Building Culture That Lasts by Design with Shaun McKeogh, CEO & Founder of Attractions Academy

Shaun McKeogh 00:00
I think the biggest misconception is culture can't be changed or can't be formed. they just don't do anything to impact culture because they feel it's either too hard to change or it is the way it is.

if an organization does not have a detailed plan written down about how they're going to deliver service and achieve service, service delivery is not important to them.

Tim Samson 00:41
time to crank up our cultural IQ, because today we're joined by none other than Shaun McKeogh, a guy whose name is basically a

cheat code for how to fix guest experience, culture, and leadership when your staff flips faster than the roller coaster. If you've been to IAAPA in the last decade, chances are you witnessed Shaun in his natural habitat, leading workshops, mentoring rising stars, and crafting training systems that actually stick, even in of our industry. Shaun's story started in the front lines of Australia's mega parks, but let's be real, he didn't stop there.

He's been at the launch pad for Ferrari World Abu Dhabi and steered operations at King Power Mahanakorn in Bangkok. Here's what set Shaun apart. While most folks cross their fingers and hope culture just happens,

Shaun's out there with blueprints and scaffolding, literally architecting the stuff everyone else dreams about.

These days, he's a ringleader at Attractions Academy, tackling the question our industry loves to ignore.

How do you build a culture that lasts when half your team is gone every six months? Shaun's magic trick isn't about tech rides or trendy acronyms. It's about systems that make the frontline staff deliver real memorable guest experiences year after year, no matter how wild the staff turnover gets.

Tim Samson 01:49
Shaun, welcome to Signal

Shaun McKeogh 01:51
⁓ Thank you so much. Thank you, Tim. Thank you, John.

John Pendergrast 01:54
Yeah, we're super excited to have you

And Tim, you did a great job.

Shaun McKeogh 01:56
I'm excited too!

John Pendergrast 01:57
And Tim, you did a great job. Minus the Abu

Shaun McKeogh 01:58
excited too!

John Pendergrast 02:00
And to be fair, Abu Dhabi is one of those things that sounds like you're saying it wrong when you're saying it right. good.

Tim Samson 02:06
Right. if I re-record that and Gerry likes splices that

no one will know and they'll have no reference for what you just said.

Shaun McKeogh 02:12
I like it, I like it. Just leave it the way it is.

John Pendergrast 02:13
So I like it. Yeah. So we were doing this recording earlier and I was, I started this way to say, don't worry about what you say here because the reality is, that we have an grade a expert editor. And at the beginning of our first podcast in episode one, I was watching it through. I'm like, this is great. I mean, Tim, she's cutting him perfectly.

Tim Samson 02:15
Hahaha!

John Pendergrast 02:35
We're gonna get to me, I'm gonna have no cuts, it's gonna be great. And then it was like every word was a new cut. I'm not even sure I said what she has me saying because it was so many cuts. But anyways, we seem really professional. So everything you say here, we probably won't cut you at all, but us, we'll cut lots. we'll go from there. So how we like to start these things is to break them into kind of sections. And so to have a little bit of method to the madness.

We started off with what we call part one and listen, from clown to consultant origins, there's obviously a history there. And so instead of asking, well, no, maybe I will ask this question. Shaun, you've worn many hats in the industry, even literally as a clown early in your career. How did you get here and end up in training?

Shaun McKeogh 03:21
God, I don't know where you got this background information, but yeah, I was a clown in my career.

Where did you get this information? my God. I many years ago, I was in the Moomba Clown Club. And Moomba is a Melbourne festival in Australia. And it's been going on for many, many years. And they had a professional clown club. And I joined it because I wanted to be a clown. And I developed my own costume, my own name for my clown and my own look.

Shaun McKeogh 03:51
And I spent 12 months in training in these classes going every weekend to the Moomba Clown I suppose the big thing that we aimed for was the parade that we had every year through the city. And I actually did the parade in my own costume as a clown. I have no idea how you got that info.

John Pendergrast 04:09
We have our sources

Shaun McKeogh 04:10
So what was your question?

John Pendergrast 04:11
Yeah, see that was a really good, it was a great political answer there because we asked a question and then he reframed it and now I don't even know. I'm gonna go back and read it. worn a lot of hats, including being a clown as we've now ascertained. How on earth did you end up as a trainer?

Shaun McKeogh 04:27
Good question. Good question. Well, I suppose I'd be... No, I couldn't get the juggling. I was very good at smiling as a clown, so that got me through the parade. But yeah, I began my career as a teacher, a primary school teacher. And I was a good primary school teacher or elementary teacher, as you say in the USA. And I did that for about 10 years. But...

Tim Samson 04:30
He wasn't very good at juggling. No.

John Pendergrast 04:39
He wasn't the sad clown.

Shaun McKeogh 04:52
I really didn't want to stay in teaching. For me, there wasn't enough diversity. always had my heart set on working in the creative industry, really in the film industry where I could, create a part of that creative process. And so theme parks for me, it kind of just fell into place that

Theme parks was a place where I actually could actually have a contribution that was related to people and related to the environment getting people ready to deliver a great experience and tell a great story. So I actually moved from teaching to theme parks and, began on a carousel. And I said to my wife at the time, said to her, look,

gonna work during the school holidays then that school holidays extended to six months and leave from teaching. And I said, look, if it doesn't work after six months and I don't get a role that's permanent and satisfactory with my skills, then I'll go back to teaching. Well, within six months, I was actually ⁓ elevated to park trainer role within Warner Brothers Movie World.

so I went from the carousel to trainer and it went from there.

John Pendergrast 06:05
That's amazing. It's funny because I mean, if you always had to fall back to a trade, you could always fall back to clowning, right? Sorry. I know that's why I lied.

Tim Samson 06:12
You

Shaun McKeogh 06:13
I thought you were going to say teaching. But teaching has served me very

Tim Samson 06:15
⁓

Well, you

Shaun McKeogh 06:19
well.

Tim Samson 06:19
could teach clowning, guess, you know. On that note, I will try to get us back on track as much as I can after that. But Shaun, you've been able to experience a lot of things in your career in the industry, but something that I remember and I think has been like a beacon within the industry is your time at Ferrari World on the opening team.

Like you're able to build a culture from nothing just from scratch. Can you walk us through how can someone do that when there's nothing to start

Shaun McKeogh 06:45
You know, I think that has been for me the biggest blessing for my success and my understanding of how culture can be created because with a new project, you've got nothing that's taken place before you. There's a blank canvas. So on that blank canvas for a new organization that wants to be world class, they only have to imagine.

where they wanna be and what they wanna be. And once they've imagined that, you can start to put the building blocks together to actually get there. And it's so much easier to achieve a culture in that situation where you've got a blank canvas than going to an organization that already has an established culture. And it might not be a perfect culture.

