The Ultimate Guide to Building a Magnetic Company Culture in Startups (1/2)

Jörn Menninger
vor 12 Stunden
30 Min. Lesezeit

Christian Conrad discusses magnetic company culture during a Startuprad.io podcast interview

Management Summary

In today’s competitive startup ecosystem, company culture isn’t a soft perk—it’s a strategic growth lever. This guide is for startup founders, executives, and investors looking to attract top talent, increase employee engagement, and build resilient teams. Based on an exclusive interview with Christian Conrad—author of Magnetic Company Culture—this blog reveals practical, measurable frameworks that turn workplace culture into a startup's secret weapon (Christian Conrad's Book).

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What Is a Magnetic Company Culture?

A magnetic company culture draws in top talent and retains them through purpose, emotional connectedness, and everyday engagement. Christian Conrad defines it as the deliberate cultivation of values, behaviors, and systems that make employees proud to recommend their workplace to others.

Featured Snippet Answer:

A magnetic company culture is a work environment that attracts and retains talent by fostering emotional engagement, trust-based leadership, and purpose-driven performance. It can be measured through metrics like eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score).

Why Culture Beats Strategy (and Metrics Prove It)

As Peter Drucker famously quipped, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." Conrad backs this up with metrics. In one client case, the eNPS jumped from 6 to 40 in just 18 months—transforming both talent retention and productivity.

How do you measure the ROI of company culture?

eNPS: Ask "How likely are you to recommend this company as a workplace?"
Turnover rates: Decline signals better retention.
Engagement scores: Improved collaboration and innovation.

What Are Engagement Boosters?

Christian uses "Engagement Boosters" as core habits that improve company culture daily. These include:

Connective Listening
Positive Reinforcement
Feedforward instead of Feedback

What is Feedforward and how is it different from Feedback?

Feedforward is future-oriented advice that helps improve outcomes without assigning blame. Unlike traditional feedback, it encourages growth and proactive behavior.

How Trust-Based Leadership Drives Results

Trust-based leadership begins with the principle: trust 100% until broken. In Conrad's experience, this fosters intrinsic motivation, innovation, and emotional loyalty.

Can soft skills really impact business outcomes?

Absolutely. Christian describes how teams with high trust outperform those led by fear. The measurable outcomes include higher initiative, better execution, and stronger employee advocacy.

How to Start Transforming Your Culture Today

Christian suggests a three-step blueprint:

Do quick eNPS interviews with 10 people.
Evaluate answers and prioritize 3 actionable improvements.
Build habits like connective listening and reinforcement.

What tools support this transformation?

Conrad uses an AI-powered app to track leadership habits and behavior change. It supports long-term culture work, not one-off training.

📹 The Video Podcast

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Podcast host Jörn Menninger and Christian Conrad talk about trust-based leadership in the workplace

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About the Author:

Jörn “Joe” Menninger is the founder and host of Startuprad.io -- one of Europe’s top startup podcasts that scored as a global Top 20 Podcast in Entrepreneurship. He’s been featured in Forbes, Tech.eu, EU-Startups, Geektime, and more for his insights into startups, venture capital, and innovation. With over 15 years of experience in management consulting, digital strategy, and startup scouting, Joe works at the intersection of tech, entrepreneurship, and business transformation—helping founders, investors, and corporates turn bold ideas into real-world impact.

Follow his work on LinkedIn

Automatic Transcript

Narrator Dorsey Jackson [00:00:05]:

Welcome to startup. Your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German startup scene with news, interviews, and live events.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:00:20]:

Hello, and welcome, everybody. This is Joe from Startupbreak.o, your authority on startups from Germany, Oslo, and Switzerland, also known as the DACH Region. Today, we're diving deep into what company culture might be your biggest growth level or your greatest hidden cost. My guest is someone who has dedicated his career to building what he calls magic cultures. Welcome, Christian Konrad.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:00:45]:

Hi, Jan. Lovely to be here.

Christian Konrad [00:00:47]:

Totally. My pleasure. And we're both smiling because we're going to introduce our audience to a very simple German word. It's called.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:00:58]:

Yeah. My my Australian coach, Karl, always, you know, when we talk about that, he says, could you repeat that, please? That's such a beautiful word. I've it's impossible to pronounce for me. Fachkraft among them. It's basically skilled labor shortage. But in German, we have that possibility to to build words as we please and make them as long as we like.

