Jason Taylor 0:00

Welcome to this edition of the People's Playbook podcast. I'm pretty pumped and excited today. I have Joffrey Teffetti, CEO of Frontline Performance Group, joining us today. And Joffrey runs a company that helps hotels and service businesses just unlock that revenue and get more money to their bottom line through frontline performance. He's led actually major businesses and transformations, including scaling from services and in software as a service while building high-performing teams along the way and across different industries. So, Joffrey, welcome to the show today.

Geoffrey Toffetti 0:34

Thank you so much, Jason, for having me. I've been looking forward to this one.

Jason Taylor 0:37

It's an exciting one for us, too, because, you know, based on your very um impressive resume and what you've done, Joffrey, you're about leadership and culture. And through our many discussions along the way, it's evident that you absolutely have a people playbook in your company. And what I mean by that is when I look at companies and their mission statements and you know what they do, and they have SOPs and kind of every little crook and cranny covered for everything in their business. But when I ask what their people playbook is, they they really don't know what that culture initiative is other than a really cool statement on the wall. And through our conversations, what I've really enjoyed about them is just how you do a deep dive into people and you really kind of look at, hey, is that person liking what I'm doing in this organization? And and are you liking what they're doing and and how can we make the team thrive? Yeah, absolutely.

Geoffrey Toffetti 1:28

I mean, my personal ethos, and I think the ethos of our company is people first. Because ultimately, I mean, this might be changing in the next couple of decades, but ultimately everything you want to accomplish is done through people. Uh, and if those people aren't motivated and inspired, then you're gonna get a lackluster result. You know, so we've not only do we think it's ethically and morally the right thing, but it's also smart business to have a motivated workforce that are engaged in your mission, then trying to whip people into shape, that just doesn't work, and you're gonna get a mediocre result.

Jason Taylor 2:02

One of my favorite sayings is the yelling will stop once the morale in here improves.

Geoffrey Toffetti 2:08

That's it exactly. Yes. That's it exactly.

Jason Taylor 2:10

So let's actually, is it a crazy concept? If people like going to work and liking what they'll do, they'll be engaged and they'll actually, you know, want to be there for more than you know a year or a couple years and they'll want to actually help you grow that bottom line along the way.

Geoffrey Toffetti 2:24

Yeah, no, I mean I say this to young leaders all the time when when we're trying to teach them about employee engagement and and morale and the trust and thing. They're always like, well, I don't have time to invest in those kinds of things. And I'm like, no, you're missing it. If you invest in those kinds of things, you'll have more time because your employees will be more productive than less likely to try and hang it around your neck. They'll try and solve problems, you know, because they're engaged.

Jason Taylor 2:48

Yeah. Engagement is the key ingredient to actually companies making money. And when I when I talk to leaders around the world, the problem that they face with engagement, that leaders that don't understand how that equates to money is because it's not on their PL. You don't see this line on your financial system as engagement, or you don't see productivity, you don't see retention, you don't see turnover, right? But all those lines actually filter into growing your bottom line. Because if I actually, if we grow our retention and decrease our turnover and inspire our current team, all that together equals efficiency and productivity, which drives engagement and culture in your bottom line. That hidden line that nobody sees actually is the one that actually grows your bottom line substantially along the way.

Geoffrey Toffetti 3:32

Yeah, I mean there we believe that there's probably in the average company or average organization, there's probably 30% productivity loss that is invisible because it's not in the job description of the employee. It's not something you can make happen. We call it discretionary effort. It is the difference between an employee doing enough to keep their job or doing everything they can possibly do to help the company. And the difference between those is in the discretion of the individual. Well, how do you get them to give you that? How do you get them to gift that to the organization? It only comes from good leadership, an enthusiastic culture, a clearly defined mission, and what's in it for me, what is the long-term benefit to them? All those things have to come into play if you want to maximize or optimize your productivity. A lot of organizations are like chugging along, feeling like they're doing well. They don't know that 30, 40% of their potential is being wasted out the back window because they're not engaging their staff in the appropriate way. They're treating them like a cog in a machine and not as a key driver of the mission.

Jason Taylor 4:40

Yeah. And you speak to this all the time based on the line of work you're in. It is unbelievable when you have an engaged person working for you. And I'm not just talking money, how much added benefits you get from your company, just people hearing about that and whatnot. They don't realize that that one person can create an absolute that little ripple can create an actual wave of events for you based on them doing things properly.

