Episode 266 with Noah Pusey: Boosting Employee Engagement in Small Businesses

My guest today is Noah Pusey, President and CEO of Ripple Feedback. Join us as we discuss the pivotal role of continuous feedback in talent management and workplace culture, the challenges of remote work culture, the importance of generational differences in the workplace, and strategies for small business owners to foster a positive work environment. Noah explains why traditional annual reviews are outdated and shares how Ripple uses survey analytics to provide actionable, timely feedback to improve employee engagement and retention. This episode is perfect for entrepreneurs and leaders looking to enhance their team dynamics and company culture. 

GUEST RESOURCES

Noah Pusey is the President and CEO of Ripple Analytics - a cloud-based talent assessment platform that replaces the annual review with timely, objective and actionable peer-to-peer data.  Ripple disrupts how organizations evaluate talent and empowers leaders to build stronger, engaged, efficient, productive and culture-driven teams.  Noah received his undergraduate degree from Boston College and his law degree from Brooklyn Law School.  

https://ripplefeedback.com

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-l-pusey-81236229

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Transcript

Episode 266 with Noah Pusey: Boosting Employee Engagement in Small Businesses

Transcribed by Descript

Erin Marcus: All right. Hello, and welcome to this episode of the Ready Yet podcast, where today I'm excited to have this conversation, because every time we try to have a conversation, something goes horribly wrong. So I'm going to get to know you along with the rest of the audience here. But Mr. Noah Pusey of Ripple Feedback, Very excited to hear more about what you do, how you got there, what you had to go through to get there, all the dirty underbelly secrets you didn't know you were going to be asked to share with everyone today.

Erin Marcus: But before we dive into it, why don't you tell everyone a little bit more officially who you are and what you do? 

Noah Pusey: Absolutely, Erin. Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to our discussion today. My name is Noah Pusey. I'm the president and CEO of Ripple. Ripple is a talent assessment management development tool.

Noah Pusey: In 2024, if you're clinging as leadership, if you're clinging to what I grew up on professionally, the annual review, you are wasting your time. Studies have shown that the annual review is a toxic, dangerous, anxiety ridden event. People look forward to it too much. People are disappointed by it too much.

Noah Pusey: Managers don't really like it. They don't think it's an effective use of time. And by the way, if you're talking to your people once every 12 months, Probably not an effective way of managing them. So what we do is we use survey analytics to gather data and show managers who their people are and what they like, what they don't like, who they like working with, who they might not like working with and provide actionable, timely feedback feedback, engagement, culture.

Noah Pusey: These are the buzzwords that get thrown around a lot. People like to talk about it, but it's acting that changes the world, not talking. So we we always, in our initial discussion with prospective clients, really try to get them to commit to a game plan, and quite frankly, even if they don't use Ripple, but they're committed to using something.

Noah Pusey: Because, a lot of companies have gotten rid of the annual review. Haven't replaced it with anything, but They knew 

Erin Marcus: nobody liked it, so they just stopped doing it. And it's 

Noah Pusey: exactly, and it's also, it became a compliance exercise. So even if it was effective decades ago, I'm sure many of the listeners will know that, I worked my last W2 job every now and then every November, you'd get the HR person and say, you got to fill out your three sixties, fill out your 

Erin Marcus: three sixties for people you didn't even know.

Noah Pusey: And 

Erin Marcus: it 

Noah Pusey: became this obligation instead of a duty, instead of wanting to give information, I've, I have people in my network that share stories about the annual review because, and no one's ever said, I love the annual review. One, one of the people in my network was a pharmaceutical salesperson.

Noah Pusey: And. He would cut and paste his 360s for his team every year, change the date, change the person's name. 

Erin Marcus: Nobody even knew, right? Nobody even knows. 

Noah Pusey: So that, that confirms two things. One, the person filling it out doesn't really care about it, obviously, if you're just cutting and pasting. And two, the person that is purportedly reviewing it, Isn't it because they'd see that Noah's 360 for seven people on his team is identical.

Erin Marcus: It was, and I see a problem incorporate with this type of thing as well as it reminds me of DEI. It's a, it's treated like a check the box situation instead of an opportunity to not just make change in your business, but impactful change. 

Noah Pusey: Yeah. So one of our taglines is making the workplace a better place to work, right?

Erin Marcus: Oh, perfect. Love it. Good job. It's 

Noah Pusey: it really is, having led companies, you want your people to be happy and I'm not talking about, utopia where people are skipping to work and picking flowers. 

Erin Marcus: I don't think, I think that is such a misnomer. Like I watch And this is where social media gets us in trouble of coloring our viewpoint because if you watch TikTok and I that's like the one platform I play on because the algorithm knows I'm interested in baby goats and like animal rescue.

Erin Marcus: So it's a pretty safe place for me. But these younger generation. Recording their situations, and I don't by the way, I have zero problems with that. I think there should be 100 percent transparency in so much of this situation. There is a difference between private information and transparency and process.

Noah Pusey: There's also a difference in terms of what you know is being shared. If you your word, I love the word transparency. If you are transparent about your policies and what your end goals are, that's different because then the user goes in with eyes wide open, right? 

