the framework that I outlined in the book. But I started experimenting with things to say, I've got to do this in course with everything else we're doing. This has to be a priority because it's so critical to our success.

Dr. William Attaway 13:28

In

Proving Culture Impacts Performance

Dr. William Attaway 13:29

those days or with working with clients now, do you ever get pushback on this? You ever get pushback, people saying, uh, it's this is soft.

Jenni Catron 13:37

Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway 13:38

We just don't have time for that.

Jenni Catron 13:40

Yeah. All the time. All the time. Yeah. And now we will also find the culture champions in the organizations who are the ones that wake up thinking about this and they know it matters and they intuitively just believe it and they've probably experienced it and seen it. And so even if they're on the executive team and believe it, sometimes they have trouble making the case to other executive leaders of like, we need to be giving time and attention. And I get it because I lived in Silicon Valley for a short time, and we were surrounded by Apple, Google, Netflix, um, Meta, you know, all the big tech companies, right? And it was like every day they were jockeying for some perk that they were adding for employees, right? And so it was like the constant war for talent. And so the thing, culture kind of became synonymous with ping pong tables and free pizza lunches, right? And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. Those things can be good, but those things aren't culture building in and of themselves. And I think that's where sometimes culture gets a bad rap of people are like, oh, it's just the warm, fuzzy, make everybody happy, placate employees. But in actuality, culture is the clarity of this is who we are, this is how we work together, this is the expectation of what we look like at our best and what how we want everybody to show up. And so that means we're gonna have hard conversations. That means we're gonna do things with excellence. That means, you know, whatever those values, beliefs, and behaviors are that's so core to your organization, that you're leaning into those things. So what I've been doing some work on more recently, probably one of my greatest struggles, if I'm honest, William, was that I believe it matters so much that I assume everybody else does. And I had to start making the case that there's actually a direct impact to all the other metrics that we care about. Like if you go and you do the, and I know you know this, I'm preaching to the choir because you live in this world with me, right? But but I had to go research and I had to be able to make the case that when your culture is healthy, productivity goes up. When your health culture is healthy, profitability goes up. When your culture is healthy, retention goes up. When your culture is healthy, turnover goes down. Um, when your culture is healthy, internal protocols are followed more closely. Like all the metrics we care about go the right direction when culture is healthy. Um Gallup's most recent State of the Workplace report, uh, I believe that they said when uh in best practice organizations, meaning organizations that put emphasis on culture, their managers are 70%, 74% engaged. That's four times the engagement of managers that are aren't in culture-focused organizations. Like imagine if 74% of your managers were all in and highly committed and very engaged, because then the cascading effect is they're impacting every employee that's underneath them. Like the metrics are just exponentially impacted by culture, but it's the thing we typically put further down the list. And so my mission in life is to help leaders understand this actually is the thing that impacts every other metric you you're waking up at night worried about.

Dr. William Attaway 16:53

That's so good.

Jenni Catron 16:54

I mean clearly I don't I clearly I care a bit about it, right?

Dr. William Attaway 16:59

But that's you care about it because you've seen it. That's right. And you've seen it from both sides. Yeah. You've seen what it looks like when it's not going right and what the impact of that is, and how that impacts not just the people at the top, but everybody in the organization because they all feel it. Even if they can't name it, yeah. They feel it. Yeah, that's exactly right. It touches every metric. I love the way you phrase that. That's exactly right.

Jenni Catron 17:20

Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway 17:21

That's so good. You know, one of the things that that I flag that I wanted to ask you about, you have a concept in the book that I had not seen before. And I I

Building A Real Culture Team

Dr. William Attaway 17:32

love the idea of this. You call it building a culture team.

Jenni Catron 17:36

Oh, yeah.

Dr. William Attaway 17:37

Inside of an organization. And I hadn't seen this before. I would love for you to talk about that and kind of maybe where you've seen that work really well. Yeah. Again, I hadn't seen it before, phrased like you did. And I was like, so good.