Christian Konrad [00:01:23]:

Exactly. There are other famous German words, but we are sticking today with. Taking a quick bio from you, you have been the former marketing director at Kellogg's, not only marketing serious, I do believe, for the DACH region. You have been formally with Unilever, also a food company behind a lot of brands, for cooking. Ice comes to mind, a lot of other stuff. You are the founder of Engagement Booster. You are the author. Attention again.

Christian Konrad [00:01:56]:

Retaining, the book is called Magnetic Company Culture. And, you are on a mission to put 1,000,000 smile to help 1,000,000 employees to smile by 2035. Guys Right. If you're struggling with retention, recruiting, or employment motivation, stick around. This episode will give you practical framework you can apply today. So let's set the stage. Why does culture matter? What I what I always have in mind is that culture eats strategy for breakfast. I I don't remember who did this famous saying, but You

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:02:36]:

did that guy.

Christian Konrad [00:02:37]:

Yeah. Exactly. That is always what been sticking to my mind. And such a lot of people retaining about company culture. I had a former employee of PayPal, Michelle here. She also talked about company culture. And I vividly remember we both talked about if you first hire people, take away their parking spots, and then start talking about company culture, you completely misunderstood something. So, Christian, your vision is 1,000,000 more smiling employees by 2035.

Christian Konrad [00:03:08]:

What does that look in attracting, and how did this mission begin?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:03:13]:

We actually measure it. We measure, those smiling people, because I define them as people who no longer are just okay with the place they're working at the place of employment, but they're actually really happy or highly engaged. So the difference between being enthusiastic and being just content is the key thing. That's just that's, that's why they're smiling. And what we're using is the Net Promoter Score system. So we measure the Net Promoter Score for employees. And that gives you exactly that distinction.

Christian Konrad [00:04:01]:

There is a net promoter score for almost everything. Can you tell us about net promoter score? And why do you think it is useful?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:04:11]:

I think it's useful because it's simple. That's the first thing. So and and the other thing, the other reason why why I think is useful is that it reframes the relationship between employee and employer. Basically, what you what you re reframe is that you say that the employer employee is the customer for the product workplace, and you basically measure customer satisfaction.

Christian Konrad [00:04:38]:

And and a lot of people have actually done such a survey for customer, net promoter score. How likely is that you will recommend the product? One, very unlikely and 10, always. That's basically our key.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:04:54]:

That's basically it. So so it's the most simple, but yet extremely powerful way of measuring, employee satisfaction, which I think, you know, satisfaction is actually not what you want. You want excitement or engagement. And the people who are merely satisfied are usually on the 10 scale, are the seven and eight, you know, the ones that that respond, how happy how likely that you will recommend your your employer, to others, family and friends to others. And they say seven and eight. And quite a lot of people say, well, that's okay. And that's exactly the problem. That's okay.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:05:36]:

And that doesn't mean you're a smiling person, smiling faces are those people or smiling people are those people who turned from being below nine or 10 to a nine or 10.

Christian Konrad [00:05:47]:

I see. So 1,000,000 smiling employees. When did you start and how far have you gotten?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:05:54]:

So we startup, two years ago with the first client who run the whole program, the engagement with the program. And so far, we we it seems like we haven't come very far. But we have actually run the proof of concept. We stand at sixty five

Christian Konrad [00:06:11]:

sixty five smiling employees.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:06:13]:

Yes. So yeah, it's minimum minimum viable product product testing. And now it now comes to time when we when we build the machine. So because we want more smiling faces, and that means also more smiling employers, because it's extremely as as extreme high correlation with productivity and other economic factors.

Christian Konrad [00:06:40]:

Okay. That means for the for including this year, you have to put a smile on around 100,000 employees per year. And I assume it will go, like, a little bit more fewer this year and then getting on and on and on.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:06:57]:

Yeah. What what we're we're planning to to sort of start scaling for for, you know, fully scaling in in in about three years. So that's when it's that's when it takes off.

