26% Trust Their Leaders: Inside Chipotle's High-Stakes Promotion Bet

[00:00:09] Welcome to Frequency, I'm Jenni Field. And I'm Chuck Gose. Frequency is your go-to for real talk about comms culture and employee experience beyond the buzzwords and straight to what matters. Jenni, this week we're talking about internal promotions over a burrito bowl, who's to blame for job fits, Gen Z not loving work, and Jenni, one of my favorite topics, leadership, competency or lack thereof.

[00:00:36] Jenni, it is your favorite topic. And before we get into that today, I don't have a nice segue from leadership competency, but I do have one into kind of relationships at work. I've spent some of this week with Advita Patel doing DISC workshops with an internal comms team. And if you're not familiar with DISC, it's a personality communication preference tool. And it's really interesting to me how much people can start to change their behavior once they understand themselves better.

[00:01:04] And it's just been a lovely week of people kind of figuring out kind of who they are, the fact that that's okay, because that's who you are, and then what that means for your relationships at work. And I just don't think we do that enough. So much of what we talk about here is linked to relationships, communication, all that kind of stuff. And it's just, it's just been really nice this week to have some conversations and help people figure some of that stuff out, and then how they're going to approach leadership differently, how they're going to approach HR differently, how they're going to approach comms differently. So it's been good.

[00:01:32] I know my wife, Kristen, did her DISC profile in the last couple of years. And when she was talking about it, I remember that I did it now probably 15 years ago. And I also never delete emails, like ever. And I cannot find my results anywhere. Whether it's email or my G drive, I've had the same account for 20 plus years. I know that somewhere and I just cannot find it. Well, you might be different now as well. Like it might have changed.

[00:02:02] If you want to do it again, let me know, because we do it for people all the time. So yeah, I'll send you. I remember one of the highlights for me and learning about DISC was it said that if you basically want me along for the journey and the change, you have to involve me from the beginning, or I will burn it down. Yeah, that's basically the- I feel like anyone listening to this will be like, well, that's not a surprise. Go on then. What have you got for us this week?

[00:02:32] This week, we're going to kick things off with Chipotle. Jason Kidd, COO, scouts his next leaders over dinner. Every week, he pulls three or four employees from whatever market he's visiting into a 90-minute meal, works through about a dozen stores, and uses the table time to decide who gets promoted.

[00:02:52] He's looking for four things, team players, people who own the outcome, people who see problems coming instead of just fighting fires, and people who turn up with solution. It feels like a bit of a crossover Venn diagram there a little bit. And the numbers hold up though.

[00:03:07] Chipotle promoted 23,000 of its roughly 135,000 employees in 2025 and filled 100% of regional VP roles, 85% of GM roles, and 83% of field leader roles from inside. This is a huge thing with mobility with the company, and it's actually opposite of the market. Gusto puts a promotion rate at a five-year low of just over 10% last year down from nearly 15% in mid-2022.

[00:03:38] So, is this dinner smart or charming? This is what we're going to be talking about today. In its favor, Kit is watching people over time instead of trusting just a 30-minute interview. He's giving employees across a lot of locations real face time with the decision maker. And the traits he wants, thing we talked about, ownership, teamwork, all that, are the right ones for running a restaurant. The catch is that it rewards whoever presents well over a meal on the one night

[00:04:07] The COO happens to be in town. The person who's a quite high performer, the person working a shift that didn't line up with the visit, and the employee who tightens up in front of a senior leader, none of them get the attention. And a company that promoted 23,000 people last year clearly isn't running on one exec's dinner reservation alone, which raises a real question, what carries the weight for everyone, Kit never sits down with.

[00:04:33] So, the question here, Jenni, is I really want to like this, but I don't. But yet I kind of do. And so, is he spotting future leaders or just the people who are good at dinner with the boss? And how would you tell that difference at scale? So, I love that. I want to, but I don't, but I do. I think I'm kind of with you on that. Like, I do like this. Like, I like it because I think it's one snapshot of how people actually get promoted.