Geoffrey Toffetti 5:04

There is no question. Culture is really the combination of how everyone does things, right? So if you have someone in your organization, I mean, it goes both ways. If you have someone in your team that's lighting the world on fire and is an inspiration to those around them, it's going to bring up the whole culture. Yep. And conversely, if you have someone who's a drain and they're always negative and they're always complaining, they're going to pull down the culture. And it the key is how do you get more of the of the inspiring behaviors and less of the detracting behaviors? And it it all really, unfortunately for leaders, it comes down to the individual leadership. Is the leader embodying, are they living and demonstrating the behaviors they want from their team? Are they up to optimistic? Are they upbeat? Are they willing to throw themselves in front of danger, you know, figurative and not figurative for their teams? A classic example is I worked in a in a hotel front desk and I had a questionable leader. And whenever an irate guest would come to the desk, they would disappear into the back office.

Jason Taylor 6:02

Right? And make eye contact.

Geoffrey Toffetti 6:05

Yeah, no, they're gone and you're left standing there. And so when I first got promoted, I told myself, I am going to run out there when there's an irate guest. Yeah. And that's what I did. I would go out and into the lobby and I would take them away from the desk, not because it's fun, but because I knew what it felt like to be that front desk agent, hung out to dry with someone yelling at you. Yeah. And that's just an example that leaders have to step forward. They have to, you know, go first. And if you don't, you can't expect to change the behaviors of your team.

Jason Taylor 6:34

Yeah, absolutely. You know, you talked about people that bring up the culture and people that take away the culture. I put those people in two categories. I call one the cultural champion, right? Those are the people that are highly engaged. And guess what? Their performance matches it. So I just I want to clone them. I love them. But then there's the contaminator, low engagement, low performance. And usually those two go hand in hand. And when I go around speaking to leaders and doing workshops, the main thing I talk about is if we have a contaminator, like it can spoil the whole group, right? So we need to we need to make quick decisions on that if we're going to be able to fix them or not.

Geoffrey Toffetti 7:10

You're exactly right. And we actually, in our programs, when we're working with clients, we we encourage the client to empower someone and we call them a champion. So we're on the same page. They're championing the mission, both the attitude and the performance. And those detractors, it's that, you know, the one apple can spoil the bunch. And it's absolutely true. Probably the most common complaint from a morale standpoint is that management tolerates the negative behavior of one employee. Because if they can do it, why can't I? Why do I have why am I expected to work hard if they can be lazy? You know, it's that, and that should be eliminated immediately. Like when when we hire people internally, I tell them there's only one way you will be summarily released from work here is if you violate our culture. Yeah. If your work product isn't great or you're struggling with a concept, we can we can do if you make a mistake with a client, that can all be fixed. But if you don't honor the culture, you won't be here because it's too dangerous.

Jason Taylor 8:06

Yeah. You know what you said there that I like too? You said the rest of the team sees what that leader's doing, right? As a leader, you're always on stage. And people are looking at you to see is he rolling his eyes? Does he actually believe what he says? Is he standing with confidence? Is she delivering the message the same way to me as they're delivered to somebody else? And it is evident that because you're a leader on stage all the time, they also see who you're spending your time coaching. And when I talk to leaders around the globe, I say, don't kid yourself. That high performing person that you're avoiding because they do everything well and they're they're just a rock star, they actually get upset that you're spending all your time with that low-performing employee coaching them all the time. Because they're saying, okay, well, they get all your time because they're not doing their job. I need some of your time. And even if we're looking at a sports analogy, even the best player on the field, on the diamond, on the rink, whatever, you'll see the coach when they come back. The coaching may be that was the best shift I've ever seen you do in your life. Please do that again. That's unreal how you just did that. Or it may be something else, but at least there's some coaching happening.

