How Can Culture Get Your Team Through The ‘Great Transition’

What You’ll Learn

Ed Wolff says trust, urgency, empowerment and other elements of strong organizational culture can be the keys for telcos and utilities having to reinvent themselves due to changing demands.

Special: Recorded Live at the KYRBA/TNBA Fall Conference

Guest Speaker

Ed Wolff

Show Notes

Transcripts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

Intro: A production of Pioneer Utility Resources. StoryConnect, helping communicators discover ideas to shape their stories and connect with their customers.

Andy Johns: How can culture help your organization survive the great transition? That’s what we’ll be talking about on this episode of StoryConnect: The Podcast. My name is Andy Johns, your host with Pioneer. And I’m joined on this episode by Ed Wolff, who is the Vice President of Professional Service, Sales, and Marketing at NISC. Ed, thanks for joining me.

Ed Wolff: It’s good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Andy Johns: We are here. You probably noticed from the ambiance. Remember, we don’t say background noise – we say ambiance – here at the Kentucky Rural Broadband Association and Tennessee Broadband Association’s joint conference here in Franklin, Tennessee. Ed was one of the speakers this morning on the main stage talking about how organizations can survive this transition that so many of them are going through with a strong culture. So I guess first, Ed, let’s kind of define that transition. What is it that you guys are seeing – you guys have so many members in the industry. What do you categorize, how do you define, that great transition?

Ed Wolff: Yeah, it’s been fun to watch. I’ve been involved in the industry for over 30 years. And you just see in the broadband industry, these companies going from traditional telecom companies to high tech companies that are. You know, at one time, telecom itself was kind of a luxury. Today, it’s an absolute necessity, business necessity in their environments. And it’s really changed the way they have to do business, the way they serve their members, and the way they have to operate their business.

Andy Johns: And then in the middle of that, we’ve also got – you know, I know you talked a lot about that transfer of knowledge going on right now. In the middle of that transition, you’ve also got the demographic transition going on with so many boomers hitting that retirement age. It’s even more important, you know, for that transfer of knowledge and that culture – not to jump ahead too far, but you’ve kind of got a transition inside another transition.

Ed Wolff: Yeah, absolutely. Just last night we were talking to one of our members, and they have some key employees that are retiring that have had phenomenal experience. And they’re really worried that 2 or 3 people retire, they’ll have to replace them with 5 or 6 because they’re so diverse in their knowledge. And it’s going to take a while for a newer employee to get as efficient at their jobs as the existing employees are. So that transfer of knowledge becomes a real strategic initiative for organizations to make sure that they continue a high level of service and do it efficiently in the midst of these experienced folks retiring.

Andy Johns: Now you’re a technology company at a software company. I know you enjoy getting into the data and diving in pretty deep. Culture sounds kind of like a squishy, feely kind of word there, but you’re obviously a big proponent that culture is a main piece of what’s going to get folks through some of the changing times ahead.

Ed Wolff: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in this broadband environment, there’s competition like there’s never been before. So there’s competition from satellite companies. Think of Musk, right? And there’s competition from traditional cable companies. There’s competition from wireless companies. And where this market really, the rural providers have a leg up, in my opinion, is that they care for community. They’re local. They’re a known commodity. They’re really good what they do, and they have that personal connection these other companies don’t. So culture is huge because maintaining that culture is going to be critical to be competitive in these environments in the future.

Andy Johns: Now, you talked about a number of different things. You talked about a sense of urgency. You talked about trust. You talked about empowering staff, professionalism. You said it kind of all boils down to two big things. And that’s servant leadership and innovation. So unpack a little bit about that for us.

Ed Wolff: Yeah, I mean anybody, when you’re looking at employee retention, we’re looking at employees coming to your organization. They want to work for an organization where they feel they can make a difference. And if they come into an organization where someone’s throwing out orders and telling them what to do, but not demonstrating or serving the employees and their customers, it’s probably not a place they want to be. So through servant leadership, you can set a good example. You can earn buy-in, you can gain efficiencies by having people empowered and feeling like they can make a difference. And that all matters to the bottom line. So I’m a numbers guy, but culture matters, and it actually translates to a stronger bottom line.

Andy Johns: You talked about – and I noticed a lot of heads nodding in the room – when you talked about sense of urgency and professionalism. And, you know, I’ve done a lot of presentations on the different generations at work and how they work. And I don’t want to turn this into any kind of session where we’re ragging on any particular generations that I may or may not be a part of. But, you know, it’s different. Do you feel like that sense of urgency and that professionalism, is that something that can be taught? How do you even kind of communicate that to folks that, you know, it seems like some of those are just those intangibles that some folks have and other folks don’t. Is that a thing you feel like a culture can can teach people?

Ed Wolff: You know, I believe it is. And if you look at our environment today – I hate to blame things on Covid. But post-Covid, I just see the service industry not being as diligent about a sense of urgency, about professionalism, about care and concern as they once were. So as an organization, we really have to focus on that. We have to be intentional. We have to teach that when people buy-in, and they start demonstrating that they feel better about themselves. And there’s study after study, that says people are more motivated by helping others than they are by pay and benefits. And so, that is kind of countercultural to what you hear in the news and media and all of that today. But we find that to be very true. That’s backed by numbers, and that’s really key to a successful, I think, workgroup, successful organization. A place where people want to be, where they want to stay, and they want to provide value.

