Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome to the Inspired Culture, where leadership meets purpose, and culture is your greatest advantage. I'm Eric Himes, the host and creator of the Inspired Culture Map.
Transforming teams, families and futures across America.
Each episode brings real strategies, stories, and leadership that last.
This isn't just theory, it's transformation in real time.
So pull up a seat and get ready to lead with your heart.
The inspired, Inspiring leaders transforming futures. Today on the Inspired Culture, we welcome Kevin lyons, president of FoodBridge, a visionary leader who transforms complexity into opportunity and drives innovation where it matters most. With a track record of success at companies like Best Buy, Sears and Shop lc, Kevin blends private sector insight with public sector impact to spark meaningful change.
Whether leading rebrands, driving AI powered solutions, or or mentoring high performing teams, Kevin's leadership is rooted in listening, empowering others, and delivering results that truly last. Welcome to the show, Kevin. We're really excited to have you today.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: Thank you. I've got big shoes to fill after that intro.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: Well, I think you're the guy to do it.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: I'm looking forward to it.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. So happy to have you on the Inspired Culture.
Kevin, we've known each other for a little bit and it's been great to learn about you and your journey here being the president of Foodbridge. And so it's just an honor to have you with us today.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: It's an honor to be with you, Eric. I feel like we've known each other forever, since the first time we talked, and what you're doing is just amazing.
And I really am appreciative of the time that we get to spend together.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Me too. I think it'll be great. And I think that our audience will be able to have some great takeaways from your insights, your leadership, and the vision that you have for Foodbridge.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: Fingers crossed.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: Yes. Right. Yeah, that's good. Today with Kevin, we'll be talking about leading with kindness. And the problem facing many in the audience is that being a leader is hard. And it often feels like they have to choose between being strong and. And being kind. So, Kevin, how do you lead in a way that's both strong and kind?
[00:02:48] Speaker B: I don't think it's a choice. I think you have to be both. I think that I'm a big believer in people knowing that you have the capability to have the big stick when it matters, but be the quiet voice in the room when it matters most.
And what I mean by that is I think often if you're too kind and never have that forcefulness behind you, people can take Advantage of that. Or maybe they don't trust you to make the right decision, even for themselves or for others or for the business when it matters most.
But you also have to make sure that you choose your time when you use the stick versus the carrot.
And that happens when you've had enough of those carrot conversations to understand what the expectations are, make sure that there's a mutual agreement that happens. And this goes for employees, but it also goes for, maybe it's a client, another company, a partner, but knowing that if they don't follow through for their expectations or you don't follow through to your expectations, there should be a direct conversation that happens.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I absolutely agree. Accountability is really important in leadership. And I think clarity and communication is just as important too. And so when you have these conversations and the front end, everybody's committing. Right, right. And so whenever, when we're all in agreement, it gives us the capacity to go forward and lead and that, you know, that gives you the ability to have that empathy and that kindness. But then it's that crucial conversation that has to follow up.
[00:04:24] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: If we're not delivering to our commitments. Right. There's an understanding to say, hey, you know, let's understand why we didn't get what we committed to deliver on. But then let's understand it if it was a lack of understanding, clarity, or was it just a lack of not really showing up. Right. And buying into the vision of the organization. And so it's such a critical position to play as the leader of, you know, leading your team, you know, with empathy, but at the same point, sometimes having to prod them along to help them, you know, catch the vision in that.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: I think early on in my career I was taught the difference between two very powerful words, and you mentioned one of them, empathy versus sympathy.
And when you're empathetic, you feel like you've walked a mile in their shoes, you can understand, but you also were in this together. To your point, when you're setting goals, it shouldn't be the manager or the leader setting the goal as a dictating down. It should be a conversation that's a 360 conversation about how can we do this together?
Tie it back to the strategy, tie it back to the business and say what's most important.
If that's most important, how can you contribute?
And if you say that you can contribute in this way, let's talk about creating a goal that makes sense for you and it makes sense for the organization.
And so by that time, the accountability part becomes Easy, because it wasn't you dictating the goal. It was you deciding together with that person to say, that's the goal we both said that we were going to achieve.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: I love that. And I think that's so great, too, because then what happens is you create the room for strategic thinking to come in. Right. So now we've agreed to this goal. It's my idea, too. Right. So we've come up with this idea collectively.
Now, what's the critical path to get there? Right. And I know that I have your support in helping me get there and accomplish that, which is really neat, knowing that I'm bought in and the leader is bought in with me. And I think there's nothing better from a harmonious standpoint than the two individuals working together as a great team to achieve that. Which when we have that most of the time, then we don't need that stick.
Right. Because everybody's bought in on the front end of it.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: Exactly. I mean, the stick shouldn't be something you wield like a sword going into a battle. Right. It should be something that, you know is set behind the desk. It's set, you know, and I'm talking proverbially here. Yeah.
But just knowing that you both know when that time is going to come, before it even comes.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: And I think that too often leaders do not spend time tying individual goals. I don't care how far you go down in an organization is that at least they should have one or two goals that tie to the big picture of the organization. They can have as many individual goals. Right. For their department, for their role for them as an individual. But there should always be some that tie back to the strategy. Otherwise, why would they even buy into what the organization's all about? Unless they have a personal accountability to what that is going to be for the organization.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Absolutely. Well, and you think about that, that's being intrinsically motivated, then. Right. If I know the work that I'm doing matters and it's connected with the organizational vision, and I know that my functionality and role that I play allows me to accomplish these things, I know that one, I'm as a contributor, being fulfilled.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: Right.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: And so I'm leaving fulfilled, that gives me passion, that gives me energy. And knowing that when I leave every day, the office or work and whatever I'm doing, I know that I put forth an effort that is helping the organization move forward, which is really neat and really, really strategic for any organization that operates like that. And Inspo, we've come up with something called Visionary growth objectives. And so this takes. It's different than okrs, which we want to align the OKR aspect. But then the VGO is your own personal vision.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: That's right, right.
