Ever wonder how a bicycle company became a $2 billion success story?
Mark Joslyn, vice president of HR and IT at Trek, joins the Better podcast to talk about how listening to employees and fostering a "do the right thing" company culture drives profitability and business success.
Trek has risen from No. 94 in 2023 to No. 50 in 2025 on the Fortune 100 Best Companies To Work For List ® — a feat Joslyn attributes to Trek's strategic use of the Great Place To Work Trust Index Survey. The survey has helped the company listen deeply to its employees and build a feedback-rich culture that fosters trust and innovation.
“I sometimes refer to the survey as a smoke detector, and I think it is an interesting indicator of how people are feeling and things that I think you often can address,” he says. “And when you do, you can really change the course of how people are feeling and what their experience would be. Feedback is a gift and the best way to get that is to use this tool.”
The role of leadership in profitability
Trek's leadership development approach, inspired by Jim Collins’ book “Good to Great,” uses a rating system for leadership effectiveness, categorizing leaders from one through five. This ensures leaders are equipped with the necessary training and resources, rather than being thrust into management roles based solely on past individual performance.
Improved leadership scores directly correlate with better business outcomes, he says.
“As we’ve seen those leaders improve, the business improves,” he says. “Leaders who have lower scores in this area, it's a really good indicator of what they need to work on. And if they choose to do that, we're giving them the tools and the resources to do just that.”
"Feedback is a gift and the best way to get that is to use this tool." -- Mark Joslyn, VP of HR and IT, Trek
'Feedback is a gift'
Joslyn shared Trek’s company culture, built on the mantra of “doing the right thing,” illustrated with a powerful story:
When a collegiate team lost their bicycles in a fire, a Trek customer service employee orchestrated a solution overnight, ensuring they had new bikes by the next day. The employee didn’t ask for permission or wait for approval—they acted based on what they believed was right and how they would want to be treated.
This empowerment drives Trek’s customer satisfaction, boosting both Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and employee experience scores.
“Feedback is a gift, and the best way to get feedback from consumers is through that net promoter,” he says.Employee feedback is equally important to Trek’s success. The company uses tools like the 360-degree feedback system to collect input from all levels and perspectives within the organization. Joslyn acknowledges the value of anonymous feedback, especially when addressing sensitive topics.
"We're in the Midwest, we see Midwest nice all the time, and you ask people to give a zero to five rating and probably they round up, and that's great," he says. "That's one of the nicest things about our workforce. But I think the opportunity to hear candid feedback, unfiltered or maybe without those concerns becomes really important. Obviously, what's more important is what you choose to do with that gift of feedback."
Additionally, when employee feedback revealed dissatisfaction with the company’s virtual learning programs, Trek took action, adjusting their strategy by creating bite-sized content and gradually reintroducing in-person learning sessions. This responsiveness reinforces the importance of seeing feedback as a tool for continuous improvement.
He explains how culture, aligned with profitability, serves as the cornerstone for sustainable growth.
“Our CEO's goal is for Trek to become an iconic company that lasts 100 years. We're at 49 years today. None of us are going to be here when that journey is complete, but the idea that we're setting it up so that it can is really something I'm very excited about. I feel like that is my responsibility to make sure that that in fact can happen.”
Roula (00:18):
Welcome to Better By Great Place to work the Global Authority on Workplace culture. I'm your host, ULA Amir, content director at Great Place to Work. I have Mark Jocelyn, vp, human Resources and Information Technology at Trek on today we talk about how listening and leadership drive profitability for Trek and how it can for you too to begin with. You can't assume you know what your employees are experiencing, which is why Trek uses the Great Place to Work Trust Index Survey. It's helped them jump from number 94 on the a hundred Best Companies to Work for List and 2023 to number 50 in 2025. And he shares lots of great tips and insights around how that happened. I've been thinking a lot about Mark's personal board of directors, which he tells us about and how I need to get myself one. If you're thinking about asking someone to be a mentor, mark would tell you, go for it. I also really loved hearing him talk about one of his first jobs as a camp counselor and how much of what he learned about the workplace today came from that experience. That will not come as a surprise to you once you learn why his CEO calls Mark Ted, stay tuned.