Jenni Catron 17:50

Yeah. So the philosophy on this, when so in the book, I outline a five-phase framework to help leaders build a true culture operating system. That I don't want you to do the episodic staff fun day or the, you know, we wrote the values and you know, rolled them out to the team and then we never talked about them again, or even put them on the wall. And if all the team members kind of roll their eyes when they walk by them because they're like, we do not behave that way. And that's what we do a lot. And I'm not criticizing everybody, anybody, because I've been there myself, right? At least you're trying something. But my conviction is that you actually need a system that supports your culture, that your team members have to, they can't not bump into the culture you've defined. You've gotten so clear about this is who we are, this is how we work together, this is what it takes to succeed here, to be, you know, to help us reflect who we are at our at our best. But the challenge to that process is that if it's just like leadership led, it becomes very challenging for it to be embraced by the entire organization. And we know this, right? We've experienced this. Sometimes when we cast vision as leaders, people come along, but they might, it takes time for the buy-in. The other challenge in this is that especially when we're the first part of our framework is to assess your culture, like what's true right now, right? Good, bad, and ugly, what's true in our culture right now, which by the way, is a very vulnerable question for leaders to ask, but a really important one because culture in your organization is not probably not as good as you think. Like whatever you're experiencing as a senior leader is probably not the experience throughout the organization. And so you have to start from that premise of it might not be as good as I think it is, but I need to know what's true. I need to know what's true. So this is where the culture team comes into play. And that my coaching, and this is how we, when we work with teams and walk them through our framework, we start them by building a culture team because we want you to build a team of leaders from throughout your organization. And even leaders might not be the appropriate word there, a team of staff from throughout your organization who will be part of this project and part of that defining who we are and how we work together. So, I what I love about this, and this gets really fun, is that I work with uh teams to say, let's find eight to 12 team members from different departments so that different departments are represented. I want them to have different roles in the organization. I want the um the facilities coordinator to one of our exec team members. I want somebody who's been here 30 days, and I want somebody who's been here 30 years. And so I want these different perspectives. I want um brand new for their first job out of college employee, and I want a boomer who is near retirement, right? Like I want all of these preferences and reflections, like people who bring different perspectives to the table. Because then what's happening is that team works together and they start defining this is who we are, this is how we work together, and they begin to roll out your culture plan. The rest of your staff look at that team and they go, oh, there's somebody on there I trust. There's somebody on that team who sees things similar to how I see it. There's somebody on that team who understands my role in the organization. It's not just the senior leaders who haven't been in my seat for some time. There's somebody on that team that is there advocating for my perspective or my interests. And selecting that team is really important because you do want people who already demonstrate some alignment to what you hope to be true about your culture. You don't want the ones that are going to be throwing grenades, but you do want people who can be honest and speak up and speak into what we want to be true about our culture. And William, this becomes so fun. This becomes so fun. I'll give you an example of one organization that I was working with, and I mentioned having a facilities person on the team. And um, and so, you know, it he's not used to sitting in brainstorming discussions and things like that because he's Usually out mowing the lawn or fixing the toilets. But your facilities team sees everything. They they interact with every department in your organization. They know the good and the bad and the ugly of your culture. And he was so valuable in his perspective. Like he'd been this person kind of behind the scenes, silently watching what was going on in the organization. And then all of a sudden, he's given a voice to help bring perspective and insight. And it took a little bit to like for him to be comfortable in that room and for him to speak up. But then when they rolled out their culture plan to the entire staff, the staff cheered and got on their feet when he got up and presented part of the plan. He'd never held the microphone before in his life. Wow. And he gets up in front of the staff and shares part of their culture plan. And the room just roared. This was like a team of like 300 staff. The room just roared because everybody knew him. He'd been a long-tenured team member. Everybody loved him and trusted him. But to see that his voice was valued at a table in a team that was impacting the whole organization, you couldn't manufacture that if you tried. And I'm not encouraging everybody to go try to replicate that exactly. So good. But I have another example of I was working with a school and we put together their culture team and we had admin people, some teachers, and then we had the bus driver. And so the bus driver who's interfacing with the student, because this is a private school, the bus driver who's interfacing with the students every day. And he again, he had normally never been in rooms like this or contributing in this way, but he brought such valuable perspective and a great insight. And it was just, first of all, it was a great development opportunity for him, but it also just brought perspective that the other team members had no insight around. So you just get some really, really fabulous conversation and insight that around your entire culture when you're intentional about building that team.