Geoffrey Toffetti 9:15

You could be playing from the FPG playbook right now, because we say to coach when we teach coaches, because we actually certify people to be coaches in the front line, and we say you got to coach everybody. You don't just coach either the people you like or the people that need help. You coach everybody because everyone needs a coach. I mean, the example we gave is at one time Michael Jordan, when he was the top of his game, had seven coaches, different coaches. He had nutrition coaches, he had lifestyle coaches, he had basketball coaches. He was constantly being coached. So you don't assume your top performers don't need coaching because it might just be that they need motivational coaching. The other thing that you were saying that I think is really important is when leaders are on stage, the other thing is for a lot of employees, particularly at the front line, their manager might be the only positive force in their life. There are, particularly at the hourly employee level, there is often, we say it's somewhere between 20 and 25% of your team is going through something awful in their lives. It could be financial stress, could be marital stress, could be a sick parent, whatever it is. And as a leader, your job is to create the safe haven for them to come into and protect them as much as you can from all of that. And if you're not aware of that and you're doing what you're saying, you're only coaching certain people or you're only addressing certain behaviors, you're leaving people alone that need your help and are looking to you for support and leadership. And you could be the bright spot in their life. I mean, you could be the one thing in their life that's going right. And if you ignore that, you're missing a huge opportunity to not only fulfillment for yourself, but really to help people reach their own potential.

Jason Taylor 10:54

Yeah. It goes down to the fact that we all remember the best leader we've ever had. We also remember the worst leader we've ever had. And isn't it funny? Just a couple minutes ago, when you were talking about that hotel person, we're not going to mention names, but you remember that person leaving, leaving the area, there was some conflict. People remember that. And as leaders, we spend so much time with our people, sometimes more time with them than we do our families, because we're spending like, you know, 40 plus hours a week minimum with them. Right. So I always think to myself, am I making a difference in this person's young person's life where I'm hopefully making an impact? Or they're going to remember me when they're a leader and they're going to say, you know what? I learned this from Jason or the some of the principles he taught me along the way, as opposed to, you know what, Jason was a real jerk and I would never do it that way. Right. So it's just our memories are short, and the only time they're really long is when we're talking about a bad leader. And I often tell people in my classes, I say, Listen, if you had a great leader, do yourself a favor and do that person a favor, text them, email them, phone them, and just say, Hey, you know what? You made a difference in my life. And when I was at a university or college, you were my first impression. And it kind of steered me on the right path. And I want to thank you for that. Because we always hear about the mistakes we made. We don't usually hear, hey, you know what? He was awesome in what he did for me, right? That's exactly right.

Geoffrey Toffetti 12:17

The employees that are under a negative leader now, what they're learning is how not to treat people, hopefully. Because that's what I took away from it. I've had a couple of really bad ones that were, you know, borderline abusive. This was a different era where you could be like that. There was no social media, there were no cameras everywhere, and you could have leaders that were really atrocious. And what I took, I basically kept a running list of things not to do. And when I started being empowered as a leader, I just checked all of those boxes. That was how I started my leadership journey was a list of things not to do. Yeah. The things that irritated me or the things that demoralized me. Micromanagement is a good example. I think it's the fastest way for a good person to ruin their relationship with an employee is to try and micromanage them because it's not one of those overtly negative things. They might be a great person and they might truly care for their people, but you're you're in their business all day telling them what to do. You're going to demoralize them. So there's things like that that you have to be, as a leader, you have to be constantly conscious of the type of leader you're trying to be, even if you're faking it to make it a little bit. Just don't do these blatantly obvious bad things that that ruin a culture and ruin someone's motivation.

Jason Taylor 13:34

Yeah. Joffrey, you um you've worked in many sectors and in different divisions and whatnot. What's the one leadership lesson that has been true in every industry or sector that you've worked in?

Geoffrey Toffetti 13:46

I would say it, I've touched on it, is the managers or the leaders that do not put themselves in harm's way on behalf of their team has always been in every environment a very negative aspect or conversely a very positive aspect. And unfortunately in my life, there haven't been many that have done it. But in my experience, I mean, I in the last 30 years, and I mean this legitimately, I think maybe three people have quit that direct were my direct reports. Wow. Because it for me, it's I'm serving you. I'm here to enable your success. Because your success is my success. I mean, let's be honest. As CEO, I have 200 people that help make me successful. How can I then in turn help them be successful? Because that's really the formula. So if I'm spending my time trying to make sure that the people that work for me or with me are successful and safe and protected, and like another, here's another truism. The managers that take credit when it's good and don't take blame when it's bad is the exact opposite of what should happen. If something good happens, give it all to everyone else. Because if your leaders are competent, they know it's your leadership. You don't have to take the credit. Give it to everyone else. If something goes wrong, take the blame away. Even if it was one of your employees' fault, don't tell anyone that. You could tell the employee that, but don't publicly shame them. You know, take the blame. That's a good embodiment of that truism that's always been the case in every job I've been in since I was an hourly employee.