(01:41):
Hey, mark, welcome to the podcast.
Mark (01:42):
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
Roula (01:44):
I was so excited when I saw that TRE headquarters was in Waterloo. I thought, oh, I've been there, but it turns out I haven't. I've been to Baraboo, Wisconsin.
Mark (01:53):
Oh, that far. Okay. Okay.
Roula (01:55):
Yeah, I used to write for a candy magazine. There's a trade magazine for every industry, so that was a great job and that's what took me to Baraboo. I went to the Baraboo Candy Company of all places. Yes, okay. My friends love that job because I'd get free candies and press kits.
Mark (02:09):
Exactly. It was fun. That Edge Schwa.
Roula (02:11):
Yeah. Yeah.
Mark (02:12):
Baraboo is actually a really cool place to ride bicycles. There's a lot of great trails there. Wisconsin was the first state to actually repurpose railroads to become trails, so that rails to Trails movement was I think 1969 in Wisconsin and not far from Baraboo. So it's a place a lot of people, it's a destination for some people to go and ride.
Roula (02:32):
I did not know that
Mark (02:33):
You were there
Roula (02:34):
And I was there.
Mark (02:34):
And Candy. Now I know
Roula (02:36):
You need pit stop on your next ride to bike ride.
Mark (02:38):
Good to know.
Roula (02:38):
Yes, I highly recommend. So I'm calling you Mark, because that is your name. Thank you. Which sounds odd, but your CEO I've learned calls you Ted.
Mark (02:50):
He does.
Roula (02:51):
That begs the question why
Mark (02:52):
It does beg the question. So it is a reference to the wonderful TV show Ted Lasso and I will just, it came at the right time. I think it was the right show for a lot of generations. We needed that. I believe at that moment in time, the nickname story comes that I had mentioned to him that my kids told me individually that they thought that I should watch the show. I thought, okay, that's one data set. And then I started hearing from other people at work and then finally my mom suggested that I watch the show and I thought, well, all these people are recommending it. I guess I need to check it out. And I watched the first few episodes and then I later followed up and asked, why did you recommend it? And they said, well, because you are Ted. You're Ted.
(03:36):
And that stuck. And John agrees with that statement. And so literally since that show started, he has called me Ted. And it can be quite fun to watch when we're with groups where they think does, why is he calling him Ted? But it's a nice reference. And I will also say, I know that I think it's meant as a compliment, but I also know that Ted's kind of the goofy, probably the parrot that embarrasses their kids. So I know maybe it has also some other meetings to people, but I do appreciate that and if you're going to remind someone of a character, I guess that's a good one.
Roula (04:06):
Absolutely. Well, this might be the closest I come to meeting Ted Lasso.
Mark (04:10):
Okay, well there you go. There you go.
Roula (04:13):
So we are going to talk today about how culture drives profits and business success. I know you've seen firsthand how culture helped Trek transform into a $2 billion company. We're going to talk about some of the things you've done, but let's back up and start from the beginning. Leaders love to benchmark things. They benchmark this, that, and the other thing as they should, but they don't usually benchmark what's going on with their people. They think employees are having a better time than they're having. They think engagement is through the roof. And meanwhile, Gallup says engagement's at an all time low. They think their companies have successfully adopted ai. And we have survey after survey saying their employees disagree and are begging for more training. So there's always this gap. What would you say to executives who don't think they need to ask their employees what is and isn't working and get feedback? The executives who assume they might hear all this and say, yeah, but I know my people,
Mark (05:08):
You said it so well. And I think our journey really reminded us through time, especially as we were adding a lot of new people, the importance of listening and getting the very pulse that you're talking about. I sometimes review or refer to the survey as a smoke detector, and I think it is an interesting indicator of how people are feeling and things that I think you often can address. And when you do, you can really change the course of how people are feeling and what their experience would be. So my advice for sure would be feedback is a gift and the best way to get that is to use this tool. I wish we lived in a world where everyone said the same thing to people that they say about people. Fortunately, that's not always the case, and I fully understand that keyboard courage is a thing.