Erin Marcus: And they can make their decisions.

Erin Marcus: Yeah. 

Noah Pusey: If you find out after the fact that all of your information is being shared that's that's not okay with me. But to your point, yes I think, as long as when you talk about change, don't talk about change because you read an article online on LinkedIn or Inc. com, talk about change with a realistic expectation of action.

Noah Pusey: And, in sales is, as 80 percent of your deals close after the 7th or 8th touch, right? However, if you can filter that process down to third or fourth touch, meaning from the get go, I want to know if you're committed to employing a solution that, people get on a call with me or a zoom with me because they have a problem.

Noah Pusey: If their culture was great, if engagement was great, if they're people wouldn't be 

Erin Marcus: talking to you. So 

Noah Pusey: in small 

Erin Marcus: business, it's so interesting to me because there's it's so different. I'm torn because I see. a big split in the small business world between people who are amazing mentors and treat their team the way they treat their clients.

Erin Marcus: And then you get the flip side, which I guess is just a microcosm of what in corporate as well. You get people who are fantastic at the thing the business does, but know nothing about building and running and leading a business. So I often see every underlying hesitation around sales also shows up in every underlying hesitation around leadership, setting expectations, managing the expectations.

Erin Marcus: But if people want that, one of the things I learned early on in my leadership training was clarity is kindness. 

Noah Pusey: Yep. 

Erin Marcus: Clarity is kindness telling people exactly what you want. And one of the things you said early earlier that I think, and you mentioned it, but I don't think people really realize people want to be happy in their job.

Erin Marcus: Doesn't mean they want all the time off. They want all the ridiculous perks. It's really not what people are looking for. 

Noah Pusey: I use this expression a lot. Culture is how your people view their coworkers, how they're, how your people view leadership. Culture is not beanbag chairs or tables or happy at mandatory happy hours on Thursdays.

Noah Pusey: I love mandatory happy hours. 

Erin Marcus: You better be happy. 

Noah Pusey: And but, Foosbag chairs foosball tables bean chairs. Those are all the result of culture. People want to hang out at lunch together in a conference room because they like each other. If you force it, We have, we lunch every Wednesday in the conference room, be there.

Noah Pusey: Okay. Then that's just one more obligation. You want your people to want to become closer with their coworkers because that builds the biggest word we use around ripple is retention, and 

Erin Marcus: it's retention via community, 

Noah Pusey: right? Exactly. 

Erin Marcus: Great. Via community. What happens when you have this vert, how do you build culture?

Erin Marcus: This to me is a very, it's a real question. I just, to me, it's obvious. Cause I really like talking to people. How do you build culture? And this is what I think everybody's so scared of. How do you build culture in a virtual environment? 

Noah Pusey: So the question is not, I think you have to answer what culture do you want first?

Noah Pusey: Because you can't build something if you don't know what the end result is. And I think culture certainly is defined by every industry, and I would argue culture is defined on an organizational basis. 

Noah Pusey: Two different law firms can have completely different attitudes, and even regionality, right?

Noah Pusey: A law firm in Spokane is going to be different than a law firm in Manhattan. 

Erin Marcus: Right, 

Noah Pusey: because of the nature of the industry. Accounting firms are going to be different than marketing firms. They're numbers driven. Marketing is creativity driven. So the culture that everyone wants to build culture, but I think you have to define what culture you want to build before you can undertake the task of accomplishing that culture.

Noah Pusey: And I also think culture is organic. You, we were discussing before we went, we started recording about just having an organic discussion on this podcast. And I think it's important that the rigidity of traditional leadership. Is what we have to get away from the we've always done it that way.

Noah Pusey: One of my 

Erin Marcus: God, that is my lead. You want to make sure that I will never pay attention to anything else that you say it's, which is not a good response on my part. I own that, but as soon as I hear it, it's a little extreme. I know I'm sick. I get it. But you want to make sure I have tuned you out going forward is when I hear someone say that's how it's always been.

Noah Pusey: Unless. Unless you follow that expression with the following.

Noah Pusey: We've always done it that way because of X, Y, there's actually ROI. There's actual, positive outcomes for that. But if you use the 

Erin Marcus: blind, 

Noah Pusey: If you use the annual review, because we've always done it. Guarantee not doing anything is better than you 

Erin Marcus: could send me an email. What's my raise.

Erin Marcus: That's all anybody ever cared about. That's what they cared about. 

Noah Pusey: Another real problem with the annual review is that almost always it's tied to your compensation. So if you're talking to a 25 year old and I'm a 52 year old manager, they're like, okay, just get to the numbers. What do we 

Erin Marcus: want?

Erin Marcus: Again, I keep. relating this to sales because they think it's very similar. Once you start talking money, or if money is in the back of anyone's mind, it's very hard to have any other conversation until we've gotten that off the table in some way. So we can actually talk to each other. 

Noah Pusey: I think talking about the cost of anything is paramount to how committed the person or the prospect will be, because if I told you ripple is a we're a monthly subscription, 5 per user per month.

