Scaling Up Success Podcast

Know Your People: The Key to Creating Thriving Organizations with Michael Levitt

• Ryan Van Ornum • Season 1 • Episode 4

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Is your business built to last, or is it a house of cards? Michael Levitt, founder of Breakfast Leadership Network, shares his insights on sustainable growth and workplace culture, drawing from eight years of executive burnout prevention experience. With 52% of Fortune 500 companies from 25 years ago no longer existing and two-thirds of today’s workforce disengaged, the warning signs are clear—burnout and poor company culture are silently eroding organizations from within.

Michael emphasizes the need for leaders to create environments where employees thrive, starting with proper management training and a sense of belonging. His "secret sauce" for preventing burnout? Sleep. Without it, chronic stress takes a toll on productivity, health, and financial well-being. Now, through debt management programs, books, and consulting, Michael helps businesses build resilient, engaged teams. Explore his resources at breakfastleadership.com.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back, everybody to Scaling Up Success. I'm Ryan Van Ornam, your host, powered by Synergist. Today, I have on Michael Levitt of the Breakfast Leadership Network. Michael, how are you doing today, sir?

Speaker 2:

I am well. How are you today?

Speaker 1:

Man, it's a great day and I'm so excited to have you on our Scaling Up Success podcast today. First of all, tell us a little bit about Breakfast Leadership Network.

Speaker 2:

Organization I launched back in 2015, unofficially 2016, officially Started working with C-suite executives that were burning out and I decided because I had my own burnout journey and I didn't want to see fellow executives go down the same path. I did, so I started working on it and then, from there, launched a podcast, as we're on right now, just celebrated the eight-year birthday of it yesterday, so I forgot to order cake though I've got to get a cake today and celebrate Eight years is mind-boggling that I've done it for that long, especially when I didn't want to do it in the first place, so it was interesting that it's done that. And then articles on burnout in business and workplace culture articles on burnout in business and workplace culture and you know I do a lot of work with organizations on improving the retention and it's it's been a wild ride.

Speaker 1:

Man, that is super cool, though, that that you know eight years of doing all of that that's that's fantastic stuff. So how has how has that evolved since you started this whole thing?

Speaker 2:

Well, along the way, I just kind of let it do what it's doing. I shouldn't say that I didn't have a plan. I did, but it was more or less loosely designed. I like I didn't want to go into say it's going to be this, this and this. I wanted it to become what it was going to be become and that's. You know, we're working with clients, the podcast show, the writing and all of the fun stuff that I get to do. I just said let's let this kind of grow to where it's going to grow and obviously tweak things along the way. You know lots of lessons learned. You know the lots of things.

Speaker 2:

If I could do it over again, there'd be things that I wouldn't have done or there'd be things that I would have done a whole lot sooner, quite frankly.

Speaker 2:

But ultimately it was just kind of taking advantage of the moment in time, looking for opportunities to serve and just say, okay, this is what I'm going to do, I want to speak. So I did a ton of keynote speaking over the last few years and the beautiful thing about that is get to meet all kinds of different people, talk in different industries and when it comes to burnout, burnout doesn't care what industry or sector you're in, it doesn't. Burnout hits everyone. I mean, based on the industries that I've had the fortune to work with, burnout doesn't care, doesn't care if you're a teacher, doesn't care. If you're an accountant, doesn't care. If you're a lawyer or a doctor or a grain elevator organization or a wastewater facility, doesn't matter, burnout doesn't care. So it's a situation where you know it's a huge problem, continues to be a huge problem and coupled with that is organizations and the culture and how things work in an organization, the workflow, the staffing, management skills, leadership skills. All these ingredients play into organizations that can be really healthy or, unfortunately, a lot of organizations that are struggling.

Speaker 1:

Do you?

Speaker 2:

what habits are you seeing? That's critical for, like success in different industries. To combat burnout, I think that one of the key ingredients is just know your people. It doesn't matter if you're an organization of five or an organization of 50,000. You need to know your people. Does that mean the CEO knows all 50,000 people? No, but your managers and department leads and all that will know their teams and you have to train them to understand what's going on with individuals. Where's their sweet spot when it comes to being a productive and well-rounded employee. Create environments that will allow people to thrive, and a lot of people are kind of afraid that it's like well, then, we're going to have all these different versions of a company. It's like, no, you don't need to do that. Just understand within the framework of what you need to accomplish as a company and design and set up the guidepost along the way, where people will have a bit of flexibility. Let them know how they're doing, not at the annual review, but throughout, given, obviously, the coaching and guidance that they need to thrive. Make sure they have all the resources that they need to be successful, because oftentimes organizations really struggle because they don't give their teams all the things they need to actually accomplish what they need to accomplish. And when you have that, they get frustrated, they decide you know, this is pointless. They get disgruntled, you know that is contagious. And all of a sudden you have a team, that's all. Just they give up.

Speaker 2:

And Gardner just released a study not too long ago pretty much indicated that two-thirds of employees are not engaged. That's a problem. And society is like oh, that's not a big deal. No, it's a huge deal because what that means is all the products and services that you and I buy are, in all likelihood, either not the best quality or downright defective, which means you could possibly see all kinds of different issues. When we see all the recalls of food okay, there's been cross-contamination or mislabeled or anything under the sun a lot of that is caused because people are making mistakes. And why are they making mistakes? Because they're frustrated, they're tired, they're burned out, they don't like where they're working, they're a little bit more careless than they normally would be, because they're like I don't care, this company doesn't care about me. Why should I care about them? And next thing, you know, the products start getting faulty and then you start seeing the recalls and then you lose brand trust and a stat that I love sharing I actually love sharing this, but it's an actual truth that of the Fortune 500 in the year 2000,. 52% of them are gone. They were either acquired or they went out of business. So over half of the Fortune 500 companies from 25 years ago no longer exist. So when you have that stat that indicates that the majority of businesses in the United States are small businesses or small midsize so imagine that Half of them are gone.