(05:57):
So being anonymous can sometimes give people the courage or the power to maybe say what they really feel and really articulate what they think perhaps others are feeling as well. So the reality is, even if you feel that you have this great open culture and everyone can tell me everything, that's just not human nature. I think people hold back. We're in the Midwest, we see Midwest nice all the time, and you ask people to give a zero to five rating and probably they round up and that's great. That's one of the nicest things about our workforce. But I think the opportunity to hear candid feedback, unfiltered or maybe without those concerns becomes really important. Obviously, what's more important is what you choose to do with that gift of feedback. But I think for all leaders, they would be surprised, just as you said, of what people really are feeling or thinking or concerned about. And I think the survey is the best way to get it.
Roula (06:56):
And also it's hard to know where you're going unless you know where you are.
Mark (07:02):
Well said, I agree. And I do think, as you said, it's very important to look at it over time. We actually increase the frequency of our survey process a few years ago and went to two times a year. And that was important because we were at that time in a period of really rapid growth. We were adding a lot of new people and we didn't want to wait a year to hear their input or their feedback. So adding that second survey really was a good idea. But it allows us, as you said, to track progress over time.
Roula (07:32):
You mentioned the trust index survey to ask employees about their experience. Are there things that you thought was working that wasn't assumptions that you learned that prompted you to make some changes? Can you share some of those
Mark (07:46):
Every year? There's an answer to that, but I'll tell you a couple of my favorites. So as all companies experienced with the pandemic, it changed the ability to get together in person. And we had at that point made a number of really great decisions and investments around bringing people together, regionally, globally, bringing leadership together, bringing speakers in invaluable opportunity for people not only to learn in the sessions, but to learn from one another. And those hallway conversations and relationship building was just fantastic. So as we were in a position where we could not do that, we quickly stepped in with video and we built a library of interviews. We built I think content that was not only relevant to our business, but probably to what people were experiencing in general. And we were really proud of that library. So the feedback that we got was people still felt that they weren't getting opportunities for learning or for development.
(08:42):
And as we unpacked that and studied that and talked to employees, we learned two things. One, that a lot of that great content that we built was an hour long or two hours long, or they were longer format interviews and there were so many gems within that interview, but we were often offering not a small dose, but something you would commit to maybe sitting and learning with and people said they would appreciate more pointed, easy to search, I'm dealing with a specific issue, is there something that would help me deal with that issue? So reformatting in many cases, editing and offering things in bite-sized pieces was a good example of that. The other same issue was as we went into a period of less travel, I think people missed the learning that was happening in those live sessions and from peers. So we and have adapted that as well.
(09:34):
So we've recently started bringing back some of those meetings. I don't think we'll ever go back to the level of travel that we had before, which is a good thing for everyone, but there's no substitute for some of those types of experiences. So listening and then trying to understand beyond just the score. That was an example of where something we thought was going to go skyrocketing up as we kept adding to the library and as it was holding or in some cases actually declining, it allowed us to step in and understand what was that smoke detector telling us. So that's certainly a more recent, but I think a powerful example of how you sometimes have this impression, we're doing everything, why don't people know about it? Or why aren't they acknowledging it when it maybe was slightly missing the mark or wasn't maybe accessible to everyone,
Roula (10:21):
Right? And you wouldn't have known that without surveying or asking. And I think a point you've just made that if you choose to go down this road, you have to listen to what your employees say and then take action on what you've heard. And they need to know that they've been heard. But if you can't commit to those things, then don't go down this path. I'm sure you agree with
Mark (10:41):
That. I do agree with that. I would just maybe add that one of the lessons we've certainly learned is, as you said, you need to let people know that you've heard it. And in some cases, if you're not going to act on it, you need to say that as well. So there are situations where the feedback points towards a certain solution, and we might even work with teams to better understand their ideas, but it's just not practical at that point in time. Too many other things happening, not resources, not available in the moment. So I think it's also important to say the things that you are planning to follow up on and those that you're not at this point and explain why, but you're correct. If you don't want this feedback or if have no intention to actually do anything with it, you're just going through the cycle of asking that actually will backfire.
Roula (11:29):
Right? Don't
Mark (11:30):
Survey that, don't survey, don't survey.