Noah Pusey: But if I told you we were 500 per user per month. That discussion is entirely different because you have a hundred employees. Are you going to, are you going to spend the kind of money at 500 bucks a user that, you're going to want to know. 

Erin Marcus: It's a completely different culture because it's a completely different brand identity.

Noah Pusey: Yeah. And it's also okay. Instead of telling me, give me case studies, give me all this stuff because if I'm spending thousands and thousands of dollars a month, I better be darn sure that I know what the outcomes are going to be. If I'm spending 5 a month. So one of the things that's interesting about our product, our platform is the act of asking your people.

Noah Pusey: What they're feeling, how they're feeling about their coworkers, just the act of doing that drives engagement. It shows them that management ownership, leadership cares enough to ask Aaron, how, what do you think about Noah? And it's all anonymous. Our surveys are five questions a month, all anonymous.

Noah Pusey: We have a new product that we're pushing. It's a culture snapshot. It's a 50 question survey, one off. Find out what your company is on. You want to do it again in six months to see how things are going fine. But it doesn't have to be the monthly subscription, but the cost, the finances of anything are paramount in sales, especially in the economy that we live in right now.

Noah Pusey: A lot of, fear of the unknown and who's getting elected in November and all the interest rate discussions, inflation, geopolitical. All of this stuff that, that impacts your ability to sell anything. 

Erin Marcus: You said something earlier, though, that I think is key because it almost doesn't matter what your commitment is to finding out the information if you don't have at least that level of a commitment to taking action around it.

Noah Pusey: Number one thing without feedback, do not ask for feedback. If you don't have a plan to use it good or bad, you might, we've had clients disappointed with the data they collected and I've had presidents of companies say, Oh, my SVP of sales is awesome. Everyone loves him. And then the data shows that they don't.

Noah Pusey: And I tell, I tell Rob, the president, listen, I have no idea who Sean is. I've never worked with him. I've asked your people what they think. 

Erin Marcus: Yeah, 

Noah Pusey: it's not. And they'll question the algorithm and the algorithms that ripple uses and it's no, you didn't like the data. I get it.

Noah Pusey: We've gone down this road a few times with some clients. So you have bad data. Are you going to do it? Are you going to pull an ostrich, bury your head in the sand, or are you going to take the data that your people were nice enough to give you? Because data, all data is good. And there 

Erin Marcus: is a risk. I think leaders don't take enough into account the risk team members feel filling that out.

Noah Pusey: Oh, yeah. 

Erin Marcus: It's a perceived risk. Hopefully it's not an actual risk. 

Noah Pusey: 15 to 20 percent of people that complete anonymous surveys do not wholly believe that they're anonymous. 

Erin Marcus: Why would they? They've been right too many times. 

Noah Pusey: And to their credit, they're not, right? They're anonymous leadership, but I can get, I can see who completed a survey for Aaron yesterday.

Noah Pusey: I can see a person who completed a survey for Matt yesterday. I would have to call through, thousands of answers, but I can do it, but I won't share it. I've been asked to by clients. Disappointed in her score. Can you tell me who gave her low scores? I 

Erin Marcus: said, but 

Noah Pusey: I won't because once you violate that trust, we're an anonymous platform.

Noah Pusey: And we had an example of a person early on that gave one of his coworkers were a 1 to 5 scale 1, never 5 always. And one of our questions is, I trust Aaron, so I'm completing the survey, this person's completing the survey, but for the point of the story, I'll be the person completing it, and I see and I trust Aaron, 100%.

Noah Pusey: So I, what I do is I look at that question and I go, I'm going to find out how anonymous these are, so I'm going to give her a one. And Aaron finds out because she doesn't know what I gave it to her, but she sees her scores. And she goes to the president of the company and says, I can't believe someone doesn't trust, never trusts me.

Noah Pusey: Someone doesn't trust me at all. Zero trust. So the president of the company calls Ripple and says, listen Aaron's one of our best employees. We're going to lose her. She's really upset about this. What can we do about it? Can you let me know who gave her a one? And I, and the president of Ripple says, I can't do that, but I have a hunch of why it was because out of 20 answers to the I trust Aaron question, you've received fours and fives on all the other ones.

Noah Pusey: So I emailed this guy that gave her the one and I said, Hey, can I'm the president of Ripple and I'd like to ask you a question or jump on a phone call with you. He goes, sure, what is it? I was like I see that you gave Aaron and he averaged, he was giving you 4. 7s for all the other questions, right?

Noah Pusey: An average of 4. 7. And I said, did you answer one to I, I trust Aaron to see if they're actually anonymous. And he goes, yep. He said, yes, I did. It was a test. It was a test balloon. It was a trial. And I said, good to know. Okay. And he goes, why did you tell President Karen so and and I was like, I did not.

Noah Pusey: She wanted it. She wanted to know. Because she's 

Erin Marcus: dying to know. 

Noah Pusey: By the way, because she wants to keep Aaron. But now I can tell her that it was a test and that we passed it. Because this guy felt secure. And by the way, he will now tell all of his coworkers what he did and the fact that they are actually anonymous and the participation levels, the genuine nature of the responses, everything is better off because of it.