Andy Johns: You talked about innovation, and I think when we think about innovation, we think about a lightning bolt from the sky. You know, like whether it’s AI, which we just talked about that or, you know, some of the huge sweeping innovations that may happen. But I like the way that you posed it, that innovation isn’t necessarily, you know, that lightning bolt. It’s just incremental progress.

Ed Wolff: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I got to tell you, you know, when I prepare these presentations, there’s times I look at my own weakness. And when I hear innovation, I think nanotechnology, and I think new battery technology, and I think chip sets. And at the end of the day, we have a responsibility to look at our jobs differently, to be innovative in day-to-day things. And one of the things I talk about is oftentimes I think people focus on perfection and get overwhelmed. I have a saying, I’d rather focus on advancing things or on incremental improvements than perfection. Oftentimes perfection is the anti-improvement. And so I think as individuals in an organization, when we hear about being innovative, we have to really take that to heart and really focus on what can we incrementally improve in our day-to-day jobs that improves the overall success of the organization.

Andy Johns: You gave an example, and not using any names, but about the person working in the vault and, you know, kind of the looking at the information, the way that it’s done there that I think, you know, while that example seems obvious, if you’re in the middle of it and maybe not. Do you mind running that by us again?

Ed Wolff: Yeah. It was a really fun example of applying innovation to our day-to-day lives. And it’s a bit of an old example, but there was a time in my career, I was visiting with a CEO, and she had a proposal in front of her from her staff to build an additional paper vault. So back in the days when everything was filed away and had to be fireproof and had to be locked up, and it was a very expensive proposition. And she was ready to go to the board with a rate increase. On top of that, she was going to have to build this vault. And one day, as she was really thinking about it and really wringing her hands over that decision, she was on her way to lunch, and she sees a CSR sitting on the floor sorting through papers. So she walks in and says, “Hey, what are you doing there?” And the CR says, “Well, I’m getting these papers ready to file.” And she said, “Well, how long have you been doing this?” “Oh, ten years, the whole time I’ve been here.” And she goes, “Why are you storing these particular documents?” And the CSR said, “Well, we’ve always done it that way.” And they took a look at it, and they said, “Have you ever been asked to retrieve the documents?” And the answer was no. So they sat down, and they did an inventory. And at the end of the day, they cleared out 75% of the vault. They shredded the paperwork for a new vault. And while everything is digitized today, it’s just a good example of how thinking differently can bring efficiencies and change the way you do things, and help you serve your end users better and improve your bottom line.

Andy Johns: The example that I keep thinking about, you know, in the last couple of years we’ve heard about it, is we’re talking to folks in the cooperative space that they had their annual meeting changed up dramatically during Covid. And they went either drive-through or virtual or whatever. And, you know, I’ll be talking to them, and they’ll say, and you know, it’s a different path for everybody. I’m not making fun of anybody. But, you know, yes, our members liked it better. Yes, our staff liked it better. Yes, it saved us money and improved engagement. And then you ask, so are you going to stick with that now that, you know, most of the Covid scare has passed? And the answer is usually, “Oh, no. We’re going back to the way it was.” It’s like, “Well, you don’t have to. If this worked better, why not do it?” So that’s exactly what you’re saying with that incremental progress and just looking at anywhere in the organization, whether it’s cultural, whether it’s technology, anything that you can make just a little bit better.

Ed Wolff: Yeah, absolutely. A focus on progress over perfection, incremental improvements, and it really can make a big difference. A lot of small improvements over time can make tremendous impact. And again, being a numbers guy, it will show up in your bottom line. It will show up in your customer satisfaction scores. It’ll show up in employee retention. All those things give reasons for employees to want to stay, for customers to want to stay, and for you to have an overall more successful organization.

Andy Johns: Last thing for you before we go. If there’s somebody who’s listening right now, and they’re thinking, well, yeah, that sounds great. But, you know, he doesn’t work here. He doesn’t know what it’s like here. We got to do it the way that we’ve always done things, whether it’s culture or that innovation. What advice would you have for folks? What are some things you picked up along the way that you might share? Or, you know, somebody who’s in that spot and feels a little stuck with what they can or can’t do. What advice would you have for those folks?

Ed Wolff: Yeah, it’s a great question. Just focus on lifetime learning. So the real advantage that I have is that I have the ability to work with our members/clients in all 50 states, and I get the experience of a lot of different offices. So just as you go to conferences, talk to people. Ask for their opinion. Ask for their experiences. Read books. Today we talked about a book that’s called “The Speed of Trust.” It’s another factor to a real strong culture. Read, ask questions, interview people, and just work hard at thinking differently. Be intentional at thinking differently. That would be my advice.

Andy Johns: I like it, and I added that one. And both books you mentioned today, added into my Goodreads. So I’ll be diving into those as soon as I get some of the other ones marked off the list. So thanks so much.

Ed Wolff: All right. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Andy Johns: He is Ed Wolff, the vice president of professional service sales and marketing at NISC. I’m your host Andy Johns. And until we talk again, keep telling your story.

Outro: StoryConnect is produced by Pioneer Utility Resources, a communications cooperative that is built to share your story. StoryConnect is engineered by Lucas Smith of Lucky Sound Studio.