Christian Konrad [00:07:09]:

I see. Let's get back to our favorite word. You've argued that is often self inflicted. What's behind this provocation?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:07:18]:

Well, I think that a lot of company, because they don't invest enough into the relationships they have with their employees, have the problem of a lack of skilled labor, of fat kefdemange, they they they're actually to blame themselves. You know, if you it it it it doesn't happen by itself, you know. It's like, I I don't know who said that, but if you if you say that if you like an a really competitive corporate culture with climbing a high mountain, then, you know, if you see someone on top of a mountain, you can be fairly sure they didn't fall there. So it doesn't happen automatically, you need to climb the mountain. So it usually requires a transformation. It requires investment of time and resources. And you don't get that. It's it's unlikely to just happen to have a strong brand, which also nobody would know, everybody would say, okay, yeah, I agree, that doesn't happen automatically.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:08:27]:

It takes three to five years to build a strong brand with a lot of investment and dedication. And and the same goes for a strong corporate culture that has a high engagement level.

Christian Konrad [00:08:41]:

We're talking mostly because that's the main concern of our main audience, Fag Trafter, meaning qualified employees. For example, doing marketing, most of the time doing coding or engineers and so on and so forth, highly qualified people. I was wondering when I was thinking about that, how high does it apply? So how high can you really put that in terms of level? Because most people who would be subject to this, magnetic company culture would be on the employee level, but, basically, you have to scale it all the way up the ladder up to top management. Right?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:09:19]:

Yes. That's why you I mean, if you if you run a transformation program, my belief is you always have to go top down, whatever you want to transform. And in this case, you want to increase the emotional connectedness people feel with their employer, I e engagement. You know, that's my translation of engagement, the emotional connectedness. And if you want to transform that within the organization, you have to start top down. So I always start with c level.

Christian Konrad [00:09:47]:

You always okay. We are already in your framework. Let's define your core framework. What makes a company culture truly magnetic?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:10:00]:

For me, the the the the key factor is is actually the what I what what the Gallup Institute, the American, Research Institute, Gallup calls engagement, and I translate with as as meaning emotion connectedness. If you have a high emotional connectedness with your employer, you're you have a magnetic culture. So if the majority of people have a high likelihood to actually recommend that their place of employment to others, that is the highest level.

Christian Konrad [00:10:35]:

And, many people do confuse company culture, having a good company culture with having a fancy office. Can you can you try to differentiate between having a fancy office and having a fancy or magnetic company culture?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:10:56]:

I mean, I would say that having an office where people where people like to go to, whether it's fancy or not, you know, you can you can you can debate whether the fanciness actually makes people want to go there. I think that a study office actually, this is a disincentive for people to go to the office. So if people if company complain that people are working from home too much, they need to make it attractive to get to the office. I think that having an office where people like to go to is very important, because that's where they meet. That's where they connect. That's where they where they interact. I know that you can feel connected when you work remotely. But a lot of companies after post COVID have actually realized that you need to be together at times, particularly when you work creatively, and as a team.

Christian Konrad [00:11:52]:

Does your framework, therefore, also or only partially apply to fully remote company?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:12:02]:

I would say it applies to all companies, because what it what it does, it works with what is right, I mean, whatever your setup is. And if you measure how connected people are, that's why you that's why you will get some responses as to how you can improve it. And if people say, you know, because because when you ask the question, how likely is it that you recommend the employer you get a figure? So that's descriptive. All the all all the people are asked the second question, which is, if you're a nine and ten, what did we actually do? What actually caused you to give us a nine or a 10? And then you get and then you get an open ended question and and people can write whatever it is that they love about the company.

Christian Konrad [00:12:56]:

And one of those things you do to get your employee to nine or 10 on a net promoter score is what you also call engagement boosters. What is it? Can you walk us through and why it's why it's so deceptively effective?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:13:16]:

Yes. I mean, what what what what I've spent a lot of time I would say that I've been thinking about company culture from since I finished university. The first time I ever got got into context with with with corporate culture, I was still at university because I wrote an essay on corporate culture attracting strategy to corporate success, because I wanted to win an internship with Lufthansa in New York. That was one of the prizes. Yeah.