Noah Pusey: And that's happened a few times. And when you look at hundreds of data points. The answer to one question. Yeah, maybe he didn't. And by the way, maybe he didn't have his coffee that day and he thought one was always and five was never 

Erin Marcus: done that. 

Noah Pusey: There's unintentional errors that happen in data analytics.

Noah Pusey: And over time when you have 78900 data points, the number, the one answer that you've messed up or the two or three or four answers that you messed up that they're irrelevant. 

Erin Marcus: And I think it. I think not only does it take an act of trust to fill them out, but I think this was in one of Darren Hardy's books.

Erin Marcus: Can you be brave enough to get the feedback? 

Noah Pusey: All feedback is not, all feedback is good, all feedback is not positive, right? All data is good, because if you have bad data, that's the first step to correcting it. And then if you have good, celebrate it, really lack of acknowledgement, especially millennials and Gen Z years, I was raised by boomer leadership, 

Erin Marcus: right?

Erin Marcus: Acknowledgement was so low on what our expectations were. 

Noah Pusey: The reward for good work was more work. We pay you to do work. 

Erin Marcus: And that's how this works. Yes, 

Noah Pusey: it works. So I don't, I'm not going to pat you on the back. I'm not going to say every take two days, you're allowed 

Erin Marcus: to come back and work tomorrow.

Erin Marcus: That's 

Noah Pusey: automatic deposit next Friday. That's our sign of acknowledging that we like the work you're doing. 

Erin Marcus: Right. 

Noah Pusey: Millennials and Gen Zers raised differently. And 

Erin Marcus: the thing that makes me laugh so much about our age group complaining about that is who do they think raised these people? 

Noah Pusey: The Tutsi generation, right?

Noah Pusey: Who do 

Erin Marcus: they think created that situation? Who 

Noah Pusey: gave them the trophies? The trophy generation, right? The millennials. And, 

Erin Marcus: and who, I've had so many clients, I know it's a little bit of a tangent, but I've had so many clients, and it's usually men, get to their 30s and be actively angry at their parents because they don't know how to do anything.

Erin Marcus: Girls tend to figure it out anyway because just, they'd be actively mad that they don't know how to they, they start to get scared. They start to think about their own family and how could they lead their own family if they don't actually know how to do it? 

Noah Pusey: And I think you're, it's a valid point, but generationally, so we've done a lot of research on, in this area, right?

Noah Pusey: So there's four generations of workforce currently. There's the boomers, the Gen Xers, the millennials and the Gen Zers. Boomers don't care about feedback. They want to say they do. They want to, they've read some stuff on LinkedIn. I'm just going 

Erin Marcus: to tell you're wrong. 

Noah Pusey: My generation, Gen X knows data is king and queen and every other monarch figure you can find because making good decisions, if it's not partially based or wholly based on data, it's not the right decision.

Noah Pusey: It might work out in the end. But it's so much easier. 

Erin Marcus: Yeah, we're data. If I know 

Noah Pusey: 95 percent of the time, the best way to work is going down Main Street, taking a left on Elm Street and parking the garage and walking to work, right? That works 95 percent of the time. And that one time, three times out of a month, I actually can save a minute by taking a shortcut.

Noah Pusey: If you don't, if you don't drive 95 percent of the time, if you don't know, if you don't do that route, a hundred percent of the time, you're not being as effective as you can be. And the data that we collect Gen Xers appreciate the data is important, but we didn't grow up on feedback. My annual reviews, I'm a recovering lawyer practice on the side a little bit and Feedback at your annual review was basically thank you.

Noah Pusey: Okay. Okay. Yeah. These 

Erin Marcus: are your goals for the next year and this is the money you're getting for those goals That was like here's the percentage Here's the percentage that you met these goals that we haven't talked about in 12 months So here's the bonus you got based on those percentages as laid out 12 months ago And here's your new ones for next year

Noah Pusey: In law, it's the almighty billable hour, 

Erin Marcus: right? 

Noah Pusey: You have to build 2050 hours. If you build 2200 hours, you're an awesome. If you build 1900 billable hours you're a bad employee. 

Erin Marcus: We grew up on the bell curve. This isn't a, this is a B, these numbers. And 

Noah Pusey: How many people do you know now?

Noah Pusey: That weren't the greatest students in high school, but are successful business people. 

Erin Marcus: I didn't go to high 

Noah Pusey: school. Okay, so case in point, 

Erin Marcus: right? I literally didn't go. 

Noah Pusey: There is a strong argument, again, talking about data. There is a strong argument that the college system, the university system, in the United States of America is fatally flawed from an economic ROI.

Erin Marcus: For me, it wasn't as expensive. I went to college and that's literally where I got any kind of formal education because I went to Chicago. I should have gone to Chicago public schools. But by the time I was 14, I had other things I was interested in doing. So it took until I was, I always say I got lucky because by the time I was paying for it, I got it.

Erin Marcus: bad crap out of my system. I was right while all the other kids were getting drunk and skipping classes. I did that at 16. So I was like over it already. 

