Welcome to episode 163 of The Executive Edge podcast. This week’s guest is Dr Randy Ross

Randy is a globally celebrated authority in corporate culture. He pairs passion and profit by fortifying emotional health and fostering an unparalleled sense of well-being in the workplace. Renowned for his bestselling books, Fireproof Happiness, Relationomics, and Remarkable, he believes in creating an ecosystem where top talent thrives. He also finds the bottom-line flourishes.

With an illustrious track record collaborating with industry greats such as GE Appliances, McDonald’s, and Panasonic, Randy has pioneered a ground breaking formula. This supports the value of employee retention and profitability.  His unrivalled expertise empowers organizations to prioritize emotional well-being as the cornerstone of success.

In a world where employee engagement and retention are paramount, Randy is a very interesting guest. He had much to say on culture and recruitment. He believes it is possible to attract talented people and retain them.

What is his message?

His background in not for profit helped him work out ways to motivate people that don’t rely on monetary remuneration. His skill developed in building passion within people, by serving a bigger cause. Business need to attach people’s personal passion to the corporate objective, he thinks. He believes this is possible even after I asked the question about how you build passion and a bigger purpose if you are making a more practical widget in a factory environment. He says it’s not ‘what’ you do, it’s ‘how’ and ‘why’. You can embrace the idea of ‘profit on purpose’ and this is emotionally more engaging.

So a business becomes “Yes we make widgets, but it serves food, shelter, or impacts others”. The business then becomes a way to fund a mission, so people get involved in something bigger. Some of the financial profits are used to enable projects in less fortunate countries, or charities that mean something to employees. Ultimately, everyone is part of this. He refers to it as a healthy relationship with people who work for you. So, when people enjoy coming in to work, it fulfils that need for community and they become healthy, productive and happy.

He is a very strong believer that not only is this possible, it’s essential.

How do you start?

Randy feels the way to begin is to find out how engaged your people are and if they’re not, why not. This way you get a direction to drive the efforts of your leaders and you have a major project to drive change. As people feel more engaged, and driven to achieve something for you, their effort increases and the culture benefits.