[00:05:02] I think it's taken one slither of probably their process and kind of really zoned in on that and made that a thing. Whereas he hasn't, I mean, has he sat down with 23,000 people? I mean, let's be honest, he hasn't done that in a year, right? So, I think there are other things at play. But what I like is that you're seeing people in a very sociable setting, in the setting where their customers would be, in the environment that they need to be in. And I think that's important for hospitality.

[00:05:29] I mean, I've been to so many places where I wonder why people have taken a job in hospitality because they clearly don't want to be there. And I think seeing people in that environment is really important.

[00:05:41] But I do think there is, there needs to be, I know what I'm like, there needs to be some rules or some governance in there about, if you know you've got a high performer and you know the sea, you know, these coming to town, then how do you manage it to make sure that those people get the right time and that you are, as a manager of that branch, putting your right people in that situation and setting people up for success. So, I think there's a lot going on there. But I love the fact that they've done so much internal promotion.

[00:06:08] It really sounds like a culture of learning, growth, investment in people, the stuff that really matters. And I like that he's giving so much face time to employees everywhere he goes. He's not just coming in, talking to managers, going, doing a site visit, going on to the next. Like, I think that, I think it sounds like a really nice culture to be part of. Yeah, the, I want to go back to those, the four things that he looks at. And the one that I think might be, it was team players, people who see problems coming instead of just fighting fires, people who turn up with solutions.

[00:06:38] And this is my, the last one to save is my favorite one. People who own the outcome. I think that's such an interesting way to frame what I would have just described as ownership, someone taking accountability and responsibility. But I love that owning the outcome. And we do look at the numbers, as you pointed out, 23,000 promotions, all 100% of regional VP roles. So it seems like the higher you go up the organization, the more important that history is with the company.

[00:07:07] So all these things I like, I think the challenge I have is, and maybe he recognizes this and finds a way to mitigate it, is that power dynamic. The COO of a $50 billion quick serve restaurant chain, whatever you want to call them. Sitting down potentially with a 20 year old kid. Now maybe that's where a bit of ignorance is bliss, where I don't know if I was 20, I would have appreciated who the COO was.

[00:07:37] So maybe that's this great equalizer is sort of the ignorance or, or innocence of maybe meeting with people that are 18, 20, 22, 24. Whereas I feel like somebody who's in their late twenties, thirties, forties might be intimidated by sitting across from someone who has that much influence. The more I talk about it, the more I like it, but there's just this little part that I'm like, I hope that, you know, this isn't the only deciding factor and I'm sure it's not.

[00:08:07] But, but there are some people where that, that power dynamic might get, they might shut down in that environment. That might be kind of a weird thing to be sitting in your own restaurant, eating with the COO while your friends are back there probably talking about it. Like your coworkers, like that's, yeah, it's just, it's great and odd and unique. And that mixture is where I'm just not a hundred percent on board. Yeah.

[00:08:34] I'm like 90, I'm like 88% on board. I think. Yeah. I like the, I feel like actually sitting down together and having food is, is quite a great leveler from a power dynamic. Like we all, that I agree with. I mean, if it is in your own restaurant where your coworkers are watching you, it's be different if they went to the restaurant. To maybe a different spot. I don't know. Maybe they do that. I'm not sure. Yeah. Does it say that he eats in his, in their own restaurant? I'm just, or whether he just goes out for dinner.

[00:09:02] It said they ate in Chipotle, which would, which would make sense. You should. You should eat in your own restaurant. Yeah. But I mean, maybe you're going to a different location. Maybe. I don't know. Yeah. I get what you mean. Like if you're sat there having dinner and they're like one of your mates is on shift and they're serving you and it just feels a little bit weird. Like that would feel a bit weird. And I think there was probably an inclusion piece that for both of us feels like it's everybody getting the same opportunities to have this experience in order to get that, which is why we want to make sure there's other things.

[00:09:28] But, and that's why I wonder is there some, is there some strings being pulled behind the scenes where the COO is going to the GM is going to that field leader and saying, Hey, I'm going to be in time. Yeah. Who are your best people? Who should I be sitting down with? Maybe some of that is happening and we just don't know that because we don't work there, but I just want to, I hope that is happening. But yeah, me too. Me too.