But you have to undo a lot of it to actually head it in the right direction. And that is really hard work to change the culture that's already been established. But for us at Ferrari World, it was a dream because there was no culture that had been So every single employee that came on, we were able to tell the story of the culture that we wanted to create.

Shaun McKeogh 08:04
And we were able to together imagine and set the story and set the tone and set the policies that helped us to create that culture that we wanted. So in so many ways, we were so lucky to have the ability to imagine it, a culture and a world-class vision and build it step by step. It was such an easier

process. And we were so lucky, we went to 32 different countries to get employees, because we didn't want Ferrari World to just be filled with one cultural group, we wanted it to be filled with the diversity of the world, so that everyone, no matter where you came from in the world, you were welcomed. And we wanted

Shaun McKeogh 08:50
our staff to represent everyone else. And yeah, there were so many initiatives that we took.

And we strategically made to ensure that we got that vision that we wanted to achieve world-class status, to achieve world-class delivery, and to have an engaged workforce that just was so passionate about Ferrari and lived the experience and shared it with the guests. And we achieved that. And we're very lucky. But it was achieved because we were strategic.

John Pendergrast 09:21
it takes a very special person to be able to turn around and say, there was no culture, so that was easy. And then secondarily, we went to 32 countries in the world and brought in people from all over the world and then made a culture out of that. And that was easier. Like, I understand what you're saying. Entrenched cultures are hard to deal with, but.

you had to build a culture from scratch with a very, very unique set of people and to decide to say, this is who we are as a set of people, that's no small tap. And I mean, you're very humble about how you talk about that, but that is a incredible thing to accomplish.

Shaun McKeogh 09:59
Look,

I think if we really break down what we did there, all of the leadership team that came on board, and this is exactly how culture is created. When you read about how to create it is we pulled all the leadership into the room. And we said, we imagined what we wanted. And we

We debated and we shared so many ideas and we spent so much time in the war room as it is, just creating and naming that culture and describing it until we were all on board and we all spoke the same language about what that culture should be. And then we went about and strategically.

John Pendergrast 10:32
Mm-hmm.

Shaun McKeogh 10:45
started to do it within each of our departments. And we kept coming back as a leadership team to say, how are we going? How are we getting each of our individual teams towards that goal? So we were very strategic about that collective, everyone being on board and everyone speaking the same language. And...

Tim Samson 10:59
Okay.

Shaun McKeogh 11:06
We were focused,

we so focused on that. And, the induction process as new employees came on board, first of all, was a group of 30 and then it was a group of 60. And then every week we had 30 new people join the group we shared the vision we wanted and we had them in our palm of their hand because everyone was excited by it.

And because they're excited, they own the vision and they wanted to, get there as well.

Tim Samson 11:41
Mm-hmm.

John Pendergrast 11:34
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I'm fascinated by culture. It's one of the things that's like a pet hobby almost now, like

reading culture books and thinking about culture and how can you make it better. And there's no end to it. as you look at what you just said about being very deliberate, there's kind of an old maxim. I certainly didn't come up with it, but which is every business has a culture. It's...

John Pendergrast 11:56
what if you set it or if it set itself, it's gonna exist. the only way you have a positive culture is to be incredibly deliberate and consistent. Because culture has a tendency of atrophy or of degrading over time if you're not consistent with it. So interesting, I love it.

Shaun McKeogh 12:17
Yeah. And

I just wanted to say that we named that culture and that culture that we named was we wanted it to be a culture that was out of this world. we wanted it to be described as a safety culture and we wanted it to be described as a culture of recognition and a culture of...

John Pendergrast 12:34
Yeah, I hear it.

Shaun McKeogh 12:36
feedback. There were so many aspects to that culture that we wanted people to be able to name and see and feel. so it wasn't just one aspect. was quite a lot. You could describe it in so many ways, depending on where you were and what you were feeling at the different times within the organization.

John Pendergrast 12:57
That's amazing. But intentional. Very, very intentional.

Shaun McKeogh 13:01
Yep.

Tim Samson 13:02
You touched on all the different countries that you recruited from and I am fortunate to come from Morey's right? Where where they also recruit from those countries and there's there's something really special when you get so many different viewpoints together and they engage in a way and I, you know, I personally don't think that I would be the person I am today had I not been exposed to all of that culture over the years.

it's cool that you could build a culture for the new operation with this diverse group of people and then take it to such a variety of levels to be able to have it touch every aspect of the operation and have people use it in that fashion. But I'm gonna move us on because usually John or I, one of us gets us off in some rabbit hole somewhere.

John Pendergrast 13:44
Yeah,

Tim Samson 13:44
we're trying to develop these cultures within these attractions and tours. we have service quality and guest experience and all these things that were, that we're moving towards. Um, but our employees are only there for three or six months in some cases.

The year round operations, it's nice because you have that consistent scene you can build on it. But when you're starting from near scratch every year with a new group of recruits, right? What are fundamental mistakes that, that organizations take where they kind of go off the rails, right? And culture slips.

Shaun McKeogh 14:14
Yeah. Look, I think, you hinted at the mistake by describing the situation. And the situation being for so many organizations is that they see their new employees as only being there for six months, only being there short term. So the first thing that comes into the organization's mind is, well,

Why invest in them in a big way? Why give them the same training? Why give them the same timing for the induction program when they're only gonna be here for six months and they're not really gonna give much or we're not gonna get much back from them? So that situation creates a whole lot of decisions that can impact negatively

Tim Samson 14:43
Hmm. ⁓

Shaun McKeogh 15:04
what you're trying to achieve, which is a really strong culture that has impact on your business performance and impact on the guest experience. Look, if an employee's coming for one week or two years or for long term, it doesn't matter. They should all receive the same induction process and the same amount of time and the same amount of startup support

that they need to get on board to understand and to be ambassadors for your organization. I think the aim for any induction program, for any organization is that people are welcomed into the organization and are welcomed in such a way that they understand the organization. They understand where it's going, what it's about.

and that they walk out of that induction process motivated and in love with the company. And I say that in love bit because if your employees are not in love with your company, they don't speak with the words that we would the person that we're in love with.

You know, they don't talk to their friends and their family about their workplace positively. They don't refer their friends to the workplace. So our employees have to feel like they're in love with the company and we have to build that. They have to be proud of their company. So we have to build initiatives that help them to be proud of their company give them things to talk about.