Noah Pusey: You look at that system. And you also appreciated what you were paying for in terms of college. I grew up one of seven kids, you 000. I 

Erin Marcus: paid for that myself.

Noah Pusey: We all paid for our own way, which does a few things. It makes you think about where you want to go. It makes you think about how much. It's going to cost to go there. And after you're done, what are your opportunities? How 

Erin Marcus: fast can you make your money back? 

Noah Pusey: Now if parents are paying for the education, I question whether they're getting the value they expect to get.

Noah Pusey: You mean three, 400, 000. It's not uncommon. It's not uncommon. It's 

Erin Marcus: vain. And here's the other thing I know, and I know we're going on a tangent, but it's very interesting. I think it's very applicable in why, and also in the entrepreneurial world, and how, what's available to, what's actually available to people.

Erin Marcus: Because one thing I know is the millionaire next door is not a white collar worker. The millionaire next door is a tradesman. Who owns their own business 

Noah Pusey: has five trucks working for him or her and a 

Erin Marcus: millionaire next door went to a trade school And right Every single time they don't work in a cubicle.

Noah Pusey: Electricity is gonna be running through wires for the foreseeable future. New construction, 

Erin Marcus: plumbing, new construct. 

Noah Pusey: Even if you wanna look at, bricklayers, roofers, any, anything, any of it. Yep. No, I agree. I agree. And to get back to the entrepreneurial component, I think the entrepreneurial spirit people, I think everyone has a little bit of it.

Noah Pusey: It's a question of whether you let it grow. 

Erin Marcus: Was it beat out of you as a child? 

Noah Pusey: So I was lucky enough, my dad And my mom had a job with a allergy testing company for the healthcare. She had, there were nine people under the roof. But my dad really worked for himself for my entire life.

Noah Pusey: My 

Erin Marcus: dad was a cop and my mom was a beautician. 

Noah Pusey: Okay. 

Erin Marcus: And in the city of Chicago, my dad was a Chicago cop in the 60s that you want to know when then I didn't go to school. I was a total juvenile delinquent. 

Noah Pusey: A lot of stuff going on in Chicago. 

Erin Marcus: But back in that day, it meant I got the ride home when my friends got arrested and they didn't use to arrest girls.

Erin Marcus: They really didn't. It's different. It's very different now. And then my mom became a leasing agent at a apartment complex in downtown Chicago. But very blue collar, right? It's the work ethic thing. And I think the entrepreneurial piece was. taught to me more in line with personal responsibility than anything's possible.

Erin Marcus: When I was 15 years old, my mom said, you need to go babysitting is not cutting it. You need to go get a job. And I said how do you do that? She said you see that street there with all the stores on them. You just keep going into them and asking for a job until one of them says, yes.

Noah Pusey: Yeah. And so work ethic is a huge component to any employee or employer experience, right? I used to do interviews. I used to conduct interviews with candidates. And the first question I asked is when were you paid to do something? And I'm not talking working at your uncle's accounting firm the summer of your sophomore year out of Boston university, right?

Noah Pusey: I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about, 10 years old, shoveling snow, mowing lawns, delivering papers. Picking 

Erin Marcus: weeds. I had to pick weeds. 

Noah Pusey: Yeah, weeds. We had to weed. I 

Erin Marcus: was sold out to the neighborhood to pick weeds. And babysitting is the one that kills me because who thought at 10 years old that I should be in charge of other people's infants so that those adults could go to work.

Erin Marcus: So it wasn't like sometimes babysitting. It was every, it was four days a week so that person could go to work. 

Noah Pusey: Wow. Yeah that's a little young. It's a little young. Ten, ten. Watch what? Two and three year olds? Huh. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. But I think what your mom did and telling you to go, get a job at one of those stores and what our, my parents did, and if you want the better sneakers, they would get us the jeans and sneakers.

Noah Pusey: If we wanted Nike Air Jordans, 

Erin Marcus: you had to buy them yourself. 

Noah Pusey: We had the Chuck Taylors for 20 bucks. The members 

Erin Marcus: only jacket, am I dating us? Oh yeah. I had to pay for my own members only jacket.

Erin Marcus: The Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, I had to buy myself. 

Noah Pusey: There you go. So you had to pay, we had to pay the difference. And yeah, would it have been nice if they paid for everything? But I think it drove me to appreciate, what hard work results in. And, I I think, part of this discussion is, the good, the bad and everything in between of the entrepreneurial journey.

Noah Pusey: And I think the people you surround yourself with, I have regular check ins with probably 30 people in my, in our partnership network and just my entrepreneur network. And one of them is just this great guy in Philadelphia. And. We all, we almost are competitors in terms of what he does.

Noah Pusey: He sells specifically to sales teams. But we talk every month because it's, how are you doing? And because the one thing I can't remember the article I read, but the one thing about being an entrepreneur, it can be lonely, 

Erin Marcus: right? 

Noah Pusey: You always have to be up. You always have to be positive because you're going to make this work and it's going to be fine.

Noah Pusey: And everything's, And what I find enjoyable about our discussions is it is the peaks and the valleys. And we met for the first time at a conference out in Vegas about a year and a half ago. So he was a COVID, like you met during COVID. 