[00:08:40] Speaker A: As an individual, what are we going to do and what are our growth objectives that we want to accomplish? And so tying all of that in together, I think is really neat and it serves and creates incredible outcomes not only for the organization, but the individuals that work in the organization too.
[00:08:59] Speaker B: Well, if you know that the developmental pyramid here I'm talking with my hands again. But the, the base level of any employee is, I know what's expected of me at the top is how can we grow?
There's a lot of steps in between. I'll never get to that top of the pyramid unless when I'm setting the expectations that I'm connecting it to how we grow in the beginning.
So that is not only the okrs or the things that are happening within the organization business wise, but, but also the mission, vision and values, as you mentioned briefly, is to say that what do we stand for, what's our purpose, what's our why?
And then connecting the values, how do we lead not just internally, but externally facing with our customers, our clients, our partners, et cetera. And that every person that's in that organization should have some ownership of all of that 100%.
[00:09:59] Speaker A: I love that and I love the ownership aspect because when people have ownership, they're empowered.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: And that is the game changer to where leaders are empowering their people and they multiply the impact in and through that.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: Because when you get people to the top of the pyramid, Eric, it is less likely that they're going to leave that organization or leave you as leader. And you and I both know this. We've had this discussion before. People don't leave companies, they leave people.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: And if the people are not setting that together and saying, let's tie it back to the mission, vision, values and goals of the organization, they will be less likely because they feel like they're contributing to the goal.
And even if someone throws them a bag of money, obviously they're throwing a really big bag of money. That might be hard to convince, but they're going for a little pay raise or they're going for maybe a promotion at another organization.
If they don't get the feeling that they get that same way or same feeling of contribution and ownership, they may feel less likely to take that role because they feel like they're tied and connected, truly connected to the organization that They're a part of.
[00:11:11] Speaker A: Absolutely. And who wouldn't want to be, who really wouldn't want to be connected to the work that they do and the organization that they work for?
And what leader wouldn't want their people as connected to? Right. Because when you have that depth of passion and connectivity that that is something that you're teaching, that becomes relevant not just in the workplace, but also in the home environment too.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: You know, when we spend all of our time, you know, 55 hours a week, 40 hours a week, whatever it might be, you know, time in the office, you know, a lot of our awake hours as adults is actually working. Right. It's not at home in our family. And so we can either teach to work more or teach to have this greater capacity to give and be intrinsically tied to everything that it is that we do from our family to our vocation and to our relationships. And so when organizations bring that out, it makes everybody better. They're inspired and, and they are ready to go. So that gets me excited with you.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: Sharing that one of the roles that I shared with you before. Right. As a coach and a peer advisory leader with Vistage. One of the things you learn early on is leaders being vulnerable.
Right. It's because if you're having a mutual agreement, they have to be a fit for your peer group because it's now peers of people like you in an organization. And the first conversation you have with a potential member of your group is not only the things that they're doing day to day and maybe they're putting out fires and they say they don't have time for XYZ and what they're really. When you get to the root cause, it's not just about what's not happening at work, it's also what's not happening at home in their personal life.
And because think of that, if you, if you're spending all your time not navigating your employees willingness to be a part of an organization and really nurture that relationship, then you're just going to hire more people. Well, how much time does that take? Constantly hiring people and firing people or they fire themselves or whatever that may be, and it's a waste of money, it's a waste of time and it's taking time away from you personally. Absolutely right. It's not just taking time away from you being a better leader at work, but being a better person in your life 100%.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: And that is so transferable across all fronts as you share that. And I reflect on that and I think that for people to work for, leaders that have empathy and that have that kindness, but also have that accountability, those are some of the best leaders to work for, I believe, and work with. Because you're empowered, you're intrinsically motivated, and they have the best interest for you. Right. Because they're invested. The leader is invested in you. And so, Kevin, I appreciate you coming on our show today, talking about this and talking about what it is to lead strong and kind. And it was a great conversation that we had, and looking forward to having you on our next segment, too.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: Same here.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: Awesome.
We'll be right back.
We're back with more on the inspired culture.
Welcome back, Kevin. And we're here to talk to you today a little bit about making work feel meaningful. The problem facing many in the audience is that their jobs feel disconnected from making a difference, and it often feels unfulfilling.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: So, Kevin, how can people find meaning in their everyday work?
[00:15:07] Speaker B: How many have you ever, like, in your early career worked where it was like it was just a job? I think everybody has at one point, right? They worked a job because they needed money. They needed something, and you had to come up with your own motivation to go other than money. Right. And early on, that's fine. Right. But as you grow in your career, in your personal life, it starts to.
Then you start to question, like, what am I doing here? Like, literally, what am I doing here?
And I think that there's two things that I will say about the early part of your stages. Finding meaning in the work that you do is not every organization that you work for makes you feel warm and fuzzy about what they do.
Take nothing against it, but, like, if I'm doing telemarketing or something like that. Right. It's a job, you're making money, et cetera. But you have to find a little meaning, even if it's a relationship with the person at the cube next to you.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: That keeps you going and coming back because of the relationships that you build. Right. Or that you feel like, hey, I made a difference in one customer's life.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: So it's those little things in the beginning that start to give you a positive snowball effect. Right. It just keeps going.
The opposite of that is if you let the job overtake kind of your personal life, then it becomes the doom loop, the opposite effect. Right.
[00:16:44] Speaker A: I like that. The doom loop.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: Right. You just keep going and going and going and going and going.
And so I think that that's what happens for young people in their careers when they first, start out in an organization. I think as you grow, you start to think about no matter what the organization is, are there things that we could do or I could be a part of to bring that joy or meaningfulness in my career. So, for example, maybe there's a committee that you can start with fellow employees. It's things like giving back to the community. Maybe you go to a local food bank and you volunteer for a day, or you find some kind of cause around a holiday celebration, or some people might have fine jars in meetings when you're late, et cetera, and turn that into a charitable cause or something that again, just those little things that can create meaning. Even if the things that you do within that organization and the stuff you, you provide for your customers may not feel like it's meaningful, you can find that on your own personal joy by connecting with those types of things.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: Absolutely. And I love that you use the word joy. And I also really appreciate you talking about the doom loop and the vision. Right. Or, you know, showing up to make money.