Christian Konrad [00:13:45]:

Did you get it?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:13:46]:

And I got it. Yeah. And that set me up for attracting, because I'd never studied any marketing. So actually, that's corporate culture. That's where he startup. And I got to know corporate culture and worked as a consultant for many years. And now, since ten years, I've dedicated my life to working on culture and coaching leadership topics. So that's, that's the, that's the background story.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:14:13]:

But my engagement booster program base is based on the assumption that there are always lead measures that have an over proportionate influence on whatever you the goal you want to achieve. And the big audacious goal that we want to achieve is we're going to move that fairly fluffy sounding engagement, which isn't that which isn't fluffy at all, you know, but it's it's like a big rock, and we want to move it. And what are what are key levers, and those levers are behaviors that you can display daily or weekly. So something that you can do, well, whoever you are in the organization, any day of the week. That's a lever.

Christian Konrad [00:15:01]:

Can you give us an example of such engagement boosters?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:15:05]:

I have identified three. And I wouldn't say that are the only ones, but they have an over proportionate influence on engagement. The first one I call connective listening. So that's listening with the intent to strengthen the connection. Like if I'm listening to you, not with the intent to reply, but actually with building a connection, something changes. Now, we're in an interview. So you know, it's not necessarily, you know, we will create a connection through the interview, if we also listen to each other. But it's a mindset.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:15:40]:

And then it's also a practice. And the the economic benefit of that is, first and foremost, that you reduce reduce the number of misunderstandings that happen. And one of the big, you know, big bad things that happen in organizations that negatively influences the feeling of emotional connectedness or misunderstandings. And it's also the biggest productivity killer. So the other thing that happens, it builds trust. So on one hand, you have a very economic impact, you reduce misunderstandings and increase and you increase productivity automatically. If everybody stops interrupting each other, and people start listening to each other, really making sure they understand, and they build the connectedness, among each other, that productivity increases and trust increases as well. Because if you if you if you kind of put yourself in, or put yourself in a situation where you're in conversation with someone and you realize someone is actually truly listening to me and seeking to understand me, you will open up.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:16:53]:

And wherever trust is high, speed of execution goes up. And transaction costs go down.

Christian Konrad [00:17:03]:

I like that idea for multiple reasons. Because my next question, we'll soon get to that, is talking about emotional connections that also disqualifies. If you can measure that, if you're really serious about that, that can basically help reduce the number of bad bosses if you're not just looking at financial KPIs, which is something I really, really like. And, going to my next question, the emotional connection is now a new business KPI. How can companies start measuring that?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:17:43]:

Well, the the the simplest way that I know of is measuring net promoter score. So you you measure the employee net promoter score by asking that very simple question. You can either do it yourself, or you can have someone like me do it for you, which increases the likelihood if you do it externally that people will be honest about their responses. So you can do it internally, yes. But if you want to have really honest responses, you usually outsource this because then you have less likelihood that people will think if I'm really honest about what's wrong here and what needs to change, I will not suffer any consequences. But that's what you can do. You know, you can you can you can measure that you can ask that question you could there are other other methodologies that you can use. There's a Gallup engagement index, you can you can enlist Gallup, that's 12 questions, so called q 12.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:18:39]:

That's another way of doing it. So there is a number of different ways of measuring that. But I love it if you measure it, because what you can measure, you can manage. What you can't measure, you can't manage.

Christian Konrad [00:18:52]:

Exactly. The thing is I was us thinking at one point because you have a MVP, but at one point down the road, this KPI would also influence and show up in other KPIs that you then usually measure? For example, what comes to mind is, employee turnover.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:19:14]:

Absolutely. Sick sick leave, productivity.

Christian Konrad [00:19:21]:

Mhmm. What's one cultural shift you've seen transforming hiring or retention metrics overnight?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:19:29]:

I have I have the I one of one of the clients that I that that I've been working with, they report that the quality and numbers of their employees of their of their, of people that have the applicants have significantly increased within less than a year since they ran the engagement booster program, which isn't surprising to me, you know, because because what it does, it actually, it changes the way that people work with each other, and that in today's world, fast moving world translate into social media buzz, and very clearly, things like Glassdoor or canoeing attracting.

Christian Konrad [00:20:18]:

We said that more employ more applications in the back of my mind, they've just started a small Joe jumping up and down with the sign Fachschaft manga.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:20:28]:

Exactly. And for that company, that's hugely important, because they're growing at a double digit rate. So the I that is, that is not something that's not a small thing, you know, if you if you are desperately looking for highly qualified staff to fuel your growth. If you can't get them, you get what I call non turnover, you know, you get a lack of growth, simply because you can't startup your projects.