Erin Marcus: Right. 

Noah Pusey: I met three people at that conference that I had actually been Zooming with.

Erin Marcus: That's nice. 

Noah Pusey: I'm six foot three. 

Erin Marcus: I'm only five feet tall, so I'm just as shocking as you 

Noah Pusey: are. When we meet in person, it's holy crap, you're tall, and it was, and what's funny is. You don't talk about that stuff when you're talking about, sales, but physical, and he saw me and he's Oh my God.

Noah Pusey: Cause we were going to meet at this, at this table or whatever. And when he saw me, he, he obviously recognized my face and it was just like, I never knew. And it was just, 

Erin Marcus: we're all the same size zoom box. 

Noah Pusey: And but that person in those discussions where you can actually let your guard down and say, you know what, I'm a little frustrated because, and it does, it is a frustrating reality of.

Noah Pusey: Most of the people I speak with, again, we spoke about it earlier. You're on this phone call because you're concerned about your culture. You're concerned about retention, about some component of your human capital experience. And so I get this during an entire 20 minute introductory zoom. And then this on the second one, this, when there's four people on a demo, this one, the follow up after the demo, this on the follow up at the follow up after the demo, and then silence.

Noah Pusey: Ghost and I send my couple emails saying, Hey, anything going on is something I did. Listen, I'm not impervious to, to attack. Maybe I said something that offended them. But give me feedback because again, all feedback is good, even if it's bad because you can use it to it's data.

Noah Pusey: It's exactly right. And I think having a strong network, okay. And networking events are great, but like having that network of 50, 60 people that are key, and I have 30, 35 that I consider my key people. I think that's critical, just psychologically to be able to. 

Erin Marcus: And to wrap it into what we're talking about with feedback with your team, people who will call you on not just your crap, but when you're limiting yourself.

Noah Pusey: You can do better than that. 

Erin Marcus: When you're telling yourself stories, and the biggest story that I hear, which is right in your wheelhouse, is you can't find people to work. Oh. I am so not exp I, not seeing it, not that it's not real in certain industries, 

Noah Pusey: Yep. 

Erin Marcus: But 

Noah Pusey: It's a major problem.

Noah Pusey: The whole I just learned this word and which makes me feel really old, but it's an acronym. Pete, have you heard of Pete? 

Erin Marcus: I 

Noah Pusey: think it's people, non education is the first E, non employed is the second E and non training to be employed. So I think 25 percent of Gen Zers and lower end millennials are in the Pete class, meaning.

Erin Marcus: Wow. 

Noah Pusey: They're not in school and they're not training to be employed. So 

Erin Marcus: that's terrifying. 

Noah Pusey: Yeah. 

Erin Marcus: And I did hear in that vein that it's more guys than girls. 

Noah Pusey: I also think parents are friends, right? So when their college graduate kid gets out of school. They say at home and they get a nice car.

Noah Pusey: They lease a nice car because they can afford it because they're not paying rent and they're not paying groceries and they're not paying laundry. I came back. And 

Erin Marcus: at the same time, how in the hell are they supposed to be able to pay those 

Noah Pusey: things? Yeah, when a one bedroom in Manhattan is 35, 000 a month.

Noah Pusey: That's 

Erin Marcus: insane. 

Noah Pusey: Which means you have to make 7, 000, by the way, after taxes to pay your rent. Just your rent. 

Erin Marcus: And at the same time, the entry level job paying wants 10 years of experience to get it.

Erin Marcus: It's so interesting to me because I feel this dichotomy happening at the same time in our country. Because all I do is talk to people, right? I talk to probably 20 new people a week between my podcast, the ones I'm on, all the different situations. And it's almost like these two things are happening at the same time where there's never been more opportunity for entrepreneurs and money and different ways to earn money.

Erin Marcus: And yet more people are unemployed and unemployable to your point than ever before. There's never been more racism while there's never in years. And yet. There's more awareness. Yeah, this is not sustainable people in any of these categories. 

Noah Pusey: And I think the concern is when you let it just go.

Noah Pusey: Our biggest barrier to entry, and I think most entrepreneurs, unless they have some incredibly dynamic offering is status quo. Is people, just let status quo happen and replicate 

Erin Marcus: it. Your biggest competitor is not a person, it's the, your client doing nothing.

Erin Marcus: Absolutely. 

Noah Pusey: And do we really want to commit? We've used the word commit a bunch of times during this discussion because you can talk about it, but if you're not committed to action and committed to a little disruption and disruption was a huge word five, six years ago. And I love, it's got to be controlled.

Noah Pusey: It can't just be, scorched earth every other 

Erin Marcus: day. It's not just for the sake of it. 

Noah Pusey: But if you're 

Erin Marcus: not right, if you're not growing, you're dying. There is no. Yeah. 

Noah Pusey: And when you have 50 percent of millennials and Gen Zers change jobs every two and a half years and 50. I did 

Erin Marcus: it. 

Noah Pusey: Yep. 

Erin Marcus: I changed every three years.