Jason Taylor 15:24

Yeah, I I love that. I I often say when you're good, you don't have to tell anybody you're good because they know it, right? The other powerful thing I love when leaders do is when they say the the few words I don't know. And how many times have we seen a leader on a stage and they they, you know, they get asked a question, maybe it's a tough question from the crowd, and they do the hub of hubbadas, right? They well, they try to and I I just think it's so powerful when a leader actually says, you know what, I don't know that answer. But I'll find out for you.

Geoffrey Toffetti 15:51

I guarantee you I'm gonna find out.

Jason Taylor 15:52

Yeah, I'll guarantee you, I'm gonna find out for you. But it's so much power more powerful to say, hey, I don't know that. Show some humility and show, hey, you know what? You're not supposed to know everything as a CEO. You're not supposed to know everything. You're you're supposed to be able to find it, but you're not, yeah, you've got to, but you you can't absolutely know everything. There's too much out there to know, right? So that's exactly right.

Geoffrey Toffetti 16:12

And but the the humility is another one. I mean, I think it goes hand in hand with everything I've been saying is is the humble, competent leader is probably the most powerful leader because people will flock to you, they'll be drawn to you and they'll follow you. And when you're the one charging into the danger ahead of them, it inspires people. You know, it's there's all these stories from you know military encounters where the leader ran into the breach and gave everyone else courage to do so. But if you're standing behind them telling them, go, go, go, yeah, they're like, I'm not going, I'm not going first. But when the leader goes first, it it inspires people, it gives people courage. Whether it be in combat or just standing at the front line in a busy day and you know you're not going to have a break and it's going to be grueling. If the leader's standing there next to you and they've got a smile on their face, they're more likely to do the same thing.

Jason Taylor 17:05

Yeah, absolutely. Speaking about that, is that somewhat how Frontline got named based on the analogy you gave? How did you kind of come up with uh Frontline as a name?

Geoffrey Toffetti 17:14

Yeah, so the it was named for the founder. It was called Corey Consultants, Corey's Consulting. And um, when trying to get the business to be more than a niche kind of family consulting firm, we knew we knew we needed a name. And we actually sought help. We brought in experts that you know helped figure out the right name for the company. And their advice was name the company for what you do. Don't try to come up with some fancy name. And frontline performance is what we did. So frontline performance group just made perfect sense because we wanted it to be clear what we do and not be ambiguous. You know, we're not a tech, we weren't a tech company at the time, so we didn't want to come up with some name like Uber that no one knows what it means. Um, you know, we wanted it to be clear so people would know what they were getting.

Jason Taylor 18:01

Absolutely a phenomenal name. Your experience, it's it's vast, and you've managed companies through acquisitions and expansion and whatnot. How do you actually, well, I'll put to you this how do strong leaders protect culture with rapid change? Because people are sometimes scared of change. Not everybody's changeable. So how do you protect those people and that culture when rapid change is happening?

Geoffrey Toffetti 18:25

Yeah, so uh I would say going back to the beginning, you want to try to build a culture that's that responds well to change because things change a lot. But but even in like in our case where we had to fundamentally redefine ourselves as a business, I think the key ingredient was keeping people in the know, keeping people understanding why decisions are being made and why moves are being made, because it allows them to invest in that decision. Not it's not something they're being told to do. So when we were in like when we were in sort of crisis mode, we had a number of all hands calls. We did it as frequently as we could, and we just had the whole company on the phone telling them what's going on and what kind of decisions we're facing and what kind of hardships we're facing. So that as the move and it was happening quickly, I mean it was within a year, we completely redefined our entire business. Wow. And we went from services to technology in in a year. It was an arduous process for sure. But the best recipe is communication and transparency so that people are have an opportunity to come along with you. Because what a lot of employees don't know is that when the leaders at the top of the organization that are it feels like they're mandating this change, it's usually because they have been faced with a crisis of some kind, some kind of you know, existential threat to the business or or some huge opportunity that they have to capitalize on. And they've had to shoulder that in order to make the decisions that will save jobs or allow the company to thrive. And if you bring the employees along with that, more often than not, you're going to get through the change more positively because people are going to feel like you've trusted them, you've invested in them. I still tell leaders all the time, unless you are literally guarding the launch codes, there's nothing in your business that you really can't share with your with your employees. You know, maybe there's a few trade secrets here and there, or there's some treasury concerns, but the business direction, the more you can share it, I think the more likely you're going to have a positive outcome because you'll get the whole momentum, the whole velocity of the company moving in the same direction. It's when you mandate change, it never works.