Christian Konrad [00:20:56]:

Yeah. I I'm always curious about the experiences of our audience. So I was wondering, guys, what's the smallest cultural habit that make a big difference in your company? Share it with us on LinkedIn or tag us at x blue sky or threads at startup radio. Christian, let's do a deep dive leadership trust and culture design. You you speak about leading with love instead of fear. What does it mean in the boardroom? Just just to be sure nobody heard this wrong, I said boardroom, your dirty minds.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:21:42]:

Well, I think I think there's a choice that every leader has. How do you want to lead? So if you if we contrast the two two paradigms, then lead retaining with love would be seeing the person as well as the financial KPIs and figures. And leading with fear usually means seeing less the person but just using people to achieve your means, which is a huge difference, right. And if you lead with love, it doesn't mean that you are fluffy or soft, it means that you are respectful, firm, have clear and clear vision. But people actually are a huge decisive factor in your in your in the way that you manage and lead. If you lead with fear, people are usually not really a big factor you. I've heard people say that it doesn't really matter who we have, you know, anybody is any anybody can be substituted. So we use people throw them away and get new ones.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:22:50]:

And in in a in a situation where you have fact kept the money. That is something that you need very deep pockets to be able to afford. So I think it's a it's a hugely, it's a highly economic business figure or related related paradigm shift that you that you will, that you will see on the in the bottom line, you know, if you move from a management by fear to a management by love, love sounds slogan, so fluffy, but love just means that people actually play a huge role. You know, what what does it mean? It means that you in very economic terms, it means that you put people away from the p and l into the balance sheet. You get the point? Yep. Human resources are not in the balance sheet, which is why they're treated as costs. So they're treated worse than machines that are actually in the balance sheet and that are written off. So you need to reinvest continuously in your in your machinery equipment, your technical equipment because it needs to be renewed.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:24:10]:

So if you make that kind of change in retaining, you're actually moving towards the love side, away from the fear side. I mean, nobody would beat their machine up, would they? Literally or figuratively?

Christian Konrad [00:24:27]:

Actually, what what always comes to mind is the typical Machiavelli misquote, it's better to fear to, it's, it's better to be feared than to be loved. Actually, he said, you you need both, But if you can have only one, it's better to be feared than to be loved. So you need both guys more love, in the boardroom, your dirty minds. So

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:24:53]:

you need I mean, that's why, you know, this is provocative. And I would like to, you know, like to take away all the all the red hearts from that I think it is more and I would sort of disagree with Machiavelli, you need respect. But what you what you want as any kind of type of leader is you want to be able to tap into the full resources of all the people that you work with. And that is something that you can't force. So if you want someone to go the extra mile, if you want someone to do 120 or 150% of their time and energy, they will have to give that by their free will. Otherwise, they won't give it long term, you know, they will do it for some time if it's purely transactional, and then they will leave for somewhere where they get paid more, you know, they become mercenaries say, there is no relationship, it's purely transactional. And that's, you know, when you have high engagement is no longer purely transactional. It's relational.

Christian Konrad [00:26:04]:

You also talk about feed forward, why is it more powerful than feedback in today's work culture?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:26:12]:

I would say you need both. You know, I'm not I'm not at all against feedback. Feed forward is much lighter, and it is forward looking. It is future driven. It is linked to potential. It's linked to growth and development. And that's why it is a hugely valuable complement to feedback. It is also easier to give, it's easier to implement and feedback feedback, you can do so many things wrong and feedback.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:26:43]:

So you need really to learn it, you need to teach your people, you need to train your people to give proper feedback that is useful and helpful. And it builds performance. Feedforward will always do that. Feedforward will help you build performance will help you instill a paradigm of excellence in your organization, it will improve solution focus and solution capabilities. So there's a lot of lots of great benefits of feedforward.