Erin Marcus: Until I found the place where I was allowed to be a true intrapreneur. And then I stayed because it fit me 

Noah Pusey: well. And so if we know that these are statistics we know these are facts. And you're still clinging to the 10 year, 10 year, 10 year tenured model. You think everyone's going to say 10, 15 years.

Noah Pusey: I, when I ask C suite people, give me your average age employee, and they say 55. I say immediately, what's the average tenure? 12 years. Not shocked at all, right? If your average age is 31 and you tell me the average tenure is 8 years, you're lying. And if it is somehow 8 years, what are you doing?

Noah Pusey: Write a book, become a 

Erin Marcus: Go teach people how to do that. 

Noah Pusey: Because that is just not the norm. And again When it 

Erin Marcus: goes back to where we started, where the difference And the way to get there is culture. And culture isn't beanbag tears. It's, to me, the opportunity for self actualization for the people who want it.

Noah Pusey: What, think about what's happened over the last few years. There's this pushback for remote work. You had asked, how do you attain culture and feedback in a remote workplace environment? You've got heads of companies, 75 year old multimillionaires saying people have to, we need butts in the seats because that's how it's always been done because 

Erin Marcus: they're paying rent on an office that they have to justify what it is 

Noah Pusey: for more productive people.

Noah Pusey: 81 percent worked as 81 percent of people worked as much, if not more non manufacturing industries. 81 percent worked as much if not more during COVID. So that debunks the whole theory that if you let people work remotely, they're going to be sitting on the couch watching movies and eating popcorn. Just because and if you do have those people, they're doing the same thing in their cubicles.

Noah Pusey: They're just setting up football teams and shopping on Amazon. 

Erin Marcus: Exactly. It's not the 

Noah Pusey: environment, it's the person. And and then we can talk for, I know we're probably 

Erin Marcus: going to 

Noah Pusey: round two on engagement, just the numbers. 30 percent of American employees are engaged. And that's the all time low, quarter one, 2024.

Noah Pusey: All time high was 2021 and it was 36%. Gallup for 24 years. So if 36 percent is the high, that's the best we've ever done in 24 years, then you shouldn't be shooting for 90 percent engagement. You should be shooting for 45, 50. Because 90 percent engagement is almost impossible. 

Erin Marcus: Nobody's brain works that way.

Noah Pusey: And so 

Erin Marcus: it's almost like you have to take manufacturing's concept of loss. Scrap and apply it to human capital 

Noah Pusey: 100%. And if it's a six percentage swing in 24 years, the highest was 36. The lowest was, it's 

Erin Marcus: not going anywhere. , 

Noah Pusey: it was never 74% and now we're shocked that it's 30%. The high was three years ago, 36%.

Noah Pusey: Now it's 30%. It was 33%. 

Erin Marcus: What I love about the entrepreneurial world, and this is something that I've been doing in my business and how does this all apply? If this is information is accurate. We know this is data. I heard about this when I was in leadership training in the nineties. And this is not new.

Erin Marcus: This is how it works. Why then, if you're in charge of your own work, are you working 60 and 70 hours a week? It's more focused, not more hours. I literally left the job. Work better not 

Noah Pusey: longer. 

Erin Marcus: And, 

Noah Pusey: I If you have an employee that can do her work, or his work, or their work in two hours. Pay for 

Erin Marcus: outcomes.

Noah Pusey: Yep. 

Erin Marcus: Pay for outcomes. Stop paying for hours, and pay for outcomes. And, I will tell you that one of the job, the last job I had for a very long time, that's how our culture worked. There was a group of people that needed to track hours because it was help desk situation. So obviously it had to be man.

Erin Marcus: That was a different job. But for those of us who were in charge of creating specific outcomes, they didn't track paid time off. They didn't track when you were aware, as long as you were producing the outcomes that they asked, you could do. Whatever it is that you wanted 

Noah Pusey: to do. Technology, right? Get out of technology's way.

Noah Pusey: If you, I say this at most of my web webinars and presentations and podcasts. So I'm going to use it on yours. It, if you don't text or email your people from Friday at 5 PM until Monday at 9 AM, then you can get away with your traditional model saying, get behind your model. I have a little respect for you, but you don't do that.

Noah Pusey: You text them at 8 30 p. m. on a Tuesday saying we need to talk about this in the morning, leave them alone at five o'clock when they 

Erin Marcus: know and 

Noah Pusey: I'm saying if you want this rigid adherence to Monday through Friday, nine to five, then leave alone the weekends, leave alone at 501 on Tuesdays. No, because technology you're at your son's bathroom.

Erin Marcus: I even did that in my small business where we use ClickUp for project management. And so there is literally a entry under meetings. And so instead of reaching out, because I know me, if I don't do it when I think it, I'll forget it. I get, but instead of putting that on them, I just go right into my ClickUp and I put down the dot, I put a bullet point for our next meeting, because it's not that I needed them to do something now, I just needed to make sure I don't take my problem and turn it into a team member's problem.