Roula (11:32):
You have a philosophy of do the right thing across the company and that has improved your net promoter score. Tell us why the net promoter score is so important and how doing the right thing helps that.
Mark (11:47):
Sure. So I keep saying feedback is a gift and the best way to get feedback from consumers is through that net promoter. So a simple survey that goes out and then you're getting continuous feedback. So unlike our employee survey that happens twice a year. Net promoter happens every single day within the hours of the day. We're getting constant feedback and we're very, very proud of the net promoter score that we've earned both in our own stores, but also working with partner stores and working now more direct with consumer as well. And I think the idea of taking care of your customer, whether you're a wholesaler and that means the company that's representing you. So we measure that or direct to consumer as you have that experience. So super important to have that feedback coming in all the time. And I would say where the do the right thing comes is we're a culture that's been built over 49 years and many of us had the benefit of working with the earliest leaders of the business.
(12:47):
It was a great gift and privilege for me to actually work with the founder of the business. He wasn't active at the time that I started in terms of the day-to-day, but he had a very large impact in the company. And so many of us had the benefit of knowing what would the big guy do? That's what he was affectionately known as. And we knew the answer because we had seen him in action and we literally could say, and those of us that work with and around many leaders in the company, we just know that in the end we're always going to do the right thing. But if you're new to the company and new to a role in the company and you're just not quite sure what your boundaries are or what you're empowered to do, that can sometimes slow the process down. Things have to wait or they get moved up and down the organization.
(13:29):
And so what we've learned over time is the more that we can empower people to just make the call, do the right thing, treat people the way you would want to be treated if you were the consumer, and then we'll back you up. And if we make a mistake, we make a mistake, but no one's ever been disciplined or fired for doing too much for a customer or going too far. And we have so many wonderful stories of people that just use that very simple approach of how would I want to be treated if I were the one in this situation?
Roula (14:00):
Is that how you defined you the right thing? How would you want to be treated if you were the customer? Whatever that answer is. But do the right thing might mean different things to different people.
Mark (14:09):
It totally could. When you're thinking about that frontline interaction with a customer, often it's an issue that probably is pretty simple to resolve this product question, something's not working the way that you expected it to work. You want to exchange something. So I think if we can remove that friction, if we can just say, of course we're going to take care of that. We're going to back all of our products, we're going to support the service we provide. So it is very much at that transactional level. How would you like to be treated, but also what's the right thing to do in this
Roula (14:41):
Situation? Give us some examples. What are some and any do's and don'ts around this or any lessons learned around it? It sounds intuitive, it sounds clear, but I think if we had a specific
Mark (14:53):
Piece. Sure. We had a situation where a team was traveling, a collegiate team was traveling to a race and sadly all their bikes were in the vehicle being transported by a third party transport company. They learned on their way to the race that all the bikes there had been a fire and all the bikes were destroyed and there was really no resolution, certainly no fast resolution. And so that team scrambled trying to find bikes for their athletes to be able to participate in the events. And they began calling everyone they could think of and started of course, with the company that they had been working with and people who had supported them and they just weren't getting very far. And so they reached out to one of our customer service team and explained the situation and said, we're in a bind and we're trying to figure out what we can do. And this person on their own organized the most amazing solution that not only had them on bikes like new bikes built overnight, people stayed up to get the bikes ready to get the bikes there to the venue. The athletes used those, did really well, had a great experience. That individual never asked anyone. They didn't clear that they just made decisions that were how they would want to be treated and what seemed in their mind to really be the right thing to do.
Roula (16:03):
And I'm assuming your scores NPS scores and your employee experience scores, there's a high correlation of both improving
Mark (16:12):
Without a doubt. The correlation is direct. The ability to get that feedback and really unpacking the feedback not only gets you to the heart of the statements within the trust index, but often leads to some great collaboration, new ideas coming in and problem solving. We're big fans of the whiteboard and we have a joke that no meeting at Trek will end without it breaking into a whiteboard session at some point or another. That's superpower
Roula (16:40):
Isn't Ted, isn't Ted a fan of the whiteboard as well? Oh, very
Mark (16:44):
Much. Absolutely. No surprise probably, but we all are. It's the ultimate tool. It's so basic and it's so simple, but it's just, yeah, it's getting a lot of people's ideas quickly, framing a puzzle, framing a problem, and then listening and helping to solve it.