[00:09:52] Next up, the burning glass Institute tracked 12 million workers across 1750 large employers and found something both again, awkward and interesting. On average, an 81 percentile point gap separates the best and worst roles inside the same company. At Cigna, actuaries hit the 99th percentile for promotion while business intelligence analysts hit at the 22nd percentile.

[00:10:21] At Best Buy, home theater installers reached the 99th percentile while customer service lands at 31. Same company opposite career and possible opportunities and the gaps aren't random. Companies invest in what they consider the strategic core and treat everything else as overhead, which also means opportunity turns up in some unglamorous places. Financial managers reached the 99th percentile at Nike and Pepsi company and accountants hit the 99th percentile at John Deere and Caterpillar ahead of banks and big four.

[00:10:52] Salesforce and John Deere though seem to spread their investment evenly across the board. For comms, this is a bit of that slow building headache that we've talked about for decades, Jenny. Employer brand and EVP work runs on one promise. We grow our people. This is a place you build your career. The data says that promise is an average. And for a big slice of the workforce, it's just not true. The engineer at the 99th percentile and the service rep at the 31st sit in the same all hands.

[00:11:20] Here the same we invest in you line. One of them knows better. And the moment a message and someone's lived experience don't line up. You completely just lose the message and you lose credibility on the next one. And it gets harder from there. These gaps aren't something comms can simply just spin away. They're investment decisions that business has already made. And the data is about to go public because AI powered career tools are starting to show candidates role level promotion, pay and retention percentiles directly.

[00:11:48] So the recruiting pitch is now fact checkable against numbers comms does not control. This uniform, we are a great place to work story, not only works as long as no one can see inside it. And that window is closing. Jay, the strategic core versus overhead means companies knowingly invest in some roles and let others stagnate.

[00:12:11] Is that a legitimate business choice that comms should help explain or a fairness problem comms should be flagging up the chain? Or a problem comms should be involved in at all, I think is also part of the question. So this feels like there's two separate things here for me. There's a there's an HR element to this, which is more that EVP, organizational design, succession planning, learning culture, all of those things that sit within HR.

[00:12:41] For comms, there is the element of how you're communicating that, how you're bringing the culture to life, how you're sharing that. I think there are bigger questions here around the HR piece of org design succession planning, because even if I think about some of the clients I'm working with and I've had conversations with them and some of their leadership team about what's your succession plan? How does this look like over here? And some functions have got that completely sorted. Like they're investing in their team. They know where they're going. They know who's coming in doing that.

[00:13:09] Other ones like I've got no idea. I haven't even thought about it. And I wonder how much that plays a role in some of this as well. So even though there is this investment going into these different places, is that investment going into those places because those leaders are putting in a better business case for the need for that? And that's why that's happening. Like for me, this is this is a leadership issue and it's an HR issue. And I think that comms to your point, like it doesn't need to be flagging it up the chain.

[00:13:35] There's an ethics piece here for me from a communication perspective of if you're communicating, you know, this is a great place to work. Everyone has an opportunity here and it's and it's just wonderful. I mean, I don't know anyone that's communicating at the moment, but if that is what you're doing, then you have to be able to verify and back that up. And I think that comms people, sometimes in internal comms, don't always look to verify and make sure what they're saying is actually true and accurate. And I think that's probably that ethics piece that's kind of flagging here for me.

[00:14:03] Yeah, this is where whether it's the people say we're a great place to work and it's all lowercase or we're a great place to work and it's trademarked registered place to work. I've always wondered like, well, for who? Who is it a great place to work? And that this sort of leans into that where whether it's leadership preferences or historical preferences or the way the business runs, clearly some positions are seen as more strategic versus overhead.

[00:14:31] And this is that challenge that comms has played for the longest time of always being either feeling like or being told they are overhead. They are not part of that strategic core. And this data kind of proves out that those investments then come into play. And when people say like we're a great place to work, either say for who or say who's the we? That's that's the important part, because we know that there's not one employee experience out there.