Shaun McKeogh 16:35
that make them feel proud. Give them things that they are proud to deliver to their family and friends, which might be tickets to the park. And they can be proud to share those tickets or those incentives or those

Shaun McKeogh 16:49
offers. You know, we've got to be very strategic about making sure that if an employee is here for only six months, that we welcome them just as any other employee. And we give them the same startup.

so that they're in love with our company, they can be ambassadors for our company, and they can invest in our company. And by that I mean when a

Shaun McKeogh 17:11
guest is, you know, shouting at them or angry and in their face, they are so invested in the company that they defend the company or that they speak positively for the company or that they bend over backwards for the company to ensure

Tim Samson 17:17
Okay.

Shaun McKeogh 17:29
that the guest is treated right. So people don't give that effort unless they're in love with the company.

John Pendergrast 17:36
I pulled off my shelf here while you were talking, but it reminds me very much of this book. Oh, hold on, can I get this on the screen? Disney U And the story of how Disney went about building a radical culture of...

Shaun McKeogh 17:42
Ayes.

John Pendergrast 17:50
engaged, loyal, they say customer centric employees. everyone goes through Disney U and they label everything down to, you know, you're a staff member, right? Like you're not a staff member, you're like, you're part of the show, right? Like you might be backstage, but you're part of the show. And there's like this whole, this whole kind of idea behind it. And what you said is very much along that same line of getting people radically engaged and ownership

John Pendergrast 18:16
of it themselves

It's just an interesting theme that continues throughout. I think I certainly see a gap there in most organizations on those kinds of feelings, right? Like there's not a lot of effort being put in. And so I guess my question for you to follow on from Tim is to say, you know, when you're talking to ownership of some of these facilities that you work with, they're probably coming and saying, you know, well, show us the ROI. Like, what's the ROI of this? How would you characterize that? Like, how do you approach that for people?

Shaun McKeogh 18:44
Yeah, and look, that is a very valid point, show us the ROI. And the return on investment for giving hours to staff to do an induction, giving hours to staff to do training and coaching on service delivery, it's there. It's there in the numbers.

Shaun McKeogh 19:03
but the numbers they're only useful to you if you're actually measuring, for example, when, let's just talk about service. If we're measuring service before we implement an initiative, and then we measure service after the initiative has been implemented, and that measure might be a dollar figure on sales, on upsells, or it might be a dollar figure

on overall sales within an outlet or a department, or it might be retention. And retention is a really good return on investment number to look because it costs for people to keep moving on. It costs a lot of money for us to replace people and retrain people. But the longer we keep them, the cheaper it is because we're not re-employing, we're not retraining. But we're also developing

Shaun McKeogh 19:52
highly skilled and highly engaged and we're developing people that are a lot more effective the longer they stay with us, the longer they're engaged with us. So that is a huge return on investment example of why it is so valuable to engage people and put the right amount of time and training into them and to have all the initiatives to retain our employees.

Shaun McKeogh 20:19
so that they're proud of the workplace, they're engaged in the workplace and they wanna stay in the workplace. So they're really good examples. And look, that book that you just referenced there would reference the importance of

engagement by design, service by design. So when it comes to service, as Tim asked before,

John Pendergrast 20:37
Mm-hmm.

Shaun McKeogh 20:44
you know, that company that doesn't invest a lot of money or a lot of time into people. Well, they're going to be the ones that invest just one hour in the new employees in service training, right? What impact can one hour of training have

on someone to deliver good service? Probably nothing, but you look at a company that's doing really well in our

They've got service programs that develop skills, develop knowledge, and develop commitment from employees. So

that time and effort that's put into that employee to deliver great service and understand all the systems that help them deliver service is going to create a better outcome because we're going to create more money, repeat visitors.

Shaun McKeogh 21:36
⁓ and we're going to sell a lot more product and have a lot more of a better experience for guests. And that is, that is the return on investment of, you know, all that time training and coaching.

Tim Samson 21:38
Okay.

John Pendergrast 21:48
Yeah, that's a return on investment for sure.

Shaun McKeogh 21:50
that's by design. By design, we're going to have better outcomes.

John Pendergrast 21:53
Yeah.

Tim Samson 21:56
everyone would agree, the more time you can spend building a culture and nurturing the culture and supporting it, the better it is. But the business reality of our industry, and especially seasonal operators within the industry, is that time is compressed. So how can you effectively build a culture program knowing that there's basically limited resources?

Right, there's only so much time that you can pull and set aside to build it, but you want to do it as effectively as possible.

Shaun McKeogh 22:25
and that is by design coming up with that, you you have to roadmap what their employee journey will look like if they're only here for six months, for example. And so you roadmap that by actually looking at, you know, the amount of time they're spending in induction. And then what does that look like in terms of their on the job training?

And then what does that look like in regards to being effective? Because we want to really upskill them really quickly and we want to have them engaged and ambassadors for our organization really quickly as well. So it's about strategically looking at what does their journey look like, that six month journey,

First of all, what they need to do their job well, and then what do they need to exemplify and be ambassadors for our organization. And you have to sprinkle that over the top. And that might mean that every four weeks or every eight weeks of their journey, there's some sort of strategic initiative that brings them back to either celebrate or acknowledge, you know,

Shaun McKeogh 23:33
where they've come from, what they've achieved and thank them for that. And it might be a motivation event. might be an opportunity to just gather and do some sort of team event together, a celebration of what they've achieved so far. You have to look at their journey, how long they're with us and strategically plan it out by design.

Shaun McKeogh 23:56
And it can happen and it can be done with whatever budget you've got. You know, it doesn't matter what budget. Disney is going to have a big budget. They've got, you know, access to large budgets. So things are going to look different. But in a small organization, we could still achieve the same outcomes with a small budget. But we do it in different ways. And it's ⁓

Tim Samson 23:57
Yeah.

Shaun McKeogh 24:18
It's how we touch the employees, how we are effective with our employees, how we speak to our employees, how we recognise our employees with our words and our presence. That's not money.

John Pendergrast 24:29
you often say that organizations succeed when they treat the employees as if they're true stakeholders. And then, of course, from that perspective, the philosophy is that time doesn't really matter. How long are they there? If they're there for six weeks or they're there for six years. And I guess practically, and I think you answered the question, is really like you're just layering in what they need for the time period that they're there.

and giving them the sense that they know the job that they're doing, they know what the expectations are, and then extend that out into and why it's meaningful to them. There's an old sales axiom that says, don't sell them what you want to sell them, right? Sell them what they're interested in buying, right? Or what meets their pain, you know, what they're buying.

I don't know if there is even a question here, I feel like we've answered it. This was my question and I realized we didn't answer it. Maybe we just move on.

Tim Samson 25:16
Yep, so we.