Roula (16:59):
You believe great leaders can come from anywhere. You've created a training program called Level five Leadership based on some of the concepts of Jim Collins who famously wrote the book, good to Great. In the book, he describes a level five leader as someone who has humility will and credits others, what has this done to your culture and how has it helped the business succeed financially?
Mark (17:23):
It's had a really profound effect. First on providing education and information. Too often I think organizations put people into leadership jobs because they were an extraordinary individual contributor, and we take the best salesperson or we take the best builder, the best fabricator. We say, no, you're in charge of a whole bunch of people and budgets and other things without providing the training or the resources to do that. We subscribe to the research that shows that when people fail in their job, it's usually because the job was never defined and because they weren't given the training to do it. So the short answer would be we've tried to align that education and training to the very environment or issues that leaders are going to confront, whether they're doing it for the first time or they've been at it for a while. And we're constantly adding to that library as we learn about organizations or best practices that we think could help people in that journey. And each year we spend time looking at how our businesses are performing, and we use the same language level one through level five,
(18:28):
But then how are individuals, how are leaders doing? And we have a very deliberate process of looking at what are their strengths, what are the things, their opportunities, where they can improve? We spend a lot of time talking about relationships. We know that's how things get done, and we talk a lot about the current status and where perhaps people should put their focus. And then we give ratings on each of those four areas, and that constitutes that process of continuous learning and working towards that. So direct correlation, as we've seen those leaders scores improve. No surprise, the business improves leaders who have lower scores in this area, it's a really good indicator of what they need to work on. And if they choose to do that, we're giving them the tools and the resources to do just that.
Roula (19:17):
And you've built a culture where giving them the tools and resources is also part of feedback. So they have to hear things they might not want to hear that they assume they're doing well, and results might say something different. So you have to have a feedback rich culture to even do any of this
Mark (19:35):
Without a doubt. We use another tool as many organizations do, which is a 360 tool where you're really hearing from all the constituents that you're working with on a regular basis and you get a really nice set of feedback from the people that report to you. So sort of the hierarchical view and of course from your boss, but I think it's that sort of lateral view of your peers, your customers, people that you're working with on a regular basis. That tool combined with the framework of what are we going to do with this feedback, I think becomes especially powerful. And I think it's important that you use that tool starting at the top for it to have credibility and to be useful throughout the organization. Back to my earlier comment, I think I wish that everyone said the same thing to people that they say about people, but sometimes you do need tools including the anonymous or the anonymity that comes with a 360 for people to really feel comfortable offering up that feedback. And if it's feedback the leaders never heard before, that also tells us something that maybe they're intimidating and they're not open or they're not receptive. So
(20:39):
Those things combined I do think create a high expectation, a high standard, but also tools to then react to that feedback.
Roula (20:46):
How have all these things contributed to the bottom line of Trek?
Mark (20:50):
I mentioned earlier that a metric that's been around forever that many leaders look at is turnover rates, attrition in the organization. It's interesting and it can provide some good insights, but first it's too late because people have already chosen to leave your boss. But also it represents this huge then new cost of replacing those people, retraining those people, getting people back up to speed with what they need to do. And I think too often we look at indicators that are really after the fact output indicators instead of trying to find the things that we could influence that actually could make a significant difference. So one answer would be feedback is going to give you, I think that leading indicator of what's going to come later if you choose not to do anything about it. So that would be one. I also think this is a time where people have ideas and if they've worked in other places, sometimes they have really valuable ideas that could change the way that we operate. So having a way to listen for that, to get that feedback, what is it relative to other experiences you've had, can be really powerful as well. So I think any leader would say the most painful thing is when you go through all the work and the expense of finding someone, training someone, getting them up to speed and then they leave and you're right back to where you started again. So I would probably look more toward any type of leading indicator that might help you avoid those costs and difficulties later.