[00:14:58] Every employee has an experience, but there's not a singular employee experience at every single company. No, but I think that's I think that's something important that we need to recognize as a whole in communications is that we we still have this sort of blanket communication going out to all employees and and treating everybody the same. And actually, it's very different depending on your role, your location, what you're doing. All those things make your job very different.

[00:15:24] We've talked in the past when I did that paper on the value of internal communication and that difference in engagement between I'm engaged in my role, I'm engaged in the company. And they're two different things. I think I think for me, this almost signals some of that data that work is much more complex than I think we like to believe it is. And we want to sort of have a nice tick box, put in a nice bow. This is all lovely. Everyone carry on. And actually, it's very individual. It's very relationship based, which is how I started today.

[00:15:51] And I think we don't give enough time for that, especially when we're in such a task focused work mode of working remotely trying to get stuff done. And this to me, this to me feels like it's shining a huge light on something that maybe not everybody has been talking about. Everybody is aware of. It's giving you that data to kind of back up that conversation, which I think is good. It'd be great. It'd be an interesting conversation to have with HR. Are companies even aware of this? Are they even cognizant?

[00:16:19] Well, yeah, well, they're going to be if it's going to go public after AI tools. Right, that's true. Good point. So we had that. Remember when Glassdoor first came out and everyone was like terrified that people could leave reviews? Well, now this is going to be even worse because they haven't left. You know, they might just be, you know, still in it. And I think we're going to have another sort of that glass doorway where everybody clenches and panics. And how do we make this right? You just make your culture better. That's that's what you need to do. Simple as up. Yeah.

[00:16:47] Next up, we're going to talk about how Gen Z is already Jenni falling out of love with work. Emmy Neatfield's New York Times essay argues that Gen Z hasn't lost its ambition. It's just moved it somewhere else. Titles and dream company loyalty are out. Money and free time are in. In polling, financial independence, meaning enough money that you never have to work again, now outranks marriage and kids as a defining goal.

[00:17:14] Gen Z respondents said they need close to $600,000 a year to feel successful and 200 to 300,000 just to feel stable. Three and four want to run their own thing. More than half would be influencers if they could. Not one of the students Newfield interviewed named a dream employer. Now, this isn't the lazy kids caricature that every generation has out there. It's a read on what she calls a casino economy.

[00:17:43] The worst graduate job market in years. Nearly half of recent grads unemployed or underemployed housing out of reach and AI quietly eating the creative jobs several of our interviews, interviewees trained for. A campus chaplain summed it up like this. Students no longer ask, what can I achieve? And instead ask, what do I need to survive?

[00:18:07] One Emory professor found that his seminar students felt less in control of their lives than the average prisoner did in 1966, just 60 years ago. Here's a problem for internal comms. This whole EX playbook, the purpose, the belonging, the bring your whole self to work was built for the millennials who treated work as salvation. Gen Z treats it as a transaction they're tolerating for the paycheck. As one grad put it, our generation recognizes a bad deal when they see it.

[00:18:37] That's where the hard look at the messages you're sending on autopilot. There's a lot to talk about here, Jenni, but I am curious. Have you been in love with work? Yes. Have you? Of course. I love work. Yes. I think about the work that I do and the places that I have worked. There have been more where I've truly loved the identity, the work.

[00:19:05] I think at times almost even to an unhealthy way where I have sacrificed other things because that love has almost perhaps turned into an obsession, which is not healthy. Yeah, no, I think that's fair. I think that's probably our generational downfall for a lot of us.

[00:19:25] I've always loved work, but I have also and I think so much of that is due to your environment, how you've grown up, your values, all of your lived experience and how you feel about work. And I do think that plays a huge role. I grew up with a dad who ran his own business. I grew up with a mom who went out to work when things didn't go so well for my dad's business. So there was a strong work ethic in my world. And I loved working in a retail store. I loved working in the pub.