Jason Taylor 20:39

Yeah. Trust and communication.

Geoffrey Toffetti 20:40

Always comes down to those two things.

Jason Taylor 20:42

It is. If you communicate more, I trust you more. If you don't, trust me, you probably won't communicate with me. And I often speak about trust deposits and withdrawals. Every relationship you have, you have a trust bank account. And that person's either added to your trust bank account or they've taken away. And I just hope that with the majority of my relationships, that I there's a balance of trust in there. And am I going to screw up sometimes? Sure, everybody does, right? But I hope that there's enough balance in there that they think, okay, Jay, you know, he messed up this time, but at the same time, there's still a a balance in in my my trust bank account for him, right?

Geoffrey Toffetti 21:20

Yeah, it it you're hitting on probably the most important thing to me personally is trust and the belief that leaders in order to be an effective leader, you have to give trust. So to use your analogy, you have to fill up the employees' trust bank right out of the gate, like you're priming the bank. Because if you don't, if you say to someone or you or you act in a way that makes them feel like they have to earn your trust, then they know you don't trust them. Yeah. And if you're not trusted, you're gonna be defensive. And that that's a horrible way to start a relationship. And often it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy that trust is broken because there never exists. So in our company, we interview hard. It takes, you know, sometimes six interviews to get into the company. But once we make you the offer, you're part of the tribe. We've adopted you into our family and we trust you. And then it's up to you to do things that might reduce the balance in the trust bank, but it starts full. And it's the only way to get people to be comfortable, to buy in, to put their defenses down, and really be open to learn and all of those things that that pe the companies want, it has to start with trust first. It can't be earned.

Jason Taylor 22:34

Yeah, I love that. Your team and and you yourself go into companies and do a really good job at getting them to improve team performance, right? When you're working with your clients, what's one of the most common mistakes that you see executives you're working with make when they're trying to improve that team performance?

Geoffrey Toffetti 22:51

This is one that that actually got me in a little trouble when I first said it. Now it's pretty common for me to say it, but is the biggest mistake is the good for the not for me. It's I expect a culture that's very positive at the front desk, but I'm gonna treat people like crap. So I the way that I explain that to leaders is whatever industry you're in, you can expect your customers to be treated exactly the way you treat the people you lead. So embody the culture from the top. That's the biggest mistake that we see is this mental disconnect between what's happening that's facing the customer and what's happening in the boardroom. Those two things are the same because the people in the boardroom will leave and take a dump on the people they lead and they'll take a dump and it'll the dump will carry all the way to the guest. Yes. And vice versa, if they leave feeling safe and empowered and believed in, then that is how they're going to treat people. And when you do that, if you see in your culture a break point where one of your departments is not functioning like that, you could probably go and put your finger right on the leader who's causing the problem. And then you can root either train them up or train them out because they're affecting, they're the bad apple in the barrel that could taint your entire culture. But the biggest mistake we see is that I can be a bully and I can still expect people to treat my guests properly. And that that's just never true. Yeah, the speed of the leader determines the speed of the pack, right? Exactly. That's exactly right.

Jason Taylor 24:25

Absolutely. So, Joffrey, now we're in this age of AI. I don't know if you heard about that, but AI is. Yeah, I've heard a few things. Yeah. Deal on the hour, you hear this, right? So as AI and automation actually grow along the way, what's one human leadership trait that becomes even more valuable based on all this automation and AI happening around us?