You know, gosh, if I would have known in my early days that I could have decided to start with a vision and then start working and understand my purpose from the very beginning, it would very much have changed the dynamic of where I ended up in and throughout my career, you know, and granted, every step was a step to grow and learn, but I didn't know really what my personal calling was. Right. And I don't think many do. And the younger we are, we, you know, we go through the system, right? We graduate high school, some of us go to college, some of us pay your due to work, right? And then we, we leave and then we went for one thing. But a lot of times we end up somewhere else, you know, because it wasn't available or it just wasn't what we thought it was going to be at the end of our time in the classroom.
And it's doing the work on the front end to find that enjoyment.
I believe it starts with our own purpose and our own vision for what we want to do.
And a lot of times we don't know, and sometimes it takes a little bit of time to figure that out and have that. But I think that's gotta be a mindset really for everybody watching today.
It's a mindset to think about what is my purpose, what is the vision that I have, and really what's my calling in my vocation.
Because that's going to be a good fit that will bring that joy to you naturally, because it's not going to be a friction point. You're going to actually be going with the direction that you were meant to go. And so that there's that internal fulfillment, fulfillment that comes from recognizing your purpose. And I believe the earlier that we do that, the better off we all are.
[00:19:56] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: It took me a while personally to get there to figure that out like I believe it does for most.
[00:20:02] Speaker B: Yes, it did for me.
I want to come back to the Joy second in a minute because I think I got a good story for that one.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: Love it.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: But I want to touch on what you said about when you're starting in your career.
If I knew then what I know now and trying to find what is my own why, then I think that you can start to. It's easier to figure out ways to create meaning in the work that you're doing today. And also it helps you develop a goal, even if it's intrinsically of where you want to go.
And it happened kind of late for me, too. I mean, I went to school to be a teacher and I have all the respect in the world for teachers. And it just so happened. It was something that happened in my family business, et cetera, that I had to help. And I took some time away from teaching that I wound up in retail by accident.
And I just said, hey, I like audio. And while I'm waiting for the next teaching job to open up and Best Buy was opening up in my local town and I said, I like to like to talk about stereos and stuff, dating myself there. I don't think anybody uses the word stereo anymore. But I do think that what happened was I fell in love with the possibility of the energy that you get in retail.
But it wasn't until I went from the field and in corporate office and eventually through round layoffs, et cetera, that happened at Best Buy at this time. It was around 2009, and I may have had five people in my LinkedIn network at that time and never really took it seriously. I was a late bloomer in LinkedIn stage. Right now I've got. I don't know, I lost count. But what I learned and then transferred that to any young people that came through my organization's following was be the CMO of you.
[00:22:04] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Because if you don't take the time to market and brand yourself on what you want to do, and this isn't about like boasting or having an ego, it's more about what is your purpose, what's your superpowers, what things can you develop over time, even if you don't have them today, the things that really bring you joy are the things that are going to drive your life decisions and your career decisions later.
And I think that the biggest problem that a lot of people have is they spend so much time, especially if they've been with an organization a long time. I was with best buy for 15 years. Never had to worry about marketing myself because everybody knew me within the organization and they knew my hard work and I came up from farms. So that was I, I, I got advancement by work outworking everybody. That was my thing. Right. That was my superpower at the time.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: But once you grow up in the ranks. Right. It's not just about the level of work. In fact, if you're working hard and no one else is, that's the problem with.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: Right, Absolutely.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: So I think that I took that time to basically figure out what my brand was, what was my purpose. And so fast forward to when I ran Shop LC as president. I used to have this thing called Patriots with the president. And we would do that like once a quarter and we'd have anyone who wanted to come in the organization, 550 people in the organization.
A lot of them would be middle managers or even line level employees that would come and I would do a class about marketing yourself. I'd make them get out, create their LinkedIn profile if they didn't have one, talk about what it was. I probably got in trouble on the, at the corporate office because I said, look, no company is loyal to you at the end of the day. Yeah. And so you have to figure out kind of what you want to be.
And that could turn into you being the most successful employee at this organization ever. Or it could be that you, this isn't for you and you need to find something else. Right. But it comes back to that joy. It's like you need to find that, but you don't know unless you take the time to work on yourself, create a vision for yourself, create that mission statement, create your why and then go from there.
[00:24:12] Speaker A: Absolutely. Well. And Kevin, I appreciate that you're an incredible leader because you're not controlling your giving. You're empowering your people to be the CMO of themselves and define that superpower. Right. And I love that you say superpower because I believe that everybody's been given a gift or, or two. Right. And I think God does that. He gives everybody a spiritual gift. And those strengths that we have, you know, come from him. And everybody has one. Everybody has one. And so I don't want anybody to ever think, well, I'm just me and I don't have anything. No, you do.
[00:24:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: You know, and leaders like you, Kevin, get to unlock that. Right. You get to help people see that and find that. And that's beautiful because that gives them the ability to rise and grow in their strengths and in their purpose. You know, And I love that you lead that way and that you led your teams that way, too, to be their own CMOs. Because you're waving the flag higher than anybody else for them to succeed. Right, Right.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: And wherever your biggest cheerleader. Right.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: Yes. And wherever the chips fall, they fall. But you're there for them and nothing more.
[00:25:18] Speaker B: Right.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: Right. You're there for them to win.
[00:25:20] Speaker B: Yeah. When we talked about before, about goal setting and all that, it's not just about the accountability side. It's also taking the time to celebrate the wins when they come.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: Because that also brings energy. Right. You gotta know when you're successful, what does good look like? And if you never take the time to say, I painted a picture, what good looks like, I actually achieved that good.
