Workplace Culture? The Workplace Therapist tells us the secret to a good workplace

The Chris DeBlasio Podcast

Workplace Culture? The Workplace Therapist tells us the secret to a good workplace

- On this episode of C Level, I'm hanging out with The Workplace Therapist, Brandon Smith and the podcast host of The Brandon Smith Show. So Brandon, thank you for coming out.
- I am so thrilled I get to come here and hang out with you.
- I'm really excited, so you've been on several networks, you were on Ted Talks.
- [Brandon] Right, I have, yup.
- You have a show called The Workplace Therapist.
- [Brandon] I do.
- And I'm really excited about this episode because we get to talk about the emotion of a leader and how it affects the workplace, the culture of a company, and that's a big thing, so I want to hear your story. So where did you get started? Where are you from?
- Oh, wow, so okay, so yeah, so today, what I do is basically help organizations and leaders to create healthier workplaces. So I'll tell you how that kind of got started for me. So I'll come jump into middle portion of the story. So I went to Vanderbilt undergraduate and got a degree in Communications, and like most good Communication majors, I was unemployed at graduation, wondering what am I gonna do with this thing? And I went looking for a job, looking for a job, and I ended up getting this job with this chain of retail stores. It was a family-owned business and it was privately held, so they've got 15 stores kind of around the metro area, and they hired me to be the assistant manager of one of these stores. So to give you a little backdrop into this business, it was a family-owned business, and the woman who started the business, her daughter marries this guy, and he becomes my boss, so the son-in-law of the business. So I show up on the first day of work and he greets me at the door. He says, "Brandon, I'm really excited to have you here. "You're gonna be the assistant manager of the store, "but before you get started, I have a task for you. "Waiting for you in the back room "is the current assistant manager of the store, "but he doesn't know you're coming, "so your job is to go back there and fire him "and you get his job."
- [Chris] That's awesome, first task.
- First day, first task, I didn't walk in the door yet, and he says, "Go back there and fire that guy, you get his job," and that was how my boss rolled. He'd come in, he loves surprise visits. So part of where I became so passionate about this work that I do is by having a world-class, horrible boss. So he did all the things that bosses shouldn't do. He loves surprise visits, he loved trying to catch you doing something wrong. So he would come in and surprise visit and he'd say, "I don't like what Sharon's wearing, go fire her." So I had to do more layoffs in the first six months of that job than any other time in my career, even now. And so during the time I kind of realized, really, three things. First, I realized work should not have to suck. It should be a source of fulfillment and meaning and purpose, not a source of anxiety and stress and depression. I mean, it is work. I mean, you're gonna get some of that stuff, but it should be more of the good stuff. Second, if my boss was any indication of the state of leadership today in the workplace, there was a real need, so I wanted to try and tackle that. And then third, that was where my purpose was born. I said, man, I want to fix all workplace dysfunction everywhere forever, having no idea what I just signed up for. So back in those days--