Roula (22:26):
Hey everyone, if you like listening to the podcast, then don't miss the Great Place to work for All Summit in April in Las Vegas where you will learn from the best in the world, meet more than 1500 leaders and get insights on what the data says drives business success. And that is people and culture. I promise you'll leave inspired and ready to transform your workplace. Use the code better to save 20% off registration link and coder in the bio. Don't miss out and I'll see you there. I learned you're an Ohio guy, you went to Denison. Did you know what you wanted to do when you went there? Did you have an idea of what you wanted to be when you grew up and what did that look like for Young Mark slash head
Mark (23:17):
Mark? Wow. Yeah. Well, I will say I had no idea. I had so many great role models and people in my life and everything looked great to me. I thought they all were pretty cool. But I will say that I have always been just quite enamored, quite a student of the explorers. And my two favorites when I was a kid were Sara and Hillary first to climb Everest and Jacque sto. So the answer to your question is I thought, I'm going to be a marine biologist and I'm going to travel the seven Cs. I'm going to just do what CTO does and I'm even going to learn how to speak French because then if he calls me, I'll be available and I can go and do it. And I had had some success with biology. I had amazing professor who guided me there, and so off I went thinking biology.
(24:06):
As I got further into it, I learned a very important lesson that most marine biologists actually work in windowless rooms studying samples. And that really wasn't so much for me. I began to wonder if there were other things that I should explore. You mentioned Denison, and one of the great benefits or certainly something I'm most appreciative of is I probably changed my mind four or five times as an undergrad. But that was the great thing about the liberal arts experience. And I believe that school in particular, so very different outcomes that came later, but through that experimentation, trying different courses and actually having that requirement to take courses in many different disciplines I think was the best thing for a kid like me who really didn't have a specific idea. And that guided me to a lot of really cool opportunities. And then the alumni network ultimately guided me to some really cool career opportunities.
Roula (24:56):
When you were younger, what was the first job you had? So not your first professional job, and was that a great place to work?
Mark (25:04):
Oh wow. I had a lot of jobs. I had so many odd jobs. I remember getting my first official work permit and thinking, well, I've already been doing things for a while. But I think the answer would probably be maybe no surprise. I was actually a camp counselor.
Roula (25:17):
Oh,
Mark (25:18):
Mark, of course
Roula (25:19):
You were.
Mark (25:20):
Yeah, I was in charge of the youngest group at camp. And I often say that I think most of what I do today, most of what I learned, some of those silly core ideas came from being a camp counselor and in charge of really energetic young people. But what a great experience. And yes, it was a great place to work. I was outdoors every day. I was in the beautiful part of the country in the Adirondack Mountains actually. And I spent a total of 10 years as a camper and then a counselor in training and then a camp counselor. So I think probably my first real job before going OA to college was that, and I appreciate it every day.
Roula (25:58):
Oh yeah, that was so formative. Did your kids go to the same camp?
Mark (26:02):
No, this years later, no, the
Roula (26:04):
Camp, I'm just curious.
Mark (26:04):
Unfortunately doesn't operate any longer and not long after I finished up, I did that up to the summer after my freshman year was my last year at the camp. And I still go back and visit that region in that area and have many, many awesome
Roula (26:18):
Memories of that.
Mark (26:19):
So I would say it was in fact a great place to work. And a lot of the lessons of all the jobs that have to be done and you just step up and do whatever is needed, whenever that might be,
Roula (26:29):
You do the right
Mark (26:30):
Thing. Do all those things
Roula (26:31):
Are true, innovative?
Mark (26:32):
Absolutely.
Roula (26:33):
Yeah, it's
Mark (26:33):
Great. Absolutely.
Roula (26:34):
What advice would you go back and give your younger self?
Mark (26:38):
Wow. Other than all that indecision and all those types, I would say not surprisingly, the learning engine that we all have needs to adapt over time. And I was a kid that when I was finished with college, I thought, that's it. I'm done with the classroom. Thankfully I'll never go back again. And a few years later I realized I need to go back. The experience I described to you had created this great maybe breadth of perspective, but as I was more in the business world at that time, I realized I was missing an important vocabulary. I was missing more finance and some of those pieces. And so I chose, took it into the classroom again. And I think through the chapters of my life, it's figuring out how do you adapt that learning engine and how do you take advantage of the people that are available to you?