[00:19:51] The pub was probably one of my favorite jobs I've ever had because I love the community that was with that. And I think there is something about why you go to work, finding meaning in that and why you're doing it. And I think that's a big part for a lot of us is feeling like you're contributing to society. And I'm not saying that Gen Z don't want to contribute to society, but this whole I need six hundred thousand pounds a year to feel six hundred thousand dollars.

[00:20:14] Sorry, a year to feel successful is terrifying to me in terms of just the amount of money that that is that people feel that they need to be successful. I can't get my head around that at all. That just was like such a huge like where's that come from? Like what like and I and I've I feel like there's so much in here around social media, what it's saying your life should be and all the nonsense that people feel they should have.

[00:20:36] But also thinking about this balance of work and it's not just about going to work and you want to have free time and all those kind of things as well. But I think you have to find that meaning and purposefulness somewhere for us in human beings like it's innate in us. I think if you're not finding that in work, you'll find it somewhere else. Then I think you need to do that. This what do I need to do to survive?

[00:20:57] And I find really interesting because I do think that that things like hygiene factors at work, if we think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs and those bottom rung of things, I think the hygiene factors have been ignored at work for a really long time. And I think people have tried to do lots of shiny things when actually the hygiene factors still remain very important.

[00:21:15] And I think when there is so much news out there about the cost of living, about debt, about war, about all of these things going on that are impacting our lives and our economy and everything around the world, those hygiene factors become even more important. And I think we've probably just ignored them too much in organizations. Yeah, I'm curious how HR will respond to all of this. I think there's a little bit of I'm even thinking back to a kid when you think it's just all about the money.

[00:21:41] It's all about the salary like and you and you don't really necessarily always have a grasp. And I'm not saying Gen Z is naive in this. I have zero issues with people wanting to make a lot of money. It's just more to say, like, this is what I need to feel stable. This is what I need to feel. Yeah, successful. I know the influence that social media has on these early career individuals.

[00:22:05] There's a lot of pay transparency that you see in social content where people like, oh, this is how much money I made last year. I made $100,000 on YouTube and $50,000. That was just in the last month. I'm not saying these people are lying, but it's probably not showing off a real truth to people where they think like that one person might have. But it's also showing the one lottery winner as why you should play the lottery. Like this doesn't it doesn't always add up.

[00:22:34] But I think it goes back to what you said. It's that purpose finding the things that you enjoy. If you excel and do it, well, there are ways now to be compensated, whether it is through an employer or you are doing it your own. Like it says at three and four want to run their own thing. That's an amazing entrepreneurial spirit to bring to say that I don't need the company. I don't need someone else to do that. I can do it myself. I like a lot of that attitude and even bringing that inside of companies. Mm hmm. I'm more curious.

[00:23:01] See, like companies are going to need employees regardless of what. Yeah. Weird billionaire out there is saying from an A.I. standpoint. You are going to need employees. So some of us are going to age out. Some of us are going to die out of this. So what are you going to do to attract. The next generations beyond Gen Z, Gen A. I guess it would be Gen B after that. I've got no idea. Yeah. Well, they're coming. But I don't what I do think is to your point of how are HR going to respond to this.

[00:23:31] There's a root cause to this that I think organizations need to get underneath in terms of if people are saying this is what they need to feel successful. This is what they need to feel stable. They would run their own thing. The half would be influencers. They can't name a dream employer like like why? Like what is it that they've lost faith in? And I know people that work for corporates in internal comms and HR that are also feeling like I don't know that I want to stay here because it just it doesn't feel real. And it doesn't feel like anyone cares. It doesn't feel real.

[00:23:59] It feels like all the stuff that's going on in a lot of organizations. And if people are saying, what do I need to survive versus what can I achieve? Then again, you've got those hygiene factors. So it feels like there's something about getting to this root cause here around why do people feel like that? What's driving that? Is it because they don't think that companies are trustworthy or they don't believe them or they don't think it's credible or they don't think there's enough career progression or they're not going to earn enough money? Like what's driving that?