Dr. William Attaway 23:59

I I love that idea. And you know, one of the things that you said in the book was be careful that you're not just picking the people that you always go to.

Jenni Catron 24:07

Yes.

Dr. William Attaway 24:07

Your go-to people that you pick for every big project, every big initiative. And I think every leader is going to read that sentence to be like, oh, yeah, I do kind of pick the same handful of people all the time.

Jenni Catron 24:17

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway 24:18

And you warn against that. And that's so good.

Jenni Catron 24:21

Yeah. And and it is like, I mean, because again, I've been that senior leader in the seat. And it is a little risky to go, gosh, I like I, you know, I interface with this person in the halls or at some a staff meeting, and they seem great, but I don't know them really well to trust them with this. Now, what I will say is I typically will encourage that you have some measure of like nominating people to those roles. I don't recommend having all the staff do nominations because that can get a little crazy. But like we have um in one of the recent teams that I worked with, we had their um like mid-level leader leadership team that was like 30 staff. We said, hey, we want to hear who reflects some of the best of us on your team. And I want you to recommend them for the culture team. So they got a long list of maybe 30 individuals that they looked at, and then collectively as a group, they culled that down to like 12. So it is helpful to get other people to speak in because one of the teams I'm working with, there's a leader within one of the divisions that was off the radar of most of the executives, and that individual is on the culture team and crushing it, like bringing some of the best ideas to the room. So it is helpful to have more people speak into who should be on that team because it's not going to be your usual suspects, right? Like as a leader, you have a level of comfort with certain individuals that you trust for special projects. And I say that in the book just to kind of push to say, hey, yeah, just get a little beyond that because I bet you, like, here's one other thing I'm finding is that when you build a culture team, like this individual that I was talking about from this most recent team, now that individual is in, like, is on the radar for development and promotion possibility because they're bringing insight that was just not that some of the senior leadership weren't privy to. And you're like, you've got somebody who's over in this small team in this division, just crushing it, but we didn't know that until he was surfaced for the the culture team. So just some really fun stuff that happens as a result of it.

Dr. William Attaway 26:25

This book, we have not even scratched the surface of this book. I mean, there's so much good stuff in here. I cannot recommend this enough. I have to ask you this. Like you are constantly learning, you are constantly growing, you are constantly staying and sharpening your saw. How do you do that? How do you stay on top of your game and level up with the new skills that your team, your clients are gonna need you to have? Because that's only gonna get harder and harder, right?

Jenni Catron 26:54

Yeah, yeah. I will tell you this. This was a learning for me. I don't know, maybe early on in Foresight's journey, my company's journey, that when I shifted into this role, and I I do speak at conferences and events and things all over. And then now in my client work, I'm spend most of my days coaching and consulting and speaking into leaders. And there was an aware, a moment of awareness where I had, I've always had a passion for learning and growth. So that's just very innate to me. But as my leadership influence grew, what I was finding is that I was there was more output than there was input. And that was the caution point for me. Right. And I think this is true in any leader in every any role, that when you find yourself responsible for most of the rooms that you're

Staying Sharp As A Leader

Jenni Catron 27:43

in, having to be the leader in most of the environments you're in, you have to caution yourself and say, hey, where am I not the leader? Where am I in a learning posture?

Dr. William Attaway 27:53

That's good.