So let's take time to celebrate that good. You know, when you talked about Joy earlier, funny story, going through a rebranding at Shop lc When I took over at that time, we were known as the Liquidation Channel. And it was such an odd thing for me when I was getting recruited to that role because we sold jewelry and we sold lifestyle goods and et cetera. The Liquidation Channel came from the founder almost going out of business, decided to have a big liquidation sale. Lo and behold, all the customers start responding. So he rebranded it from the Jewelry Channel to the Liquidation Channel.
And we were going through kind of, well, what are we going to be going forward? And we were actually the CEO of the parent company and I were on a bus in New York. We were at a conference, and we were doing a tour. It was like an innovation tour.
And we just started talking about, what does LC mean? Right. Take the Liquidation Channel side of it. What does it mean to our customers? How do our customers feel?
We always get stories you get at a home shopping network. People don't realize that you get about 12 to 15,000 messages an hour from your customers interacting.
So you're going to get a lot of customer feedback.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: Even then, if you didn't ask for it. Right. And so the one thing that constantly came up is how people feel when that package arrives at their door.
And it came down to, like, what's the one word that encompasses it? Joy.
I feel joy. When I get that. And so our tagline became delivering joy.
And not only did that transform the way our customers started to interact, when we rebranded the shop lc, we kept the LC as the legacy part of that. Now it was low cost.
Right. And the action of shopping. But that delivering joy was not only a call to action for the customer and how they were going to feel when they experience our brand, but. But our employees knowing that they're delivering joy for those customers can now feel connected.
[00:27:40] Speaker A: I love that connection because then that gives them purpose. Right? We're delivering joy and that's the experience that our customers are getting. That's the experience they're getting. Right. And the organization is getting too.
That's an incredible story.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: And in fact it turned into where we went next, which was customer acquisition isn't just about the bits and bytes of things. It was also about having a connection to our community.
And so we started a one for one program where every item that was purchased, because these are guilty pleasures people are buying. Right. How can you make them feel good about that purchase? So we donated a meal to a midday meal program with Akshupatra in India, also in the US and no kid hungry. And the first year which shocked us was we had donated 13 million meals.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: Wow. 13 million.
[00:28:35] Speaker B: 13 million meals. Because you're talking about these low, I'll call it low ticket, but high volume transactions every day. And it was scary. If you think about it from the CEO's perspective or the board's perspective of going, wow, that's how much money do those meals cost?
Like thinking from the P and L. And it's kind of like when you join an organization, they tell you to go into 401k. And I always tell people it's like that first paycheck's gonna hurt, but after a while you just kind of. That's the mode you go in. It's the same thing with a program like that is yeah, it'll probably, you'll feel it initially because it is going to be a hit. But then you're gonna start to see customer acquisition. Your customer acquisition costs go down. Right. Your transactions from that customer, over the course of the year, their share wallet goes up. So it's all gonna be a good thing down the road. And your employees connect to it because they know that they are a part of something that you're doing. And this is an industry that they're not selling things that are like for the community good, it's for the self good.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: For the self good.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: Right. But then you Connect it to the community. Good. It can be really powerful.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: That's awesome. That's a great story on joy and how you guys have transformed an organization to live it out on a daily basis. I think that's really neat. It's really inspiring. So, you know, for other organizations to see that it's not necessarily what you do, but it's how you do it. And. And that's really, really neat.
It is.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: And that's how Food Foodbridge came to be. Right. Is because we were a technology company and now we're. We have a technology that's actually something for food banks, food, food pantries. Right. Making a difference in the food insecure, shrinking or food deserts using technology.
[00:30:17] Speaker A: You know, it's interesting. Those 13 million meals connected to you, to your next journey in Foodbridge.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: You know, that's really, really neat.
Gosh, that's great.
We'll be right back.
We're back with more on the inspired culture.
Welcome back, Kevin. And today we're going to be talking about building strong communities.
The problem facing many in an audience is that their communities feel divided, and it often feels hard to bring people together. Kevin, how does your work help unite communities?
[00:31:01] Speaker B: Well, I shared a story about what we did@shop LC with our One for One program. And as you mentioned, it said, and that puts you on this path to Foodbridge.
And I think that as you get older in your career, you start to think about going back to. You should always revisit your why.
And I think my why became pretty apparent talking to folks like you and coaches I've had in my life and mentors. And by the way, if you don't have a mentor, this is for anyone.
You're doing yourself a disservice. Everyone should have a mentor in their life.
And I think it was more about where do you want to spend the rest of your days if you're really like in the twilight of your career and you're thinking about business and how can you feel connected to what you're doing? And I think, really, I didn't grow up for much. I grew up in a town of 400 people, family with. Came from a divorced family, didn't have a lot of money. You know, I remember eating government cheese, they used to call it back in the day, and all of that type of stuff. And so I think it was always in the back of my mind to say, you know, I remember how that felt.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:22] Speaker B: And at some point in my career, I need to figure out how I'm going to make that difference, Right? And so that the One for One program was a big boost for that.
But from the foodbridge side of things, we're building technology platforms. You talk about E commerce and AI and all the technology that's out there today and think about, how can I use that for good? We've seen lots of examples where AI is not used for good in our society today.
And how can you create a connectedness with your community as an organization?
And it was really one of our partners was touring with one of his clients who actually happened to run a donut shop, and they were going to a new opening and it was in front of a Walmart. And he said, why on earth would you put a donut shop right in front of Walmart? Don't they sell donuts? And he said, have you ever heard a snap?
And he said, well, yeah, he says, I was actually on it when I was younger. And we're talking about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, right? So what people used to call food stamps, okay? And he said, well, donuts are actually eligible for snap. And so we do this because people who don't spend all of their allotment because it's a use or lose program, right? If I get $500 in a month, and let's say I spent $380, I got $120 left in the month. I need to spend that because it's not carrying over to the next month. And that's where folks like Seven eleven Dollar, General, Donut shops, whatever. If they're part of the program and they found that loophole for it to be there, then neighbors who are on that program can use those benefits for food that isn't healthy, isn't nutritious, probably not economical either. You're not getting the most for your dollar.
He came back and we had a long conversation, the partners and I, talking about, there's something here that we got to figure out.