Shaun McKeogh 25:20
John,

I know what you're saying. You really touched on the fact that how do we get our employees to be real partners in the business and feel like they're part owners, right? And that is really, really an important point that we have, know, in engaging employees in the workplace, we have to start aiming towards that. And I'll give you a really good example of how that

John Pendergrast 25:31
Yeah.

Yeah.

Shaun McKeogh 25:45
impact can be seen. At Warner Brothers Movie World many years ago when I first worked there we had food and beverage employees and they'd go into their outlet and they would do their job, they'd sell the food, clean up their outlet and close the till, the cash box and hand it over.

That was the end of their day. That process would happen every day in every food and beverage outlet. And the employees really didn't know how much money their outlet made. They didn't know what their individual sales output was. Okay. We turned that around a little bit and as an experiment, and we said to that outlet, okay, you're now in charge of this outlet's profits.

Shaun McKeogh 26:29
everything that your team does in this outlet, you'll see all the results. So by sharing the results with that team and making them responsible for their profits in their outlet, it was the bakery, the employees started to notice that, when they made an extraordinary effort and said, with this pie,

John Pendergrast 26:30
Hmm.

Tim Samson 26:46
I'm not going to go into steps that I've I'm going into

Shaun McKeogh 26:52
would you like sauce? They could see that would go up. And the sauce sale might've been next to 50 cents, know, would you like

Shaun McKeogh 27:03
a sauce with that? And every time they said that, they saw the 50 cents go up and that, and so the manager of the outlet said, hey everyone, let's all say, would you like sauce with that today? And by doing that,

Shaun McKeogh 27:17
this outlet started to learn that, wow, if we all said the same thing or we all added something on to the sale consistently, our sales go up.

And that's what they saw. that performance of that individual outlet once they had ownership for it increased remarkably because they had ownership.

and could see the results. We started to make them business partners and we recognised that and that made a huge difference.

John Pendergrast 27:46
That's really fascinating.

That's really fascinating because I mean, ⁓ tours and attractions is a great example. And it happens in other industries as well, but of course, but it's pretty full on. Like you are working very, very long hours, very long days for sometimes very brief period of time during the seasonal aspect of it. And you were full on.

John Pendergrast 28:06
And it is very easy to kind of devolve into negativity of, ⁓ why is management making these decisions? Why is this? What you just said is a really interesting way of getting people to own something themselves and to take personal pride in the fact that, hey, they figured out that they can upsell sauce. And I bet you that wasn't the only thing they figured out.

John Pendergrast 28:26
I can't imagine that you come into every facility and it's like, we have a great culture. It's awesome. Very often you come in and people are like, who are you? So how do you address that? Where do you start?

Shaun McKeogh 28:38
There are so many

organizations you go into and it's just like that. and look, it's not about, it can't be about me. And it's about the organization coming to the realization of what matters and what makes an impact. and sometimes it's as simple as the things that the managers are or

Shaun McKeogh 29:01
are not doing.

And you can see it as a consultant or as an individual that goes into an organization for a short time. And you can see that if the leaders are being present in the workplace and if they walk through their park or their facility or their entertainment center each day, they can see even the way they walk through their entertainment center.

by the way that that leader interacts with the team members on the way,

if they're actually are engaged and if they are respected by their team, by the way in which they're saying hello or they're asking questions, or people actually turn their back on them and look like they're hard at work, you can see the impact that that has or doesn't have.

And that's the starting point. It can't be about going in and making all the changes. I can't do that. But what I can do is I can highlight for businesses those important points that maybe they can't see. The things that they're doing or not doing that actually make an impact on their team members. And their team members need to feel supported. They need to feel part of the team.

They need to feel informed. And so even a simple thing like being be an initiative like, well, let's gather our team in the morning before we start work. Let's spend 15 minutes extra time before we start keeping everyone in the loop. Okay. And then hold our leadership responsible by actually say, let's teach our leaders how to conduct that morning session effectively, not just...

Okay, everyone, this is what's happening today. But let's talk about a focus for the day. Let's talk about what we did yesterday really well. Let's talk about what we're expecting today. Let's have a template of the things that could and should or possibly might impact the impact of that communication session. So we've got to our leaders in all the different aspects on how they can be effective.

Tim Samson 30:45
Thank you.

you

Shaun McKeogh 31:06
That's what I can offer is that. I can't do it for them.

John Pendergrast 31:09
Yep, that makes perfect sense.

Tim Samson 31:12
Shaun, you touched on leaders and really the impact that they can have within a culture. I want to go one step up from that because what I have noticed is organizations that have really great cultures. HR has a seat at the table with the executive team, right? It's it's not this thing that sits off its side like they're up there. They're involved in the decisions.

Shaun McKeogh 31:26
Alright.

Tim Samson 31:33
And it goes all the way down. I think that.

I think that lends to what you're talking about. Like you're building a culture. You just can't build it at the frontline level, right? It has to go all the way through. But under that, under that guise, right? What's the biggest misconception that leaders make about culture?

Shaun McKeogh 31:42
Yeah.

the biggest misconception.

I think the biggest misconception is the fact that culture can't be changed or can't be formed. they just don't do anything to impact culture because they feel it's either too hard to change or that it is the way it is.

And I don't agree with that. I really feel that no matter where a culture of an organization is at any time, that it can be formed, it can be impacted, and it can be changed with strategic effort of the leadership team and getting on board the rest of the employees with

organization. And in many situations, organizations do need to identify and name what culture they have, and possibly how it can be shifted. That's really, really important. But to be content with it, and to do nothing or to think that we can't change it. That's just, that's just bad leadership.

Tim Samson 32:52
Yeah, well well doing nothing is actually doing something right like it's the cost of inaction on the culture Right. So you've made a conscious decision not to do anything The culture is gonna evolve Whether you're leading it or not in some aspect

Shaun McKeogh 32:56
Yes, yes, yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yes.

John Pendergrast 33:08
leaders will approach it in different ways. like, I mean, I've been doing this for a while in my own culture and in other cultures that I've worked in over my lifespan, where you have this situation we're gonna try and cater to keeping everyone happy, right? We're gonna listen to employee surveys, and we're gonna try and keep everyone happy. And you realize pretty quickly that there's no way to keep everyone happy.

you have to keep everyone engaged, or at least that's what it feels like. What would you say to that statement?

Shaun McKeogh 33:34
Yeah.

Yeah, I'm keeping everyone happy. If that's the attitude of the leaders, then I wouldn't like to be there because I don't think it could ever work. We're never gonna be able to keep everyone happy. In every organization, no matter what type of culture exists, there's going to be

people that are not going to possibly fit in that culture, because we've made ⁓ the wrong mistake or they've made the wrong mistake about whether they belong in that organization. And so there is a role for organizations to identify who doesn't fit in this culture and move them on. Or to say to for employees, hopefully to say,

actually this is not the culture that I'm gonna feel most productive in, and we want them to step out to identify themselves and to move on.