Noah Pusey: It might also be that you can text someone. I don't mind getting a text at 830 on Tuesday. What I don't think employees, Respect their leaders for is so you're not going to let me work at home when my kid's sick But you'll text me at 8 30 at night or you'll text me on saturday and 

Erin Marcus: people humans are very It's not it's 

Noah Pusey: not consistent.

Erin Marcus: Yeah, 

Noah Pusey: if I can if fairness is largely subjective You know in terms of what you think is fair might be different than what I think is fair Consistency is consistency and message 

Erin Marcus: If you're 

Noah Pusey: consistent in message and you're a leader chances are you're pretty good at it Because you're not saying one thing and doing another You're not saying, you can't work remotely.

Noah Pusey: Our technology doesn't support it yet. It does. It's 2024. You might want to, you could say that maybe 25 years ago, but even then it was a lame argument for disallowing for remote work and it all gets back to respect. If your people have respect for the leadership, chances are your culture's pretty good.

Noah Pusey: If people don't like leadership, if they think they're inconsistent, if they think they're hypocritical, the ability to achieve culture is going to be very difficult. And, to wrap it up, I want to help employers help their employees. And I want to help employer because if you have employees with better workplace experiences, they talk about it with their friends and family, you just mentioned your result in job.

Noah Pusey: Okay. So what's the name of that company? Because that sounds like a company that is. And 

Erin Marcus: we were also as a team very careful like the other team members when we would get a new person were very much Hey, don't screw this up. We appreciate what we have. Don't become the bad apple that ruins it for everybody.

Erin Marcus: I just wanted to wrap something up here because I think it's really, we've been talking about leadership and feedback and team rankings and 360. Do not think for one second that this is not applicable in a very small business. I think one of the biggest mistakes small business owners make is think I'm too small, it doesn't matter.

Erin Marcus: Treat your business like a business. 

Noah Pusey: Our client, our smallest client was a four person veterinarian clinic. 

Erin Marcus: Now, anonymity, 

Noah Pusey: anonymity is a little trickier on a small, on 12, 15, 20 employees. Know what your people are thinking, because if you don't, you'll find out when they quit 

Erin Marcus: Or 

Noah Pusey: they'll, or they'll quit.

Noah Pusey: They'll ghost you. We used to give two week notices. Now show now 

Erin Marcus: employees show up. They 

Noah Pusey: just don't show up, and their employers are like, I got a Texas, this person did something happen. 

Erin Marcus: My dad was a cop. My first thought is, you're in a ditch. 

Noah Pusey: Yeah, exactly. Yes. 

Erin Marcus: My first thought is always, you're in a dead, in a ditch somewhere.

Erin Marcus: I always tell, I don't care what you do, just let me know what you're doing. I don't care what it is. Just tell me you're alive. 

Noah Pusey: And at the end of the day, if you can't know what your people feel about their teams and their departments and their organization as a whole, then chances are you're disconnected as a leader.

Noah Pusey: And you're not being as effective as you can be. And the generational biases, like every new generation of workforce is coddled is, like I'm sure when I got out of law school, if you 

Erin Marcus: look at the headlines from 50 years ago, they're saying about us, what we're saying about them, it doesn't change 

Noah Pusey: entitled new generation of workforce wants casual Fridays during the summer.

Noah Pusey: And so these, These revolutions have been happening for decades and now we just have to, we just have to figure it out. And then when you figure it out, apply strategy to achieve the end goal. And we like to think we help in that process. And we certainly don't deduct from it.

Noah Pusey: We just certainly don't we can't solve all the problems with your people, but we certainly can open eyes. And again, not to beat a dead horse, but acknowledge the success. It's like parenting. If you have kids and you're disciplining them, you discipline them about one thing, but you got to praise them about four or five other things.

Noah Pusey: And at the end of the day, when you use a tool like ripple or any kind of assessment, engagement driven tool, you're going to get information that you can act on. And, and we're there to help. And, my website is right there ripple feedback. com. My email. Is Noah at ripple crew.

Noah Pusey: com C R E W. com. And we'd love to hear from anybody who's listening to this and help them take the first step on on the path to achieving the culture. 

Erin Marcus: It's your most expensive resource as a business owner. It's also the best resource you have. 

Noah Pusey: Yep. It's you can call them employees. You can call them workers.

Noah Pusey: You can call them talent until the robots totally take over. They're human beings. Yeah. And they, some appreciation for their psychological and overall wellness. And then we help drive that we are throwing a special 50 percent for the first year for your accounts it's 5 per user that works out to 60 a year per account.

Noah Pusey: So we're slashing that in half for your listeners. 30 for annually for the first year. And then we go back to the the regular price looking forward to hearing from first of all, looking forward to talking with you more, maybe around two on engagement and whether it's just a reality of today.

Noah Pusey: And maybe businesses have just assumed 30, 32, 

Erin Marcus: 35, 36%. 

Noah Pusey: Yeah. 

Erin Marcus: Thank you so much for having this conversation with me. I think it's, again, it's. It's the biggest expense we have. It's the biggest opportunity we have as a small business owner. And you got to put as much effort into that as you're putting in a marketing and sales and your product and everything else.

Erin Marcus: So thank you so much. 

Noah Pusey: 100%. Thank you for having me.