This is insanity. We got to figure it out, right? How do we do what we're doing and try to remedy this issue?
And so the more we dug in and more we started talking through it, talking to food banks, talking to food pantries that are on this treadmill constantly of raising donations.
So I don't know if you. I mean, I've given time and money to charities and folks in the past.
And you think about it, and if you've done that regularly, you're probably gonna get a call again next year to donate because they know you did it before. And so it's that treadmill that I'm on. And so we know when dips in economy like we have today and all that, that money starts to get scarcer. And so if I don't have that, these food banks and pantries have to decide if they have to kill programs that have been successful in their community because they don't have enough money or funding to do it, or they want to start some new programs and they can't. They want to help some of their pantry partners to get more food, et cetera, and they can't because they're now since the pandemic, the increase in food spending for food banks and pantries has gone up like 4,5x. Right. It's crazy.
[00:35:39] Speaker A: It really has.
[00:35:40] Speaker B: Yeah. And now with the changes like in bills and things that have come out in legislation that the states are going to be required to fund more of that and the food banks and pantries were at a hunger summit recently in Indiana and it really came out that they're hopeful but they're scared.
And so the program was developed to take our technology, which is how can a food bank or pantry control more of their own destiny?
[00:36:13] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: Right. And we're not trying to turn them into profit centers or grocery stores. It's more about having a fund balance that they can repurpose back because they're 501s, they got to do that, but repurpose it back into their communities, whether that's start a new farmer's market, buy a mobile food pantry truck, maybe provide cold food storage for food pantry partners, et cetera. So they can offer more than just canned goods or boxed goods.
And so that commerce platform engine, by being able to accept snap helps the neighbor and the community, but also helps the food bank and the food pantry. Because now they have a fun balance to work with. But at the same time, we all love it when a Target or Walmart or something comes into our neighborhood. Right. At Costco, whatever it may be. But what that's done over time is all the little mom and pop grocery stores have gone away. Right. So the food deserts are actually growing.
[00:37:08] Speaker A: That's interesting.
[00:37:09] Speaker B: Right. And so you think of urban markets where you have lack of transportation to get to a grocery store. SNAP doesn't cover things like delivery. So they can't do you and I just get it delivered to the front door. Right. And they can't get transportation to go do buy a line pickup in store. Right. Unless they're going to take it on the bus or the train, like here where we are in Chicago. Right. It's like public transportation they could use, but how are they going to do that for weeks worth of groceries for their family?
And so food pantries and food banks happen to be in a lot of these food deserts where they can actually help shrink that by offering those programs for them, still offering free food, offering all the things that they do today. But now they have an opportunity to offer more if they want. Cause the purpose of the mission of any hunger relief organization shouldn't be a handout, it should be a hand up.
Because the whole goal of those programs is to make sure that we can get them out of poverty. In fact, average is about 100 to 150,000 people a year come out of poverty because of result of being on those programs.
[00:38:14] Speaker A: I love that and I love how you said hand up because I think that's also growth, right? And it's an opportunity to take what situation we're in today and have the tools available to you to grow and step out of what you were in into something new. Right? And so what a great life giving element being, you know, these food banks, the platform that you offer and you have to these organizations to really help the, the population centers all around the US Right, have the ability to, you know, every person faces different circumstances, but allow them one route out, right. You know, and so you're giving them a tool, you're equipping them, you're fueling them, literally fueling them as individuals with healthy food choices, with healthy options locally, which gives them the ability to keep their resources differently to then help them grow into their next role, their next position as a family, as an individual.
It's a really neat program.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: And the thing is that it's not that the United States does not have access to food, there's a lot of access to food, but you can draw a map around your own community you live in and say, how many fast food places are there, how many donut shops, how many things that are all around you? That's not nutritious food.
And the US spent over a trillion dollars last year on medical costs due to malnutrition.
[00:39:47] Speaker A: Yeah, that's, you know, I like eating healthy personally. It's, you know, it gives you the energy you need and everything else just.
[00:39:55] Speaker B: Makes you feel better, right. Mentally, Yeah.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: I mean, it takes away the brain fog, right?
You have energy, when you wake up every day, you have enough to sustain you through the day. You don't have these spikes, you know, up and downs throughout the day with it.
[00:40:11] Speaker B: And think about kids struggling with hunger, right? They can't concentrate on their schoolwork.
[00:40:15] Speaker A: Right.
[00:40:15] Speaker B: Because they're thinking about, where am I going to get my next meal? Yeah.
[00:40:19] Speaker A: And that's scary. Kids shouldn't have to think about that. Right, Exactly.
[00:40:22] Speaker B: Especially here.
[00:40:23] Speaker A: Right. They shouldn't have to think about that.
[00:40:26] Speaker B: Tying it back, Eric, to the original question is just building something that is the community. One of the things I talk about when I work with companies and organizations about creating their balanced scorecard. The balanced scorecard isn't just about the okrs we talked about before.
It's like I like to divide it up and say there's a customer aspect of this. So customer acquisition, customer retention, loyalty, all of those types of things. Then there's the shareholder part of that, which is all what we all think about. Right. It's revenue, it's margin, profit, profitability, et cetera, the cost controls. But then the other part of that is also the employee experience.
Going back to connecting, having a place that I feel like I'm connected to, working.
So those things about employee retention, engagement. But the last one that's a lot of people miss is that sustainability or connection to your community.
What are the KPIs that you're going to measure about how you're giving back to your community or creating something that is sustainable, whether it's a green energy initiative, whether it's, I'm going to. We're gonna start some kind of charity or grant program. Right. Or donating meals. Right. Or donating time. But those need to be measured just as importantly as all those other OKRs.
[00:41:50] Speaker A: Absolutely, 100%. And you think about it as a food bank operating in those communities, having something to give like that, you know, you're not only giving food anymore, but you're also giving hope.
[00:42:02] Speaker B: Well, what happens is, you know, it's funny that you mention that because I think the eye opener for both the pantries and food banks when you're on site. We were actually at a food pantry in North Carolina recently and we were talking about where the neighbors go for their food.