So an effective probation period is really about identifying if an employee, the employee that we've chosen through the recruitment process is right for our business and is right for our culture. And if leaders are not and supervisors are not using that probation period well,

Shaun McKeogh 34:48
and giving feedback

and identifying and that employee also giving feedback about whether they fit and they've made the right decision to join your organization. If we're not using that probation period well, then we're not helping the culture of our organization because potentially we're letting people into our organization that don't fit our culture and that can negatively impact our culture.

That probation period is critical for us to move people on or affirm, yeah, you're the right fit and you feel you're the right fit. Let's continue to have that relationship.

Tim Samson 35:20
you

actually have a question that I'm really curious about Shaun how you would approach this You have someone who's not a fit in the organization right that you've you've identified them as Detrimental to the culture right, but they're a high performer Right like they they service the guests. Well, they do everything that you need

What'd do?

Shaun McKeogh 35:42
Okay, look, was in their probation period, I would utilize that probation period and check to see that they wanna continue and either we move them on or we develop a plan for them to actually be up, we have to be upfront with that employee and talk about,

where the culture fit is not right. We have to be really honest with that. We have to be honest with that employee, even if they've been a long-term employee, they're a great employee, but they're impacting negatively on our culture. We have to be upfront with them. We have to sit down and we have to be open and honest. And we have to talk about what impact they're making. And ultimately over time, if, you know, through that,

Shaun McKeogh 36:21
that two-way conversation, if they're not willing to come on board with our culture, I think that we should move them on. And they should be part of that process knowing that that's the decision where we're heading as well. Because ultimately, they're going to be impacting others around them. And that's not fair. That's not for them to actually impact others around them. Look, if they're only performing, if they're performing great,

Tim Samson 36:35
Mm-hmm.

John Pendergrast 36:38
Yeah.

Shaun McKeogh 36:46
and they're doing a great job and they're not impacting others,

then I don't think that that matters. They should be able to stay. But if they're impacting others, that's where we have to be upfront and honest and work with them and give them a chance, give them the support. But if they're not change with that impact, then we've got to move them on.

Tim Samson 37:00
and talking about

Yeah, and I would I would suspect this happens at most organizations and most attractions at times like someone is just isn't in a fit. And we've talked a lot about building culture, but this is almost like the nurturing part, right?

Shaun McKeogh 37:20
Yeah, and

use that example of you've got the piece of bad fruit in the bowl, and if you don't take it out, it's going to impact all the other fruit, right? And have a responsibility and so many organizations where the culture is bad, or we have an ineffective leadership team or a ineffective HR team or whatever.

Tim Samson 37:29
Mm-hmm.

Shaun McKeogh 37:40
They're doing that. They're not being open, honest and upfront and challenging individuals where improvement is required.

Tim Samson 37:41
Mm-hmm.

Shaun McKeogh 37:50
And so that's an area for improvement, you know, is having more impactful, more stronger leaders that know what their responsibilities are, their roles, and they have the skills and the confidence and competence to be able to deliver those hard conversations. So that's a skill we have to develop within our leaders.

John Pendergrast 38:08
So how do you, I mean,

100%.

I feel a little bit like I'm sitting at the feet supreme leader of understanding all this is really great. I'm really enjoying it. I'm like, oh, I'm going to learn so much. It's great. And I know that that's like the most insulting thing you can say to Australian is to compliment them. I apologize. I have a very close Australian friend and he always yells at me whenever I give him compliments.

John Pendergrast 38:35
But I'll say this, so a lot of attractions, especially in the mid-market, are families. They're family attractions. They've been around for 60, 80, 90 years. And it's their brothers and sisters and cousins, and it's all in the family, that kind of thing. And yet you have a marketing person, or you have someone who is just...

Shaun McKeogh 38:41
Yeah. Good on them Yep.

John Pendergrast 38:59
wildly toxic or massively underperforming. What on earth do you suggest to leaders in those organizations to say, here's how you get better?

Shaun McKeogh 39:10
And that is very much a reality that so many attractions face is that they are family developed and they're filled with many family members and a long history of owning and operating their own business and making their own decisions as a family. And then you have all of a sudden, one of the family members might not be performing but they're family, so no one says anything.

and it's a very difficult But if the business leadership is fed in, can we say in is real about being impactful and getting the best out of their business and their employees,

Tim Samson 39:35
So.

John Pendergrast 39:36
Yeah.

Tim Samson 39:40
Happy.

John Pendergrast 39:43
Yeah.

Tim Samson 39:47
Okay, that's two.

Shaun McKeogh 39:52
then they need to be open and honest to others, know, talking about areas for improvement and people that possibly need extra training, extra support,

or need some coaching in whatever area it is. And I think the fact that it's a family business, that is an obstacle for everyone else.

Tim Samson 40:11
Okay.

Shaun McKeogh 40:15
in the business that's not family to actually feel that they can't say something. And so they don't say something. But in this situation in these family businesses, they need to really share and

John Pendergrast 40:20
Yeah, it is.

Shaun McKeogh 40:31
communicate the importance transparency and empower everyone else in the business to highlight

how we can improve and that we need to know, don't just view us as family. They need to make that point because everyone else in the business, that's not family, we put that barrier up. We think we can't say something. We shouldn't say something or else the family's gonna all get together and then be against us. think that's just a natural thing that happens in our minds.

Shaun McKeogh 41:03
But look, if we do say something about that manager and the business does gang up against us because they're family, not the right business for us to be working in because that business is so family focused that it is detrimental to its success. So we do have to ascertain if a family business is that way or not. That is a reality.

John Pendergrast 41:28
certainly have seen that.

Shaun McKeogh 41:28
It's not but it's something we do have to ascertain.

John Pendergrast 41:31
I mean, I almost feel like at this point in time, to a certain extent, I want to just set you free to start answering questions that we haven't asked, Shaun. But we'll keep asking questions to keep the conversation moving. But if you suddenly go, have this thing I want to drop on you, I'd

Tim Samson 41:39
You

I mean, I

Tim Samson 41:44
feel like I feel like we're getting so much insight. Like I'm very much with you, John. Like, like I've heard Shaun speak before at things, but but I feel like we've really gotten to dig into some things that we haven't made it through, like half of the stuff we were going to ask you. So so that's part of it. But just to kind of riff off, you know, the family situation, I think that it's not limited to family orgs. Right.

John Pendergrast 41:50
Yeah.

Shaun McKeogh 41:50
Yeah.

you

John Pendergrast 42:00
Yeah.