Geoffrey Toffetti 24:47

Yeah, I think it's gonna be, you know, understanding the mindset of the customer because it's really enticing to think about automating everything. And I know it is enticing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's a better experience for your customer. And I think, you know, leaders tend to get particularly middle leaders or frontline leaders, they're stuck in the trenches. You know, a lot of time they it's hard to keep sight of that. But I think a manager being able to empathize with the customer is going to become a critically important thing to know when to automate and when not to automate. When does a human need to stay in the loop? When does it not? And I think that's the biggest thing we're going through as a company, too, is what can we automate to enable our employees to have more time to interact with customers and start there? We want to empower more interaction, not less, because people don't want a robot to solve all their problems. They want to talk to humans a lot of the time. But if you're like in a manufacturing company or something, there's probably a ton of automation that you could gain, but you don't want to automate your sales team. You know, you want to keep that and know being able to discern that, I think, is going to be a critical skill going forward.

Jason Taylor 26:03

I think you just nailed it right on the head when you said that, when you said, I want to automate in ways that gives my team more time to be with people. That is so powerful what you just said there, Joffrey, because that's, in my opinion, truly what automation in your sector actually means, right? You're right, factories and plants and whatnot when there's no there's no human interaction needed. Sure, let's automate and and and get efficient. But the human being still wants human connection. Correct.

Geoffrey Toffetti 26:29

It's the best way to get things done. I mean, we all know you get into a call tree in a customer service phone number and it's it'll drive you insane when you can't get to a person. So that discernment, I think, is going to be critical. And from our perspective, we're not interested in downsizing our team through automation. What we're interested in is improving the customer relationships through automation by empowering them to spend more time, to be more influential, which is more interesting work anyway. You know, the minutiae, the administrativia is not interesting. What's interesting is interacting with people, solving problems, adding value. That's the stuff that's fulfilling.

Jason Taylor 27:05

When you um first started your career to where you are now, and we've all kind of looked back at, you know, I can't believe I did that, or I can't believe I acted that way, or I can't believe I thought that. If you could look back and think about, hey, what was one of the management beliefs or leadership beliefs that you held early on in your career that you no longer believe in today based on the experience now?

Geoffrey Toffetti 27:27

Yeah, there's a very clear version of this that I can share with you. When I first got promoted to a management job, I was under the impression that managers gave instructions and people followed them.

Jason Taylor 27:41

Yeah.

Geoffrey Toffetti 27:42

And that is not true, by the way. Anyone listening, you you make a request because you could fire them if they don't, but either way, they still didn't do it, right? So if you want to get something done, you can't just tell people to do it. You have to give them a reason to do it. It's everything we've been talking about is how do you motivate? And when I first got hired, I had a rebellion. I had my department rebelled against me. They all, there were only four people, but they basically got together and went over my head and complained because I was just moving fast. I was like, we got to do this, we got to do this, we got to fix this, do this. But I was asking them to change their behaviors without giving them any, you know, time to adjust or reason to believe the communication thing. And I I realized really quickly that it's a partnership. It is not one person telling other people what to do, it's one person leading them into a new reality. That was only a few months, but it was a very painful lesson to learn that people will mutiny on you if if you're pushing them too hard and you don't understand how to get them to buy in. And I had a mutiny, and I don't, it's the only one I've ever had, and it it was a huge life lesson for me, which my journey for employee engagement probably started right there. There was this young lady named Pia, she was Turkish, and she was like, I remember one time saying, I need you to do this. And she said, I will not. I will not do that. And I was like, What do you mean you will not do that? And she's like, I will not. And and I'll never forget her. Um, and she changed my whole outlook on leadership because as much as you think you're empowered, it's at their discretion. They could quit their job, you could fire them, it doesn't matter. They're still not getting the work done. And that's ultimately what you want them to do.

Jason Taylor 29:24

Shaffrey, I have uh, you've been so generous with your time. I have one last question for you because, in my opinion, through our conversations, you've been outstanding in just kind of your principles and how you like to lead organizations, people, and culture. If you were looking at a young person today that's just getting out of college and university, and they said, Hey, I need some advice. I want to have a great career, I want to lead, I want to have my own team or my own company, what's the one piece of advice that you give to the younger generation today just to say, hey, I think this will help you?