And they happened to be right next to a general dollar type store.
And I said, and they called out, the managing director of the pantry, said, these people come in our food pantry all the time for food and they're hanging out over there. And I said, yeah, because if now imagine they have SNAP benefits, they're taking it over there.
What do you think the value they're getting for the food from there? A $3 bottle of orange juice that's like this big. Right? Or any other food that's not nutritious where they could be coming here, where all you have is nutritious food and providing that. Right.
So it's not that you're taking them away from what they're doing there. And she also shared with us that if they come in for food, the thing that we want to do is be able to also talk to them about all of the wraparound services that we can provide. Housing, careers, medical, like whatever it may be, mental health services.
And so that's where the conversational AI comes in is to say, but what about the neighbors who aren't walking through your door?
[00:43:37] Speaker A: That's right. Yep.
[00:43:39] Speaker B: You're not getting to them. You're not telling them all the things that are possible. And with a two way conversation that I can have at scale with a neighbor who is giving me that information versus me prying it out of them, now I know down to a zip code where is the most need. So therefore, if I'm deciding where I'm going to put my next mobile food pantry or farmer's market or I have a pantry partner who just doesn't have enough food to give them, I can see where the need is, or I can share that with some of my agencies in the state or local community that are providing free Medicare coverage. Right. Or mental health services or housing or those types of things. And I can do that now without waiting for them to walk through my door.
[00:44:22] Speaker A: And that's really neat, Kevin. You know, foodbridge is really taking a holistic approach to, and not only carrying the issue of hunger in these local communities, but really loving the people well, and providing so much more than just food, as food is the product that fuels. But it's the love and the care that you're providing that's really holistically wrapping your arms around every individual and creating the opportunity for them to grow in the environments that they're in today. That's really neat. FoodBridge is such an incredible organization and. And they couldn't have a better leader than you.
[00:44:56] Speaker B: Well, I'm not alone and we're certainly excited, but I have all the admiration in the world for these people who run food banks and food pantries, the things that they have to deal with every day. And I obviously have a big heart for our food insecure neighbors. I mean, 42 million people were on SNAP in 2023.
And so that's not going away. Right. It's gonna continue to rise. And there's a lot of people who should be on SNAP that aren't. And there's people that through the pandemic, et cetera, who were on SNAP that probably shouldn't be. And again, these are things like the technology can bring is to help you not only get to more people that need it, but also weed out the people who don't. Right. Because we want to provide that funding and the mechanisms to help people who actually need it.
And that gives us the opportunity to do that and be on a secure platform, those types of things. And it's also led to what's next for me, what other things can I do to provide to the community? So one of the things I'm working on right now is, you know, how do we take a lot of this old commercial real estate, the abandoned commercial real estate where I live in northern Colorado, we recently had a shooting at a mall, a couple people. It wasn't a mass shooting, but it was a couple people died, unfortunately. And I think about all of those spaces that are getting underused right now. And when they're underused and neglected, people will take advantage of that for things, nefarious things.
And so how can we convert a lot of those spaces into something that does good? Because if you do that, the less likely that those types of activities are going to happen. So converting old real estate into community centers that actually can bring good things, like teaching kitchens, like a garden center, like urban growth centers, teaching clinics, a pantry, like all of those things under one roof in a community that needs it the most. And then, I mean, what's going to happen to that real estate if it doesn't get used?
[00:46:53] Speaker A: Right? And that's a great vision to have, you know, these untapped buildings that, you know, are underutilized today, where you're re. You're bringing a new vision, igniting a new environment for them. You know, that's really great, Kevin. You know, thanks for joining us on this show.
We are so grateful to hear the story and your vision of what you do in your organization, you know, and just the passion that you have for it. You know, gosh, those food deserts should be grateful to have you leading the charge with FoodBridge because you have a system that is going to bring great change. And it is.
[00:47:30] Speaker B: I don't like this work. I love this work.
[00:47:32] Speaker A: Yeah, that's awesome, Kevin. Thank you.
We'll be right back.
[00:47:41] Speaker B: Foreign.
[00:47:43] Speaker A: We'Re back with more on the Inspired Culture.
Welcome to the Inspired Culture. Kevin. Welcome back. And we're talking about turning big problems into opportunities.
The problem facing many in the audience is that big issues like hunger seem to overwhelming to tackle. And it often feels hopeless. Kevin, how do you stay hopeful to when facing big problems?
[00:48:12] Speaker B: That is a big question.
[00:48:13] Speaker A: It is a big question.
[00:48:15] Speaker B: I think, you know, for me, and this has only happened probably in the last 10 years of my career, is that the big, really hard things are the things that you should be focused on.
Now I've grown up in strategy and all that, like you. And you always focus on kind of the matrix, right. Of doing. You put up to the value exchange matrix, right. You always focus on the things that have the highest value and really easy to do. Of course you want to pick off the low hanging fruit, right. But I always say the next quadrant, the things that have high value but are really hard to do.
[00:48:50] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:48:51] Speaker B: And those are the next things that you should be working on. It goes back to like the old Stephen Covey exercise where he puts the rocks and the pebbles in the jar, right. And if you do it the wrong way, it's showing you that if you focus way too much on the little things, you can't fit all the big things in.
[00:49:05] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:49:06] Speaker B: And I think that it's really important for people to think about these really big issues. I shared earlier about the thing that drove Foodbridge was this really big problem about snap, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program and the loopholes that are there and how there are lots of companies who have profited quite a bit off of that program, quite honestly, taking advantage of neighbors.
And not only that, but also the fact that food deserts have grown in our country. In our country, I'm not talking about some third world country. In our country, they've grown significantly.
And that gap between healthy food and the neighbors that need it the most has just continued to increase.
So when you think about a problem like that, you have to boil it down to, like, first you've got to just come back to business, listen to the customer.