(27:24):
I have this personal philosophy about having a personal board of directors and it changes over time as I enter something new or I take out a different responsibility, I think about people who've already done that and who could guide me or could help me, and I wish maybe in my twenties or right coming out of school that I would've been more deliberate about that. And the specific piece I would add is that people say yes if you reach out and ask. It's amazing. I think there's an intimidation around, well, they wouldn't have time for me or they wouldn't be interested in mentoring someone. Every time I've asked someone, the answer has been yes or, and I know someone else who might be able to join your advisory group. I just think it's maybe that step of doing it. And I learned over time to take that step and it rewarded me many times, but perhaps I could have saved time or added some of those mentors earlier had I heard from my older self.
Roula (28:18):
Yeah. Do you still have a personal board?
Mark (28:21):
I do. I do. I really think in today's world, there's this term reverse mentoring. And I love it because I always thought of mentors as people who were older and had more experience and more wisdom, and I still do.
Roula (28:35):
But
Mark (28:35):
Then I began learning about new technologies and found that I was often asking my kids to show me things and that concept of within the organization, pairing people up with the people who are the subject matter experts regardless of where they are in the organization, their age, whatever. So it is a new way of thinking based on what you're trying to learn, who are those people that would act as the best board of advisors or board of directors? So mine for sure has evolved over time and I think through back to learning engine, through reading about people that I admire, it's almost like having them join your group without ever actually meeting them. And when you have the chance to do both, it's really extraordinary. I mentioned Jim Collins before and I was such a fan of all of his work for so long, and then actually getting to meet him and work with him and hearing his insights, it was like truly adding someone that I felt like maybe I already knew, but was able then to get that in person. Don't be afraid to ask is my message probably to the younger self.
Roula (29:41):
That's a great one. Speaking of reading, you mentioned reading. Is there a book or a podcast that you'd recommend to your peers?
Mark (29:49):
For sure. I have a big stack on my nightstand and that I love audiobooks. My answer to those two would be pretty simple right now. I recently read Dr. Atias book called Outlive,
(30:01):
And it really frames up, I think quite well the importance of mental health, the tool set that many of us don't have, and frankly for me was not an area that people talked about or were as supportive, but he presents the idea that what shouldn't matter to us is how many years we live. It should be what's the quality of especially those last chapters of our life. And that's really resonated with me. And he gave me in the book some really great research and some practical advice. And I've recommended that to a lot of people at all ages because I think there's, the sooner we start that journey, the better that those outcomes will be. And then podcast wise, I listened to several, but recently, probably a year ago I was visiting our team in Australia and one of our leaders there recommended a podcast called Acquired. So two people, they conduct research on companies, brands we know and love, and they do just a deep dive on the organization and they read everything that's available that you can get private, public, doesn't matter. They interview people who have been there, who are there, and they put together a great story. They're three hours long as a leadership team. We've listened to several of them together or completed them and then had these amazing whiteboard sessions about what we learned and what we could apply to our business.
(31:22):
We started down that journey and then I looked at the menu of the episodes that had already been recorded and thought, well, I'd like to know more about that company, and that's a brand I admire and love and I'd like to hear that history. So I tend to sort of pick one that I think is directly relevant to our business. But then I also, the next one generally is one I'm just curious about. And in all cases, I come away with a list of things that I think we could change or I could change as a leader. So I highly recommend that one acquired is the podcast.
Roula (31:50):
Maybe you'll be on one day.
Mark (31:53):
It's funny, our CEO and all of us respect that. Our legacy ultimately is that the company keeps going. We're big believers in the flywheel. We're big believers in the ultimate journey here. And I really think our CEO's goal is retract to become an iconic company that lasts a hundred years. We're at 49 years today. None of us are going to be here when that journey is complete, but the idea that we're setting it up so that it can is really something I'm very excited about. I feel like that is my responsibility to make sure that that in fact can happen. And I think perhaps someday we will. I hope that our brand will continue to thrive, and I hope that our stories will continue to help other organizations, and that's certainly what I've gleaned from those podcasts.
Roula (32:40):
Well, let's end it there. Alright, thanks Mark. Thanks for joining. I really enjoyed the conversation.
Mark (32:45):
Thank you. I did as well.
Roula (32:48):
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