Christian Konrad [00:27:14]:

How do you help companies diagnose the culture in a way that's objective and not fluffy? I assume you first do a net promoter score, and then well,

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:27:28]:

and then what that enables you to do is to actually get a status of this is where we are. And the good thing about net promoter score is that you can actually benchmark yourself against others. So you know, where you are in relationship, perhaps two similar companies that you that you want to compare yourself with. And that means that you have a baseline that you can then formulate objectives against. So that's the first thing that we do, you know, we when we look at the results from the survey, the next step is to say, where do we want to go? Where do we want to be in six months, twelve months, eighteen months, twenty four months, we don't have to look any further, you know, we could say, okay, what's our five year vision, you know, that's possible. But then I will be very operative, I would say, Okay, let's let's look at the next twelve months. What do we want to achieve? And how do we get there? And then we define measures how to get there based on the responses that we get.

Christian Konrad [00:28:29]:

Let me talk a little bit around my next question. It's about the hidden cost of disengagement that most companies underestimate. So, basically, if you do that thirdly and well, get people more engaged, you will see KPIs going up. But what is the downside when you don't have engaged people? You can say, basically, all KPIs are going down, but do you have some experience of of of your limited experiments that you did? Which KPIs are going to improve by rule of thumb or something that people can get an idea of what they are underestimating with a bad company culture there?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:29:12]:

Well, for instance, let's take let's take, let's take turnover, employee turnover, employee turnover, there is some turnover that you want to have, you want to have some movement. But the unwanted turnover is something that costs companies huge amounts of money. And if you can reduce that, and that will reduce if you increase the number of highly engaged people, because they will not want to leave as easily as as people who have not got any strong emotion connectedness. So that is one that people underestimate the company companies underestimate how because there is no line in the p and l for turnover, but they underestimate how much it cost them. Often what they do is they say, Okay, how much money does the average person do I pay the average person? What am I am I costs? What I always talent them with is, do you actually hire an employee to just deliver the value that they cost? That will be that would not be good business. Good business is they need to, you need to get a return of a minimum of two and a half times the investment that you give. So let's say someone someone, someone makes hundred thousand euro, and you have what we in German call another nice word law and needen costs. So all the other costs associated in another lovely German word very long.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:30:47]:

All the other costs associated with the employment is usually between 2550% depending on the number of benefits, etcetera, etcetera that you get.

Christian Konrad [00:30:57]:

We made add for our audience, around 85% of our audience is based in the DACH region. So, nonetheless, we added for, like, the the the twenty, fifty thousand that are listening to this interview without having to know without knowing that. So there's social security in Company, and most of it is split fifty fifty between employer and employee. That means, if you pay an employee €5,000, you'll have something like €500 social security cost that you need to match. Mhmm.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:31:29]:

And and then the minimum the minimum loan needing cost in Company is $20.22.5 percent, but most companies have more. You know? So so let's say it's 50% just for for simplicity's sake. Then, the if someone if if it take let's say it's a complex job, so it takes you takes you one year to get up to speed. Right? You hire someone and from the day of hirement and the first day in the office until they are as high performing as their colleagues in the same job, we've been there for two years, let's say it takes twelve months, quite often it takes longer. You know, anybody who's in sales or whatever knows that. But let's let's be very simple. Then a lot of people would say, okay. Then then turnover of one person will be hundred €50,000.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:32:20]:

But that's not true because the the minimum that you have to have is two and a half times that much. So two and a half times that much, you know, simple math is 250,000 200 €325,000. Right? That's the minimum. If you have a company where where the turnover per capita is higher, like many software company, whether it's 2,250,000, you know, then it's that figure that you need to calculate with. So if you have a hundred person company, where you have 10% turnover, at, let's say, 325,000 a person, that's 3,250,000.00 a year. So if you can reduce that by 50%, you've saved half of that, you've saved 1,650,000.00.

Christian Konrad [00:33:20]:

Let let's give a short break to all the c level executives and founders who are now doing some calculations in their head. Okay.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:33:32]:

That's just what that says and that's just one one of the one one of the metrics. Another one will be sick leave, and you can do the same calculation. You know? What's what's the average? You you you go to your HR department. You look up how many sick days do we have on average. In highly engaged companies are really low. And that is also a huge one. The biggest one though is, is if you're a growing company, and I know there are lots of startups startup retaining here. If you're a growing company that grows double digit every year, and that's your business plan, that's how you're working, and you get you cannot realize that growth because of lack of staffing.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:34:15]:

Then if let's say you are growing by by a business, you're growing your business by by 10% a year, and you can only really realize half of that growth. Well, the difference that you did the turnover and the profit you don't make is actually what it costs you not to have the right people on board. And the third metric metric is productivity. The people who are highly engaged are usually way more productive than average, average, the average productive people in a company. And I spoke to a CEO once and I said, Oh, my assumption is that the highly engaged people are 20% more productive than the average. And he said, that's, that's not true. It's a lot higher in my experience. It's a lot higher in my experience.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:35:06]:

McKinsey says that the the top qualified people in a company make between 408% more are 400 to 800% more productive than the average. Now I think that's a little steep, you know, I don't know exactly how they what they base the figure figures on, but take something between 50 and a hundred.

Christian Konrad [00:35:29]:

They based it on their daily rates. Otherwise, you cannot justify them. I'm sorry for my for my company. It's it's,

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:35:37]:

But it's but but but that's that that's the I'm just giving examples. And I when I when I, when I work with management teams to but b, the potential. Now if you could drive productivity by five or 10 percentage points in your organization, what will that mean for you? And it means that investing in engagement is actually a business case. You know, how how much do you need how much money do you need to invest to to drive engagement is relatively modest in comparison to the potential gains that you have. Yes. It requires commitment, time, a certain budget. That's for sure. But the rewards are usually 10 to 20 fold.

Christian Konrad [00:36:38]:

We've been talking about a lot about KPIs, but psychological safety is everywhere in theory. How do you embed it, especially for your clients? How do you recommend they embedded in their daily operations?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:36:52]:

That's a good link to this to the second engagement boost of behavior, which I call positive reinforcement. And positive reinforcement is not the same thing as simply telling someone good job. You know, that's what some people think is positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement means exactly that it means linking up as a leader, or as a leader or a manager, you observe what are the other psychological needs that people have. And the most basic one is psychological safety. I mean, the whole notion of psychological safety came up through a research project project that Google did with Harvard University, Amy Edmondson. The project was called Project Aristotle. And what Google wanted to find out together with Amy Edmondson, was what does actually what constitutes or what factors drive high performance in teams.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:37:49]:

And they isolated a number of factors. And the most basic factors, the foundational factor was psychological safety. And if you take a step back, it's easy to understand why because if you feel safe, psychologically, you will share whatever is on your mind, you will not be afraid to make mistakes that will drive you, you'll bet you as a team, you will find out if things go wrong much, much better, trust will go up, people will be able to share both their strengths and weaknesses. And teams can form Performance goes up. But that's the basic basis. And if you manage by fear, going back to our discussion before, people will not feel safe, so they will hide. They will either withdraw, you know, fight flight, or freeze. You know, those are the those are the results of if you're scared if you're if you're in shock if you're in fear, and you will not give your full potential to your team.

Christian Konrad [00:38:56]:

Far from it. I see. Can you explain how the Kano model applies to employer branding?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:39:05]:

And the Kano model is a model from customer satisfaction. So it's a Japanese model. Kano was a Japanese, I think engineer. And he said that there are, there are three factors that in that that constitute customer satisfaction. The basic factors, which is basically, let's, let's say you have a product like the washing powder. And the washing powder has a basic thing that it should do a basic job to be done. And that job to be done is to clean something. So if it's washing powder doesn't clean, that basic factor is actually violated.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:39:51]:

And people will be unhappy with the performance of the washing powder. You cannot, you cannot substitute that basic service that the washing powder gives with something on top like, oh, it washes at 30 degrees, 30 degrees as well as 6,060 degrees. If it doesn't wash, it doesn't matter. Now let's say you have a washing powder that is that is that's doing a really good job. It washes perfectly. And in addition, you can actually turn down the heat on your washing machine so you save some energy. That is, a performance factor. So that performance factor will actually differentiate yourself talent for some time from the competition.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:40:42]:

After a while, others will adopt and will say, okay, and then becomes maybe even a basic factor. But the key thing in a product or a brand that you want to achieve is the kind of excitement factor that people are excited about your product or brand. And that lift that there's something that's not easy to achieve. But if you achieve it, you have more competitive insulation, you have less price sensitivity. And people are excited about your product or brand, they will be linked to it, they will not easily switch. And they will stay with you. Because you cut you continuously surprise them and excite them. And that's it.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:41:27]:

Same thing if you do the reframe now, okay, let's say the job is actually the product. The question for you as a product designer, as the manager or HR department or people culture department, whatever, how can we decide design the culture with the job is in, in a way that people aren't just basically satisfied with the pay they get, the safety they have. There's a oh, basic factors. Right? All the all the all the benefits that they get, the performance factors, but how can we get create the kind of excitement that people feel emotionally connected, that they feel they have friends at work, they have a place where they can be they can be long, they can fulfill, fill their dreams, their mission, they can feel that they are part of something bigger than themselves. Those are potential excitement drivers that actually create that kind of emotional high emotional connectedness. So that's how the Knoa model kind of relates to the Net Promoter Score model as well. Because usually, you find those excitement factors with a nines and 10.

Christian Konrad [00:42:42]:

I had to smile when you talked about jobs to be done because you are in company of Tony Ulrich, the inventor of jobs to be done made famous by Clayton Christensen. We link down here in the show notes to his interview.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:42:55]:

I love I love I love, I love Clayton Christensen's, description of job to be done. You know that you know that video where he talks about the the the the the the milkshake?

Christian Konrad [00:43:08]:

Yep.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:43:09]:

Yeah.

Christian Konrad [00:43:11]:

I'll try to, link this here, this here down in the show notes.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:43:19]:

So you could you could say, obviously, you know, what's the job to be done with a job? Right? You know, what's what's the job to be done for the customer, I e, the employee? You know, you as a you as an entrepreneur or as a director, you will, you will you will add, well, the job to be done is that they perform a good job for the company, but turn it around and say, okay, fraud, change the perspective to a customer perspective, and not just supplier perspective from from a supplier to a customer perspective, say, what is the job to be done for my potential employee that they want to attract? And it changes the way you think.

Christian Konrad [00:44:00]:

How do you address founders who say we're too small to care about culture yet?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:44:05]:

I think that's a fallacy. I mean, is that as if you assess if you would say I want to build a house and I don't I'm too up too early on in my building process to lay the foundation. I would say that if you don't think about that from day one, you will have a hard time because then you will have to change something again. And you have to change the whole setup, perhaps I think you need a vision for the culture you need to drive your business model. So it is, it is one of those strategic decisions that you have to make early on to ask yourself, what kind of business? What kind of environment do I want to create? What and I will be very, I would be very business oriented, you know, what's the business environment that is best suited for my business model to achieve my vision, my goals, my business objectives. And really try to ask your potential employees, the ones that you would love to hire, what kind of environment they need to be at their best. And then you then you build the culture accordingly. Begin with the end in mind, you know.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:45:38]:

That will be my take, you know, I think I think it's the you can't start too early to think about culture. And that's something that good kind of incubators would tell you, you know, an acquaintance of mine, Jorg Rheinbold of the APX incubator in Berlin, he's a great fan of helping people helping small young startups get get over the first hurdles, you know, and he's a great fan of attracting a strong culture from day one.

Christian Konrad [00:46:19]:

Speaking about culture and soft skills and leadership, what would you say what soft skill in leadership is now a hard edge for competitiveness?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:46:31]:

Well, I think that I think that excellent listening skills will give you an edge in many, many ways. You know, you want to drive innovation, be a good listener. You wanna find the secret of fast growing of

Christian Konrad [00:46:49]:

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:46:49]:

of fast of fast tracking your growth, be a good listener. Train your listening skills. You wanna have high engagement, build that muscle. It's a huge day. It's a huge it's a huge believer you that you have, in building business.

Christian Konrad [00:47:14]:

Christian? Yeah. It was a pleasure having you. We originally envisioned this to be one podcast, but we are now recording for fifty minutes. And I think we'll take a short break and make this a two episode interview for the very simple reason. The the the way to work of most of our listeners is not that long. Would you agree to come back to the next recording?

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:47:40]:

I'd love to. I'd love to. I I appreciate, you know, your questions and being able to hopefully meet some meet some answer some questions that are relevant for for you for the audience. That's the key thing.

Christian Konrad [00:47:54]:

Great. Thank you very much. It was a pleasure having you as a guest.

Christian Conrad | Management Coach | Author [00:47:58]:

Thank you.

Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:48:03]:

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