Tim Samson 42:08
You have these larger orgs and lots of times departments become families and then you could have a family member right within that department that. It is toxic and you kind of have to do the same thing with it, but you don't want to because you feel like they're family, know

Shaun McKeogh 42:23
relationships we have are really, are really a challenge actually within an organization because we all start out most likely within an attraction at the frontline, right? And we move up, we become the supervisor and then we become or team leader and then the supervisor and then the manager and moving from, you know, as a team member, we're trying to fit into the team. We're trying to

John Pendergrast 42:24
Go ahead, John.

Shaun McKeogh 42:48
make sure that everyone respects us and is where we fit in and everyone likes us. And then the moment we become a team member, we do have to start to, you know, sometimes deliver harder, firmer, more direct messages. And so separating ourselves from those friendships and that teamwork and being able to deliver a more firm, direct message is really challenging.

Shaun McKeogh 43:14
at first. I remember when I was ⁓ made that quick transition from teaching to the theme park industry. I was a teacher, so I was older than everyone When I first joined on the carousel at Warner Brothers Movie World, I didn't have to fit into the team. I didn't have to worry about the relationships and being everyone's friend. I was very focused on just

John Pendergrast 43:16
Mm-hmm.

Tim Samson 43:34
Okay.

Shaun McKeogh 43:37
doing my job and showing the skills and passion I had what I wanted to achieve within the industry. So for me, catapult through the industry or becoming a trainer and manager was quite fast because I already had a lot of those skills. So I didn't have to worry about fitting in with everyone. So that for me was...

Shaun McKeogh 44:00
That helped me with my quick transition into the industry because I already had lots of skills that were transferable.

John Pendergrast 44:07
with what we've spoken about already ⁓ in the various areas of like, here's the problem definitions. How do you start the process of solving it? Obviously, you have to have a team that's willing to say we have a problem and we need some help. What's your process? How do you go after solving some of these things?

Shaun McKeogh 44:26
Look, that is a really interesting question because obviously every person or every leader or every manager or every supervisor doesn't have all the answers and sometimes problems that come to us. It's the first time that we've ever encountered that so much sense for us to be able have that opportunity to

identify what the problem is and open it up to everyone's opinion. So having said that, because that's like a brainstorming session of how we sort everything out, that would logistically make sense as how we start sorting out problems is identifying all the different routes and ways that we could help solve it. And I want to reference one of the things we did at the park of Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi.

John Pendergrast 45:12
Mm-hmm.

Shaun McKeogh 45:12
What we did there is because we wanted everyone to be owners in the business and we wanted everyone to be problem solvers in the business. So we actually implemented the old suggestion box, which in its just if I say the suggestion box like that for an employee, everyone just goes, yeah, I know what that is and that doesn't work.

Tim Samson 45:36
Mm-hmm.

Shaun McKeogh 45:37
doesn't work if we just have the suggestion box where people put their suggestions in and then those suggestions stay in there for years and never get looked at and never get answered. And that's just a token thing. But at Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, wanted a process that actually worked to solve problems. So what we did there is we had the suggestion box, but we had a training program that we strategically by design developed. And that program was about

John Pendergrast 45:48
Right.

Shaun McKeogh 46:07
let's create how to be a business owner, how to be partners in this business. And so we created a process where they all employees could think like the owners of the business. And they identified for every problem in the business, this is what we want you to think about. we templated the process. We want you to think about the outcome, the cost, the timing, the resources.

The viability, all of those sorts of things that a business owner would think of to solve a problem and to see if something's workable or not. employees then templated and wrote down approach to solving problems in the business. And then when they saw ⁓ a health and safety issue,

They identified the issue, they then said how it could be solved, and they thought like a business owner. Then they put that idea into a suggestion box. We then had a process that was by design to actually take that box every month, every week, and actually document all of the suggestions that have been put in there, all the problems and all the suggestions. And then every month we had representatives from across the whole organization.

Shaun McKeogh 47:21
that would meet and look at every single problem that was in there and suggestion on how to answer it. And then we had a team of people that actually looked at the viability of the responses that were there and actually

responded to employees. So every employee that put something in got a personal response. "We thank you for your suggestion about solving this problem. This is what the committee first thought about it." And they put all the responses.

Tim Samson 47:36
Thank you. ⁓

Shaun McKeogh 47:48
Now those responses that were actually implemented and solved, the employee actually got 12 months, the first 12 months of the value of that problem being solved back in their pay. So if it was an health and safety issue that was being solved and it actually had added value to the business, saved on our

John Pendergrast 48:03
huh.

Shaun McKeogh 48:11
you know, insurance or saved on back issues or whatever it is, then the employee got in their pay packet extra for the year. Here's the best bit about it is we actually, had miles and miles of tunnels under Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi, employee tunnels that we could walk under. And what we did is we used those walls and we put up the suggestions that were implemented.

and we put the name of the employee and then we put how much money they were getting every month for implementing that suggestion. So employees could see how every suggestion was being acknowledged, responded to, and the impact it was making financially and how that was also coming into their colleagues' pockets. That was problem solving 101 at Ferrari World and it was so effective.

Tim Samson 48:48
Mm-hmm.

Tim Samson 48:48
Mm-hmm.

John Pendergrast 49:03
Well said.

Yeah, that's a scorecard, right? Like that gives people an opportunity to be a little competitive, but also to be a part of the equation. you have a big focus on safety culture and really trying to think about how to have a safe culture for the people involved.

John Pendergrast 49:20
That's, I mean, given present political climes of which we are not going to speak at all, that is a loaded phrase, and I'm curious how you define that.

Shaun McKeogh 49:30
Look, I think a safety culture is very much where every employee that's part of the business feels that it's their responsibility to look after safety, keep an eye on safety, and to take safety seriously for both the guests that come to the business, but also for

their colleagues and themselves. So that's the three elements, the guests, their colleagues and themselves. And so often a safety culture can only focus on the guests. Sometimes it can only focus on keeping their colleagues safe, but it's about keeping them safe as well. That three, know, Trinity, when it comes to safety is so important and

Shaun McKeogh 50:15
everyone taking ownership for it

and feeling it's their responsibility. Obviously there needs to be structures to make that happen and it needs to keep on being reinforced but ultimately that's what safety culture is, is everyone feeling that this is a safe place because we're all part of the process.

Tim Samson 50:20
Okay.

you know, during that time that we don't speak of COVID, you urged leaders to over communicate ⁓ things that were going on. What do you think that taught us as an industry about the resilience of culture in general, especially being that there was a disconnect for a period of time?