[00:24:25] And I think that that's the question that I think HR and leaders should be asking. And I think all of those things that you just laid out, I'm not going to repeat the list, are now more easily discovered and easily found. 100%. It was all from a marketing angle. Like look at all these opportunities. Now people know if it's real or not. Yeah. And finally, Gartner is not going to soften this one. My favorite topic again, going back to leadership competency.

[00:24:55] Only 26% of employees say their senior leaders are both competent and trustworthy. I don't know why I'm saying that with a smile. Well, Jenny. But 79% report low trust in change. During AI transformation, leadership has stopped being the primary source of truth. Employees build their read from Reddit, blind, glass door, the news and each other. And executive messaging gets met with a shrug or a screenshot.

[00:25:22] The three recommendations run against typical comms instinct. Stop headlining the inspiring future state AI vision internally, because it speeds up skepticism. Lead with blunt business reality instead. Move past sentiment surveys and actually track the narrative spreading throughout the anonymous forums. And then match each message to whoever's most credible to deliver it.

[00:25:45] And stop letting executives sell the personal upside of AI, because employees here promise, not vision. Instead, it should just go through managers and peers. All these stakes, though, come with numbers. High trust organizations get more than six times the discretionary effort and fear of AI driven job loss can cost a big employer up to $47 million a year and people quietly deciding to leave.

[00:26:14] This is what listeners should be paying attention to. The executive voice, the thing comms teams spend their careers polishing, is now a liability on certain messages. Jenni, there are so many different ways I wanted to take this. This is like a Christmas morning for me with some of these data points. Let's start with one. With this CEO, like inspiring the AI vision, but also feeling skepticism.

[00:26:42] That's the opposite of what leaders want to hear. They think they're setting the vision is going to inspire people. It's actually feeling skepticism. How do you tell an exec that who thinks their vision speech is the whole point? This is what I feel like I've spent my life's work building to, which is trying to help leaders understand that you have to have so many different elements for people to believe you and trust you. I mean, I talk about the eight things to be credible, to be believable, and you need all of them.

[00:27:10] And people always say when I talk about these eight, really, can everyone have all eight and do you need them? Yes, you need them. You might need a base level of all of them, but you need them. And this is exactly this. You can't just have the vision because what this is saying is, oh, I just want to share my visionary speech for what we're going to do.

[00:27:27] Great. But if people don't think you have any integrity or you haven't had any empathy for the last six months to a year, or you haven't been supportive through significant organizational change, then you standing up there with all the charisma in the world isn't going to do anything to actually move anybody to where you want them to go. You can't just have that one thing. And it's like we believe that if I just really nail this one thing, then everyone's going to follow, believe me, and we're all going to move forward. And it's just not as simple as that.

[00:27:54] And I think that in a probably nicer way is how I would say it to an exec. It's also about remembering that it's not about you. And I think we still have a lot of leaders that communicate for themselves. I want to share this vision. I want to talk about this. That's not how communication should work. It's about what your employees need, what they want to hear, what's going to help them do what you need them to do. What's the outcome you want them to achieve. That's the stuff that you've got to think about. This, this doesn't work. What this means for internal comms.

[00:28:21] I don't know because this is the go to to your point of an internal comms message about AI is the massively visionary note from the CEO about why we're doing it and where it's going to go. What do you think about that data point of 26% of employees finding leaders competent and trustworthy? I'm not surprised. Was that lower than you thought higher than you thought? Are you giddy about it? Like I am.

[00:28:49] I think so like, you know, I'm like with data. What do they mean by leaders? Like how are they defined that in the survey? So don't, don't spoil this for me. I know. I know. I know. I'm not, I'm going to let you have the glee. So I'm not surprised at all because I think that we are so detached from a relationship perspective at work that how can you find someone competent and trustworthy if you don't know them? You don't see them. You, if you do, it just feels like a load of hot air.

[00:29:18] And actually the messages that you're being given don't really say anything. It just, it's a lot of vision, but there's not a lot of substance. Like all of that is what's happening in a lot of places. So 26% is low. But when I really think about that, I'm, I'm unfortunately not that surprised, especially when you couple it with some of the engagement scores we've talked about from Gallup over the recent years as well. Like all of, all roots lead to leadership, as we always say. Mm hmm. Well, that wraps up our stuff for this week, Jenny. Let's move along to freak outs.