Jenni Catron 27:54

And then very fervently create the space for it. So what I realized, William, was that as my work was growing with clients and my speaking opportunities were increasing, I had to increase my input time. So I am really diligent. I mean, you can ask my husband about this because if he starts talking in the morning during my reading time, I'm like, no, no, no, no. I mean, we literally, he literally knows. Sometimes we'll be like, oh, I'm sorry, I'm interrupting your reading time. But I'm really hyper protective of there's time in my morning where before I'm trying to put information out, I need to be learning, growing. And for me as a person of faith, my quiet time and Bible reading and prayer is like first in that, in that order. And then I always have a handful of books I'm in the middle of. And I'll tell you another thing that I do. Every year I pick a topic that I want to personally grow in. So every year I find some topic or subject that I'm like, last year it was speaking, that I was elevating my speaking and I got speaking coaches and I was reading all kinds of materials. And I just I that's where I put a lot of my energy was to be a better communicator. But then this year it's AI because AI is impacting workplace in wild ways right now. And I was like, I need to understand this, not only how to use it, but how it's impacting organizations, how it's impacting how we're thinking about work, how it's impacting our cultures. So what I do then is I find a couple of voices that I trust and I want to learn from. I make a list of books that I want to read. So yeah, I've I've I've got like, you know, it's like a mix of reading of podcasts and sometimes events or conferences, depending on what the subject matter is for me. But that was sorry, very long-winded answer. Basically, every morning I protect a couple hours that are input time. Before I go into meetings, I have learning time. And then I pick a subject every year that is I need to grow and learn in this. And then I look for is that a conference? Is that a coach? What is it to help me in that place that I want to grow?

Dr. William Attaway 29:59

I think that's so good. It's so practical and it's so intentional. And every leader who's listening can take and adapt that for their life.

Jenni Catron 30:07

That's right.

Dr. William Attaway 30:08

I I'm gonna challenge every one of you listening to this. If you are the person in every room who's constantly pouring out, most leaders are. Who's pouring into you? What are the intentional inputs you are putting into your life? You get to choose that. I'm gonna challenge you. Follow Jenny's example here. Make sure you're prioritizing that because you can't pour out of an empty pitcher. And you don't want to go to start to pour and realize it's empty at that point. Make sure you're listening, make sure you're learning, make sure you're growing. Jenny, I could talk to you for another hour or five. This is so, so good. Again, I cannot recommend this book enough. Listeners, culture matters. This is one you want. You're gonna read it, you're gonna underline, you're gonna highlight, and it's one you're gonna come back to again and again. Thank you so much for writing this. Thank you so much for sharing so generously today with us from your well of insight and knowledge. We are so grateful for that. I know people are gonna want to connect to you and continue to learn from you and more about what you're doing. What's the best way for them to do that?

Jenni Catron 31:15

Well, Dr. Attaway, thank you so much for the opportunity and to everybody listening. Um, just thanks for wanting to learn, to grow, to lead well. Um, you're learning from the best. Dr. Attaway is just such a gift, and um I'm so grateful for his voice and influence. So such an honor to be here and to be able to share. The best way to connect is my website is getforesight.com, G-E-T, the number four, S-I-G-H-T. And uh there's a free blind uh culture blind spots assessment that's right at the top of the page. So if you're like, I don't even know where to start with culture, that free little assessment is going to give you great insight into where you might have a blind spot around some of the the things that are impacting your culture. Great place to start. And uh, and then I'm at Jenny Catron on all social media. So great place to connect. And I'd love to shoot me a DM and I'm always happy to connect. So thank you again, Dr. Atway. Such an honor to be a part of this conversation today.

Dr. William Attaway 32:09

Well, truly an honor to have you. We'll have all those links in the show notes as well as a link to your podcast, which is a phenomenal listen. Highly recommend that one as well. And I got the honor to be on yours.

Jenni Catron 32:20

Yes, yes, yes, yes. That your episode's coming out soon. Can't wait.

Dr. William Attaway 32:23

It's gonna be great.