Shaun McKeogh 50:49
Yeah, and there was a huge disconnect for a period of time, I think COVID taught us that time that we can't speak about, that it really highlighted for us those organisations that care a lot and a culture that cares for their employees because they kept their employees connected.

and they continue to communicate with them and keep them informed and they might not have had the finances to keep paying them, but they still made a commitment to them. And that really came out in COVID. for those companies that didn't have a strong culture and then COVID hit,

Shaun McKeogh 51:31
I think they certainly learn a lot about the importance of keeping an engaged workforce because it was so much harder for them to restart and, people back.

Tim Samson 51:40
I think that was a lesson for the for the industry in general. Like it was a lesson for everyone, about resilience and the kind of service and lots of different aspects. It completely changed guest experience, right? Like technology was adopted at a huge rate. But I tend to think about, you know, the I think you call it the spirit of an organization, right? Like where culture seeps into the guests, right?

I think that we can tell when something's authentic as humans, right? And we know when something's manufactured. Organizations like Disney have done a really good job of that authenticity, even though we know it's all like it's storytelling, but because the culture is so strong, they've been able to develop that authenticity. What recommendations could you give to operators to keep consistency within the culture?

Keep the authenticity. And are there any examples from organizations that you've helped or come across in your travels?

Shaun McKeogh 52:33
Yeah, look, think to be authentic and to really deliver an experience that really connects with the guests, I think it's really important that we start with our leadership and our supervisor levels and we give them the skills to be able to impact their team members authentically. And by that,

an example might be, when it comes to speaking with their employees and recognizing their employees and acknowledging the good things that they do, that's such an important thing that needs to happen every day. Because if it's not happening, then our employees just do what they believe that they should be doing. And sometimes that comes across as inauthentic. Whereas,

An example of that is when the supervisor says, hey, everyone, thank you for all your good work today. And all the employees walk out of the green room and they go, well, we got praise, we got thanked, but they don't really know why they got thanked. And so that's a really good example of ineffective leadership and supervision because they're actually trying to...

Tim Samson 53:32
Hmm.

Shaun McKeogh 53:41
to be nice, but they're not being effective. But the supervisors actually say, hey, John, the way in which you recognise that difficult guest at lunchtime with your eye contact and an open demeanour, it really made an impact on the guests. The guests felt as though you really were listening to them and that you cared for them. You created a repeat visitor in that guest.

Shaun McKeogh 54:09
Thank you for doing so by teaching our leadership and supervisors that sort of effective feedback and recognition is so much better than that. Hey, everyone, great job today. Because what the supervisor and leader is doing recognizing the small behaviors that we want to be repeated with our guests and those behaviors.

are

Shaun McKeogh 54:36
the things that help the guest experience. And so it's all about the leaders and the supervisors and they're skilling them and empowering them with the right effective things to do with their team so that our team are really impacting the guest experience. And it's about recognizing the small behaviors we want.

repeated each

Tim Samson 55:02
Mm-hmm.

John Pendergrast 55:02
Yeah, reminds me of the Dale Carnegie, how to make friends and influence people. Like that idea of, you know, that you don't ever give someone a compliment that's like, good job. You always be like very specific about what you're complimenting them about.

John Pendergrast 55:15
for that same reason and that idea of smile and say their name is the most influential word in their life and you those kinds of things. I think it's fascinating to see how those things have been kind of universal truths that carry forward and are so useful inside organizations and are probably not enforced or at least underlined enough We need to be reminded on a regular basis and I appreciate that.

Tim Samson 55:19
⁓ huh. Okay.

Shaun McKeogh 55:22
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

We say so often, we hear how, you know, make the workplace fun and there is a truth to that. it's not that we have to be doing fun things, but it's about just, you know, when we come together for that morning briefing, you know, being open with each other as a team and being really present, that's what makes it fun.

John Pendergrast 55:45
Right.

Shaun McKeogh 56:02
or being strategic about doing a team building activity in that morning and then setting everyone up in the team to actually go out with a happy attitude back to the guests for the day. That's about making the workplace fun. It's about working with our human resource department to actually have, by design,

Shaun McKeogh 56:25
engagement program where we're inviting people back to celebrations that are fun and engaging. We can celebrate as a team and our achievements and by design that's making the workplace fun. It's being creative in the workplace and at the right time just being authentic, you know.

John Pendergrast 56:47
Yeah, totally. say it this way, you are both a very engaging and fun individual to interview and also a very hard interview. And I'll tell you why. I'm watching Tim and I'm watching myself on the camera occasionally and I'm seeing us pause, look up to the right as we're processing what you're saying and going.

John Pendergrast 57:05
Oh, I need to think about that a little bit. And so I'm having this great opportunity to learn at the same time as to kind of think about, how would I apply that?

inside of, like, how we work with our own teams, and it's just fascinating to listen to, we're gonna transition to what we call the lightning round, which is a terrible misnaming of what it actually is. And what I'm gonna tell you just to take away any of the pressure and stress is, Tim and I ruin the lightning round every single time by talking too much.

Because the purpose of the lightning round is simply to ask questions and get a quick answer. But it's never our visitor that is the problem. It is always us. So we're going to kick off the lightning round, and then you're going to watch the spectacular failure. Although we're going to be optimistic that this time's the time we're going to get it right.

Tim Samson 57:37
Thank

It's the only thing we do consistently.

John Pendergrast 57:57
Yeah, okay, here we go.

John Pendergrast 57:59
best attraction you've ever visited purely for fun.

Shaun McKeogh 58:03
Universal Studios in Japan. Wow! The parade is so engaging. The best!

Tim Samson 58:09
NNNN

John Pendergrast 58:11
That's cool. I haven't checked that one out yet. I'm looking forward to

Tim Samson 58:14
for attitude or skills.

Shaun McKeogh 58:16
Attitude definitely because we can teach skills, can teach basics, we can coach but we can't teach attitude.

John Pendergrast 58:25
Most overrated training exercise.

Shaun McKeogh 58:28
Most overrated training exercise is the marketing department saying bring everyone back into the training room for an hour and give them some guest service training.

Tim Samson 58:39
Hahaha!

John Pendergrast 58:41
Yeah.

Tim Samson 58:41
Take them out of the place with guests and bring them somewhere there's none. Yes. I never did that. I was a marketer. never did that. Biggest hiring mistake you see.

John Pendergrast 58:45
Yeah.

Shaun McKeogh 58:50
employing people at the frontline that don't naturally smile in the interview or big faux pas, in the recruitment process is having people at the frontline that they're employing for, just looking at their CV, their CV has got nothing to do with, you know, their presence and

how well they're going to do in the workplace.

John Pendergrast 59:14
training seasonal staff essential or nice to have?

Shaun McKeogh 59:18
Seasonal staff, I think it's a nice to have because they're aware of how other departments work and they're aware of other products and they're going to be a better ambassador if they are cross-trained, but not essential, not essential.