And it was, I think, Howard Behar book. One of the things that one of his traits, which I always admire, that he talks about in his top 10 list, the person who sweeps the floor should get to choose the broom.
And that's the same thing with problems, right? If you're solving any big problem in your organization or in your community or the world, is to say, go talk to the people who actually face the problem. Like, if you can't get to the person who's encountering the problem, get to the person who is facing the person encountering the problem the next closest, Right. It's just like a customer service agent, right. One of the things that we did At Shop LC was we required all of our executives to listen to call, to go into customer service work and listen in on calls. A couple of hours every month.
[00:50:52] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:50:53] Speaker B: Right. Not a big time. Right. And then we also. What led to that was the development of us taking those. As I mentioned, we get 12 to 15,000 text messages, emails at every hour that we're on. Because you're 24 7.
And taking all of that and basically using that as things to help us in our business.
Because the customer's telling you, right?
It's all in the spaces between the words. It's that they say that you pick up on, right? And then if you're listening to them and valuing them, and then if you're trying to solve things like being more efficient, right? Go work in the warehouse, go pick product.
You'll find out where the inefficiencies are when you're talking to the people and you experience what they're experiencing every single day, right? And you get frustrated and upset and then you go, well, no wonder, right? No wonder our lowest scores in that department are X. Because this is what they deal with. And unless you experience it yourself, you're never gonna know.
And the same thing is true for problems in our society, right, Is to say, like, unless you've experienced it. And actually several of our partners within Foodbridge have experienced it personally, so it matters.
[00:52:00] Speaker A: It does matter.
[00:52:01] Speaker B: And then second is that we've talked to lots and lots of food banks and food pantries. We've talked now. And now we're shifting our focus to talking to state governments who are now faced with this, like, how am I going to pay for what I didn't use to pay for things like funding the SNAP program. States have to fund the administration of the SNAP program that they never really had to fund the program itself, right? The money behind the SNAP EBT cards. But now they're going to be forced to actually have their own share. So you're talking to them, right? And then you're talking to folks around social determinants of health. Hunger is the second highest social determinant health, next to medical. Right. And health.
And so when you start talking to health organizations, what are their biggest challenges? Right? So one of the pilots that we're running in North Carolina is partnering with an organization that provides Medicare coverage to those who need it most subsidized plans, right? And they're saying, like, their problem is data. They don't know who needs it. So if you use something like a technology, like conversational AI, where you can. The neighbor's telling you they need it.
[00:53:07] Speaker A: Right.
[00:53:07] Speaker B: And you're collecting that information at a scale, at a macro level, all encrypted, but it's at least telling you geographically, where are your issues.
And therefore, rather than me going rolling cars and people out knocking on doors and doing surveys, which I could still do through the conversational AI platform, I'm actually getting that data in real time about the people that are in need.
[00:53:29] Speaker A: That is so strategic because then it allows you to focus your efforts and get the reward from the efforts. Right. But it's rewarding you for the work that you're passionate about, but it's actually giving life to the people that need it most.
[00:53:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And one of the partners that we've talked about, and they build actual mobile food trucks. Right. For pantries, food banks, et cetera. And one of the things that their CEO shared with me was the economics behind a truck like that is that you need really about 50 confirmed meals at every stop to make it profitable or worthwhile for that stop.
So it was like the light bulb went off for both of us talking about how Foodbridge could actually be that bridge for them to what if I could guarantee those 50, I could get them pre ordered, and then I can still bring food for the people who walk up. And now the business side of this is I'm making the investment in that food truck worth it now, because I know not only where to go with the truck next, but also that I can get those things ordered ahead of time so that I know at least I'm getting to that 50.
And then anything I get on top of that. Right. Is the preferable icing on the cake. And it makes better business decision. But it's also serving a need for the community because I'm going where I need to go. The worst thing that you could feel if you were an administrator of a hunger relief organization is you plop down a farmer's market or you plop a mobile food pantry in the neighborhood and no one comes.
[00:54:58] Speaker A: Nobody comes. It's just a waste of everything then.
[00:55:01] Speaker B: Right.
[00:55:01] Speaker A: You know, I love the thought and the strategy that you put in place with the partnerships that you're doing. Because what you're doing is mobilizing a system that's going to support long term with intelligence backing behind it. And the thing that I appreciate, because what I'm seeing and what you're sharing and your passion that's coming out, Kevin, and all of this is that you found the challenge and you've turned it into an opportunity. But the thing is, is that. And what I believe is that you get for those that want to pursue the challenge will always get the greatest reward. Because when you turn that challenge into an opportunity, what it requires is all of you to really think about all of it. And when you have that level of capacity of thinking and investing into resolving and solving, what becomes this opportunity then grows into this massive vision for people to really change what it is that they do. And I think that more people should take on challenges because it creates the best opportunities. And I don't want people to feel like, oh, that's a challenge. I don't know that I want to do it. Gosh, it's like, that's a challenge. Let's go, let's go after it. Because something good, good fruit will come out on the other end of it if you pursue it fully. And that's what you're doing.
[00:56:25] Speaker B: And even in your personal life, Eric, sorry to cut you off, but I think that what you just triggered for me was in your own career, you think about the really hard things that you've avoided in your life.
And we've all done it. We've all taken a decision path somewhere or another. That may have been the easiest, but maybe it wasn't the most fulfilling or most rewarding in the long term.
And I think that that's true in our personal life. Like now with my work that I'm doing with Vistage, for example, the one thing you learn through this build process is to say that you have to do the really hard things up front. And if you invest the really time in doing the really hard things up front, things like business development and things like calling on CEOs, et cetera, to join and actually tracking the information to know, like, how do you follow up effectively and all that to really build your team. And then you start, once you get your team built, then it's more of a kind of a maintenance thing, but also that you get to do the really meaningful work then. Cause you get to sit in a room and solve issues together.
And I think that when you avoid that, and I've caught myself from time to time, you get up in the morning, you got goals, something happens and then you like, you do the easy thing. Yeah. Right.
[00:57:45] Speaker A: What's comfortable?