Geoffrey Toffetti 29:54

I actually give this advice because I have two sons that are coming into that reality right now. Uh-huh. And I basically, this is what I tell them: find something you're passionate about, master it, and spend 10 years grinding. Yes. If you can grind from 20 to 30, you will be positioned to run a company and be wildly successful. But while your body is capable, you got to do the work. You got to be out and you got to grind it out 60 hours a week, 70 hours a week. Then you can you can set yourself up for a tremendous amount of success. So master what you're doing and work really hard. Outwork everybody. And then you come out and and people look at you when you're 35 and be like, How are you, how is he so successful? Because he grinded in his 20s. Like the 20s are time to grind yourself to the bone. But that grinding, I call it the crucible. That crucible you go through, all the little failures, all the little humiliations, all of the really hard days, the 16-hour days, the unforgiving, unrelenting effort forges you into a leader who can lead an organization because you've done it. You don't ask anyone to do something you haven't done yourself. And that's another thing that I think people can see through. If your leader hasn't been in the trenches, hasn't done the hard work, you kind of know it in your soul. You know that they're an empty suit. That used to be what we called people like that.

Jason Taylor 31:16

Yeah, I remember that. Yeah.

Geoffrey Toffetti 31:17

Yeah. So don't be an empty suit. Grind it out, master it. Don't fear the hard work, embrace it because it that will pass, and then you'll be into the promised land of, you know, sitting on top of an organization and building wealth.

Jason Taylor 31:30

It's funny you say that because every leader I ask, they say some sort of hustle, grind. And then the third one that comes up as a regular trade is say yes. So, you know, say yes. And one person said it best. He said, say yes and then say and so creep, keep the moment, yes, I'll do that, and keep the momentum going. Yes. Right. And when you do that, it's amazing what happens because I wish young leaders or young people would ask great leaders kind of some advice along the way because we all, like I said earlier, we remember the good ones and we remember the bad ones. I still remember what one of my best leaders said to me of all times. I was young, I was carrying a bag in sales, probably wasn't on top of my game at the time. And he said this to me, he said it's so I was chasing him down one day because I had an emergency signature. Remember, we needed signatures back then, yeah. And we actually needed to bring you a piece of paper and sign. And uh he said to me, he said, uh Jason, don't let your disorganization make it an emergency for me. And and it wow, Joffrey, that it was like a punch in the face. I was like, I was like, okay. That's a genius. Right? But it said something to me, and guess what? He changed my my my lane. I just was like, okay, that's one thing I had to change right away and just say, hey, you know what? I need to dial it in more. Right.

Geoffrey Toffetti 32:44

Yeah, that that could be one of the all-time great business quotes I've ever heard. That person is a genius. Maybe he borrowed it from someone, but that is a genius.

Jason Taylor 32:52

Yeah, he just, he literally just actually just went right at me and uh and he didn't say it rude, he didn't, he just said, hey, just FYI, you're not in your game right now. So and one time a same leader said to me, he was one of the best I've ever had. I said to him, I made uh a mistake, but it wasn't a bad mistake. It was just, and I said to him, I said, I said, sorry about that. And he said, sorry. And I go, yeah, and he said, no, no, no, you're you're part of the team, you're on the field. He says, You're a player, you don't say sorry. He goes, You're not a fan in the stands right now. He goes, You're on this, he goes, You don't say sorry on this team. You just make sure you go, you don't do that again. Right. And I was just like, okay. Like he was just that kind of right. And and I still talk to him today, and he's still he's very uh up there now in in age and his, but you talk to the people that he led along the way, and you're just like, everybody has those stories about him, right?

Geoffrey Toffetti 33:40

Yep, that sounds like a really great person to have worked for.

Jason Taylor 33:43

Yeah, absolutely. Joffrey, with that, you sound like a great person to uh work for. I can't wait till this uh comes to air because uh this will be one that people share and comment and make sure that they forward out. But uh with that, I thank you for your time. I thank you for your leadership. I thank you for thinking differently. I thank you for being humble and transformational and being transparent and uh just getting the younger generation and companies kind of on the right track to go where we need to go.

Geoffrey Toffetti 34:10

Well, I thank you for all those kind words and for having me on your show. I really appreciate it. This was a very stimulating conversation, and I appreciate it very much.

Jason Taylor 34:18

Awesome. Thanks, Joffrey. If you love that session and that conversation as much as I did, would love to have you join our People Playbook community in the link below.