Tim Samson 59:34
⁓ Best way to keep seasonal workers returning year after year.

Shaun McKeogh 59:38
⁓ just care for the employees and make it an engaged workplace. Look, I think we have to be real and money is important, right? It's got to be fair. Okay. And so long as we're being fair with the money, that is a given, right? We shouldn't, but it shouldn't be the only reason. The extra icing on the cake.

Tim Samson 59:41
Money?

Mm-hmm.

Shaun McKeogh 1:00:02
is going to be whether they've had a good time and whether they are proud of the workplace and enjoy the workplace. That's really, really important. They have to be engaged in the workplace.

John Pendergrast 1:00:12
Most underutilized tool for building culture.

Shaun McKeogh 1:00:16
oooo

The employee engagement survey or spot surveys, either or, is underutilized in that it's only done and the results are looked at. But in an effective organization, they do it, then they analyze it, then they hold every department responsible for saying what initiatives they're going to implement to

Tim Samson 1:00:28
Okay.

Shaun McKeogh 1:00:40
impact the results on the next one and holding them accountable to that process.

Tim Samson 1:00:41
Hmm.

Best way to recognize employees.

Shaun McKeogh 1:00:48
by being very strategic and personal. with our words and by using their name and being very specific and just making it really personal and the fact that I appreciated what they've done and saying that and looking them in the eye, that's so important.

And I say that with a tone that's low because it's about being personal.

John Pendergrast 1:01:09
one leadership.

One leadership quality every future leader should have.

Shaun McKeogh 1:01:16
gee, that's a really, really tough one. I want them to have so many. think the ability to recognise well, and that's not just to recognise what people are doing well, but recognising what they're not doing well and recognising the gaps in their performance and being able to...

have the confidence and the capability to actually communicate that in their recognition with the employee because that's what's going to help that process of continual improvement and helping the employee to do better and feel better about what they do and the contribution they make to the business.

John Pendergrast 1:01:57
No.

Tim Samson 1:01:55
We didn't do too bad. We didn't do too bad on lightning. This is the best we've done.

John Pendergrast 1:01:59
Yeah, it's true.

Shaun McKeogh 1:02:01
Well done, 10 points to you.

Tim Samson 1:02:03
I think we need to name it something other than lightning because I don't think that was lightning.

John Pendergrast 1:02:06
Well, Gerry can confirm one way the other, but I think that's the best we've done.

Tim Samson 1:02:10
Yeah, so you, you've built a career on helping people deliver, you know, these magical experiences and there are a lot of operators. I hope, I hope there's a lot of operators listening right now, but

For those operators who are listening right now who are either thinking about culture and things that they can change now and year round operations or those in seasonal operations that are thinking about how can we implement change next year? What's the one thing that they should start doing next week or tomorrow to effect change?

Shaun McKeogh 1:02:39
one thing that they could do next week is just gather people in the room, their leadership team, including representatives from all different levels of the organization, and just ask the question about how we're doing when it comes to delivering service and the guest experience. And just to have that open workshop,

you know, a few hours or a whole day where just different parts of the organization are just being really open and honest and just capturing that snapshot and then asking the question, how can we do better? Because then that starts the process of being able to focus on something as a whole organization, no matter what part of the business we're in, we can be focused on that.

Shaun McKeogh 1:03:30
and it gives us something collectively that we focus on, it will start to create a common language, identifying the common issues, and then starting to problem solve that process. And hopefully in the end, what we've done is by going through, a challenge like that, that's collective across the whole organization,

Shaun McKeogh 1:03:51
we're developing the culture of the organization because we're starting to touch on the issues, service isn't good, or we're starting to talk about human resource issues, we're starting to talk about leadership issues. It opens up a whole can of worms, if you like, in regards to change management and what needs to change. And that process in itself is a good process.

Shaun McKeogh 1:04:18
healthy process. We can start

it next week and everyone has a view on it. Everyone can be engaged in that process and then we can start building a plan and towards continual improvement. And Tim, I think you've heard me say this before, but you know, if an organization does not have a detailed plan written down about how they're going to deliver service and achieve service, then

Shaun McKeogh 1:04:44
service delivery is not important to them. And so many organizations don't have a detailed plan written down. They just say we aim for it. that's something they can start next week. And believe me, it will engage everyone at every level.

John Pendergrast 1:04:58
that leads into the follow on question that I would have asked is, what qualities do you see in the next gen attraction leaders, what are they gonna need most in managing their teams and how do you cultivate that? Now, and you've answered a little bit of it, but how are you looking at the next gen leaders? The leaders of 10 years from now, how do we cultivate those? How do we cultivate those people?

Shaun McKeogh 1:05:19
Yeah, and I think that something that's been evolving is that we can't presume that our next-gen leaders have the skills that we presume that they have. As an organisation, what we do need to do is we need to identify what are the leadership skills that we want to see in our leaders at our organisation, and every organisation is different.

Tim Samson 1:05:30
Mm-hmm.

John Pendergrast 1:05:30
Right.

Shaun McKeogh 1:05:42
So go through that process of identifying the skills for our organization, for our

leaders and identifying, profiling, what is a good leader at our organization and being able to name that. And that helps us in that strategic planning process. And I certainly think that obviously communication and managing up

is important and managing down and managing across our colleagues and having being brand ambassadors and what that means to be a good brand ambassador of yourself and is very important and looking at what it means to be a brand ambassador for our organization and looking at having the hard conversations with our employees.

Shaun McKeogh 1:06:29
and being real

and being effective when it comes to recognition and being effective when it comes to feedback and being effective when it comes to strategically planning. there's so, there's, I don't think anything's changed from the past, but I think what is important is that every organisation needs to identify what are the skills for its leaders at its place.

Tim Samson 1:06:31
Mm-hmm.

I want to give you the opportunity to leave a final thought for leaders in our industry about culture. What would that be?

Shaun McKeogh 1:07:01
⁓ gee. I think,

Shaun McKeogh 1:07:03
I think

culture makes a So take a moment to be strategic about culture, and know that by design you can impact culture by design. And that's what we have to do.

Tim Samson 1:07:19
That's awesome. You know, I really appreciate what you do for the industry how you've helped organizations grow their culture. Really enjoyed the time that we spent today and I hope that everyone listening also did. So thanks for coming on, clowning around with us a little bit.

Tim Samson 1:07:34
But thank you once again for joining us.

John Pendergrast 1:07:36
Yeah, it's been a real pleasure

Shaun McKeogh 1:07:36
I appreciate the time.

It's been fun, John. It's been fun, Tim. It's been really, really good.