[00:29:48] What are you freaking out about? I am freaking out about emotional men. So I've written my notes, which sounds, which sounds a bit strange. So for some context, I was at a wedding last week. I was bridesmaid, one of my very good friends who is getting married. Steph is now married to Matt and it's delightful. But what was just, what was lovely about the speeches was Matt's speech as the groom was quite emotional and he said he wasn't going to be able to get through it without having a few little, little tears.

[00:30:17] And he did. And then the best man speech was equally very emotional. He talks about having a really hard time and how, you know, and how the groom had been there for him and they'd gone off and had a weekend together. And there was just something lovely. It stayed with me. It's been been a week now and it's just stayed with me in terms of how lovely it was to be in a room, celebrating two people getting married, which is always lovely, but also hearing from two men talking so emotionally about life and relationships.

[00:30:43] And I just don't think we hear it enough. And it just felt very refreshing to be around that. And it was just, it was lovely. I would say identifying as a man. That's one of those places that men are not judged for having, sharing some of those emotions. But there's also a bit of a kind of a funny side to this. As I saw this video, this woman posted of like, here's my husband crying on our wedding day. And he wasn't.

[00:31:14] Here's my husband crying when the Knicks won the NBA championship. And he's just bawling. Right. Just overcome with emotion. So we all find it in different places. We do. In different spots. We do. It's there. We do. Contrary to popular belief, men do have emotions. We just sometimes don't always display them in a similar way as women do out there.

[00:31:42] Um, my freak out was remember, I mean, we've talked about it a few times where we said, like, with return to office mandates. What if you designed a workplace that people want to come to people want to be a part of.

[00:31:59] So this past week, I was in Omaha, Nebraska, and did a workshop there with Lucy Hub workshop and ecology all came together in the Omaha community to do a workshop and got to be in their office really cool old. Um, I guess it used to be an old mill back in the days that has now been refurbed and rehabbed in a coffee shop and stores and the workshop office is located there. And they're also expanding their office.

[00:32:28] And so, uh, Derek Coleman, one of their co-founders took Amir and I on a bit of a tour to show. You could just see the pride. Yeah. And him talking about like the existing space and then this new space they're adding. So I think I might be getting these numbers off a bit. So apologies, Derek, if you listen to this, but I think it was, they have 10,000 square foot now and they're adding 16,000. Wow. Square feet to it. And just this is what we're good. But also like we learned from that space. We're not going to do that over here. We're going to do this over here.

[00:32:58] And I was like, wow, Derek, it sounds like. Let me get this straight. You're designing a workplace that people would want to come to. He's like, right. We don't, they have no mandate for it. Now they're not a ginormous company. They're growing. I was surprised they're around 150 people now, but they're building for growth. They're building for a place where there is room for everyone to come into. And it was just really refreshing.

[00:33:25] One to see, it was great to see the pride and excitement that he had for adding on. But also that as a leadership team, the focus they have on let's build a place that people want to be a part of. They want to come in and do it. It probably doesn't hurt that there's a pizza shop downstairs. There's an ice cream shop downstairs and a brewery downstairs and a coffee shop downstairs and a bakery downstairs. Those would all help me. But that's part of the environment. But yeah, that's part of creating that.

[00:33:55] Yeah. They've chosen that space. Well, I'd say. Yeah, it's a really cool. I hope there's some time you get to explore Omaha. Jenny, I don't know when that time will come, but it's a really great city. And it's one of those cities that whether it's Sioux Falls, South Dakota or Omaha, Nebraska, like I'm always excited to be a part of those. And that's what we are freaking out about this week. Thank you all for joining us. The show notes have all the articles and links from today's conversation. If frequencies are regular part of your week, a quick review goes a long way.

[00:34:25] Subscribe wherever you're listening and share this with one person who's interested in what we talk about. Thank you to my friend poet Ali for the music. We're back every Monday. See you next week.