[00:57:46] Speaker B: Strengths finder. Like they would call that the achiever, the one who creates to do lists just to mark some off, to say that they achieved them. Right.
And I think that you fall into that trap, right. Is to say, like, I feel like I've done Something. But then when you go back, at the end of the day, did it really make a difference?
[00:58:02] Speaker A: You didn't move any strategic balls. It was all the whirlwind.
[00:58:05] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:58:06] Speaker A: Craig Groeschel says, do the next hard. Right.
You know, because doing the right thing isn't easy. It is hard. And, you know, as leaders, we're called to tackle the challenges, you know, and really take a look at it. And that's hard to do.
[00:58:22] Speaker B: And you can't do it alone.
[00:58:23] Speaker A: No, you can't.
[00:58:24] Speaker B: And that's why, you know, the power of peers, the power of partnerships we were talking about with Foodbridge is to say, we don't want to be all things to the hunger relief effort. Right? We want to make sure that we're doing the right thing, that we're good at our talents, our skills, abilities to provide. But we can bring on partners who do the other things really, really well and are really smart to solve it together, because it isn't going to take one person trying to figure all this out. So when you think about organizations like Ample Harvest is a great example up in New York, where I talked to the founder of that organization, and that's what he taught me.
And he doesn't know this, by the way. We've had maybe a couple of conversations, but it really was impactful to me. And he said, we've been in existence for a long time, but we never pretended to try to do all the things to solve the problem.
Our only thing that we focus on is creating community gardens to share and reduce the urban food deserts. And that's all we're focused on. Right. And if you need to solve the other things, then find the partners that will help you get there. Create a community around the problem. Right? And that's what I love about things like vistage, is to say, like, you're creating a community to solve an issue, but you have to be vulnerable enough to know you don't have all the answers. That's one. And then two is that this isn't about the law of E.F. hutton. Right. This isn't about the person with the loudest voice and everybody stops. Right. You don't want to be the smartest person in the room.
[00:59:59] Speaker A: No, that's right. And the vulnerability goes with humility.
[01:00:02] Speaker B: Right.
[01:00:02] Speaker A: We have to be able to see, listen, and, you know, and hear what others have to say and really take that to heart, you know, to develop the best platforms, the best programs, the best solutions.
All of it comes from a team environment and collaboration. You know, the team gets better when everybody's involved. Right. And they have that approach.
[01:00:25] Speaker B: Otherwise you get myopic. I learned this early in my career at Best Buy when you worked in retail. So you can attest to this, pardon my French, but we called them the swoop and poop visits, is that you get visits from a corporate office or regional or district. Right. And you'd walk around and you walk your store every day. Right. Even if you're a really good manager and you walk your store every, every day, you know that that person's going to find something. Why? Because you get myopic.
You're focused on putting out fires, you're getting to the next customer, the next employee, whatever is happening.
And you miss those things. And you always need that outside perspective. Well, what about this? And it isn't catching you at something. That's what I used to think mentally in my mind is I'm getting caught. But it's not. It's about opening your eyes and to say you need someone else to see the things that you can't see.
[01:01:18] Speaker A: Yeah. It's definitely put on a new set of lenses for somebody to come into a new environment.
And that's why leadership coaching, that's why advisors, all those are so important to come into organizations, because you've all lived it for so long that you know the streets, the homes and where they're all located, and you need somebody new to see different and give you and bring ideas to that space.
[01:01:44] Speaker B: And what's more powerful to me is not only the people who are in the same industry or the same market, because actually a problem happens when you get at the top is you don't want to share too much with your competition. Right. But I don't care if you have a problem in retail. Have you ever asked someone who runs a hospital to come look at your business and vice versa?
[01:02:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:02:08] Speaker B: And you'd be like, why would I do that? Well, because everyone. I don't care if it's a hospital, if it's a retail store, if it's a food bank, whatever. You have problems around employees, you have problems around your constituents or your customers. You have problems around your operations. And they are very similar in how they creep up.
[01:02:29] Speaker A: Absolutely. And before we go, we'll make this comparison.
Hospitals in healthcare and retail both do the same thing. They provide an experience.
[01:02:40] Speaker B: That's right.
[01:02:41] Speaker A: One provides a shopping experience. The other provides a huge.
[01:02:44] Speaker B: One just means more, though.
[01:02:45] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:02:46] Speaker B: Don't die.
[01:02:47] Speaker A: That's right. That's right. You know, and so we're saving lives over here as we're, you know, serving lives over here. But the reality is, is both are experiencing something, and not only the patient, but their families coming to visit to the family shopping. And I believe that, you know, in sharing that. But in real reality, as we talk about it, there is value in that because it's a separate set of eyes that looks at things differently esthetically. There's a lot of similar requirements of clean shopping environments, to clean hospital hallways, to all of the variations of the presence that's created when you enter into the front doors of the. The apron of the retail store, to the lobby and the atrium of these hospitals and health systems.
[01:03:32] Speaker B: So that's how you solve big problems, right?
[01:03:34] Speaker A: That is. That's exactly right. You know, that crossover and all that. Kevin, it's been an incredible pleasure to have you on the show. You know, the Inspired culture. Thanks for you bringing your passion, your energy and your inspiration to the audience and our viewers.
We're really excited, and I'm sure that there's so much, so many takeaways for the live audience to take a look at.
[01:03:57] Speaker B: And so I know I have them.
[01:03:59] Speaker A: You know, I do, too.
[01:03:59] Speaker B: Amazing.
[01:04:00] Speaker A: And it's been a wealth of knowledge, and it's been an honor to have you today. I'm so grateful for your time, Kevin.
[01:04:06] Speaker B: I'm grateful for you, Eric. Thank you.
[01:04:08] Speaker A: Definitely. And look forward to catching up with you soon on another round of shows, too.
[01:04:14] Speaker B: Right?
[01:04:16] Speaker A: Thank you.
[01:04:16] Speaker B: Thank you.
[01:04:18] Speaker A: The inspired culture, inspiring leaders, transforming futures.