“What do you think?”
Asking your teams for their feedback can unlock a new level of engagement with your workforce, Carrie Yunker, Bell’s Brewery executive vice president, shared with business leaders and entrepreneurs during Brewbound Live’s keynote address last week in Santa Monica, California.
Yunker shared her nearly 20-year journey from receptionist to the heir apparent to founder Larry Bell.
“I don’t come from an MBA program. I don’t come from the sales and marketing side of the business. I didn’t start or inherit the business,” Yunker shared. “I came from the people side of the business.”
Her own career at Bell’s started nearly 20 years ago with a similar question – one that has repeated over the years. She recalled a phone call from a friend at a temp agency pitching the reception job that would eventually launch her career. Her friend asked what she thought of a reception job at the Michigan craft brewery, which was seeking someone with “thick skin who can work with a bunch of burly dudes.” Yunker’s answer: “I’m in.”
Yunker was employee No. 50 at Bell’s. The receptionist job quickly became a “catchall” position, as she picked up everything from payroll administration and tax filing to purchasing uniforms and securing janitorial services. Yunker, as she was repeatedly asked to find solutions, was asked: “What do you think?”
As Bell’s grew, so did its leadership team. What was missing was someone dedicated to caring for the people who were helping the brewery grow. Yunker filled that role and it’s become her “life’s passion,” “caring for the humans who powered our business.”
There were miscues along the way. An attempt at anti-harassment training in 2007 put the onus on women, in particular Yunker, who was asked to role play a scenario, to get out of the situation and deal with “boy’s talk and dirty jokes and laugh it off.”
“As I processed that, I had this moment of clarity where I realized that what my actual job is as a leader isn’t to teach people how to deal with those scenarios,” she explained. “It’s to make sure those scenarios don’t exist in my place of work. Because no one should be made to feel uncomfortable because of their identity, because of whom they love, because of a break room conversation. In fact, we as leaders and business owners should hold ourselves to a higher standard. We need to be prioritizing the work of creating safe and inclusive environments for our teams. Because our business is not powered by hops and 6-packs and tanks. Our business is powered by people. And our priority has to be to the commitment of creating that safe and inclusive culture.”
Yunker implored attendees to ask their people for their perspective, what their experiences are like and what do you think? She stressed that what works for her and her co-workers at Bell’s won’t necessarily work for others.
“That’s what makes this work so meaningful and so personal,” she continued.
For Bell’s, there were realizations along the way that the company’s “intention didn’t match our impact” and there remains “a lot of work to do,” Yunker said. The company has made the work a priority “at the highest levels.”
For Yunker, the work was bolstered by hiring Courtney Simmons as director of diversity, equity and inclusion. And it was driven by asking the company’s workforce to provide their perspective.
“We rely on that feedback every day to make us a better business,” she said.
The work can be challenging, “hard” and “scary,” Yunker acknowledged, even for companies with dedicated resources. And “there is no finish line.” She encouraged leaders though to set aside their fears, “be brave and willing to take action” and “commit to practice over perfection,” acknowledging that sometimes they’ll get it wrong.
“When you deliver on this type of work for your coworkers, the impact is huge,” she said.
Yunker suggested leaders “be ambitious, set a visionary goal” and then “take that breath, and take at least five steps back, and do at least one small thing.” Those small things add up and they are “the only way to tackle this work that is so complex,” she said.
Beyond being the right thing to do, leading with a people-first mindset is the best way to drive revenue and hit business targets, Yunker said. This type of work is noticed by consumers, who are as focused on who they buy from as what they are buying.
“People power your business, and your business will only thrive as your people thrive,” she said. “The data continues to tell us that this is the right way to build a successful and profitable business. Because ethnically and gender diverse teams offer companies more problem solving capabilities and better solutions.
“We need to recognize that all of our businesses are made better by inclusion based work.”
Yunker shares more insights and more from her very personal journey in the video above. She also touches on Bell’s plans for 2023, which include going national.