Speaker 2:

I know that and I see that a lot of times, because I'll go through my bookmarks, because I'm one of those people that just end up bookmarking everything, and then I'll go through a folder and I'm like wow, I haven't looked at these bookmarks in a while. So I'll look at them and you know, website's down, or it's non-existent, or a company's gone or like, geez, that's only been a couple years. So it happens, you know, and it was a company that I, you know, had on my show a couple years ago actually, and you know they were in a business I'm not going to mention names or anything like that because I don't know the situation why they went out of business. But long story short, you know they, you know, provided certain types of benefits to companies and their employees and whatnot. And I had actually used one of their services and I was like, oh, let's see what's going on with them. And then their website completely down and looked and like, wow, they are like gone, gone, like yikes, it's like that. Uh, and it happens. It's easy to do it. All it takes is one economic downturn or one loss of one key employee, or loss of one key customer, or loss of one key employee or loss of one key customer.

Speaker 2:

It's so volatile in many cases and that's why, when organizations are growing and they're scaling up, yeah, riding that wave is fun. I've been part of many startups and love that growth period. It's exciting. But as you're growing along the way and you're building these steps, make sure you're building those steps with some security underneath them, in case you need to take a couple steps back, because if you don't, you take a couple steps back and those steps aren't stable. Next thing, you know, you start falling further and further back and then you're done. So it's as enticing as it is to enjoy and you should enjoy the fruits of of your labor and the success. You need to make sure that you have a strong foundation, you're allocating some resources to make sure that it's sustainable.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely what. What, what advice do you give to companies in able to build that strong culture that a lot of times is the cohesiveness to help build brand longevity?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you have to learn how to lead people, and that's something that, unfortunately, many organizations do not train on. You have to kind of lean on yourself, and I mentioned this earlier on a show today. Actually, you have to as a manager or as an executive or a leader is you have to invest in yourself on how to lead people, and it's not necessarily you buy this book how to Lead People and you read all of it and you implement all of that. It's more complex than that, but it's also more easy. It can be as simple as okay, what kind of leader do you like working for? As a leader or a manager? Who do you like working for? What's their dynamic? Why do you like working for them? What are some of the things that they do to help you be really good at what you do? Well, guess what you do the same thing for the people that work for you.

Speaker 2:

You be the leader that you like and that comes through in how you lead, and then, of course, that will flow down to the people that report to you and work for you, because if you're giving them an opportunity to grow and contribute and feel part of the organization basically to feel like community sometimes gets overused. Or they say we're like a family here, family here. Well, a lot of people hate their family. So don't, don't go down that road because you might isolate some people. You know, it's like no, no, I don't. If this is like my family, I'm gonna quit right now. No, thank you, not in my situation. But I know a lot of people, they, they, they feel that way. So it's that sense of belonging. It's like okay, I feel a part of this, I feel like that I belong here, and when you have an employee that does that, they will do all kinds of different things because they see the bigger picture and how their work and their contribution contributes to the overall success of the organization. If you can paint that picture as a company and have people recognize it and be a part of it and contribute to it to create that environment, you reduce the turnovers, you increase the retention, you have happier, healthier employees that produce more and your customers benefit from it. It's a simple formula, it's fairly easy to implement, but unfortunately it's also easy not to implement it and unfortunately we see in a lot of companies they don't even want to go down that path because they say this is how we've done it and it's like well, it could be one of those 52% if you keep doing things the way that you've always done it.

Speaker 2:

Because if you don't adapt to what the demands are of society or your customer base, there's another company that will open up tomorrow that will steal your lunch money. It happens all the time, it doesn't matter how good you are. Yes, you have Uber, but guess what? There's Lyft now and you know who knows? There may be another big service that pops up out of nowhere the self-driving cars and taxis and things like that. Who knows? They may take from them, because they'll be able to offer it at a lower rate, because they're not paying an employee or a contractor to actually drive the vehicle. The vehicle will be driving the vehicle. So there's, there's all kinds of things, don't you know? Don't rest on your laurels. Basically is what I'm trying to say.

Speaker 1:

Do you? Um, one of the things that I've I've kind of uh taken for myself is I read from the book Tony Dungy wrote the the Indianapolis Colts uh Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Former head football coach. He talks about empowered mentorship. Instead of training Like, you train people just to repeat a task, but empowered mentorship is that you're guiding them in a, in a, in a direction that they want to accelerate for themselves, more than they want to just implement a certain task. What's your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2:

Oh, I love Tony Dungy. I've been a huge fan of him for a very, very long time. You know, one of the great coaches you know gets a lot of recognition, probably needs more than he gets, just because of the human being that he is. He's a human being first and that's a good way to describe Tony is because he's such a caring individual Doesn't mean that he's soft. He played football. You can't be. If you're soft and you're playing football, you're going to get annihilated really quick. So you have to have tenacity in order to play that game at that level, which he did.

Speaker 2:

And then, of course, coaching and winning a Super Bowl not easy to do I mean, there's been 50 something of them not an easy task, but I agree with that. It's a mentorship or a coaching kind of thing, because and that's kind of the dynamic that I'm seeing in a lot of successful organizations now is, instead of managing, they're kind of switching to more of a coaching playbook. It's like, okay, here's the playbook, here's what we need you to do. Or here's the job task, for example, here's what you need to do, I'm going to guide you. So, okay, maybe next time try it this way. Okay, instead of this, maybe do this and this? What other resources do you need? Let's practice this. So we're seeing that and you see a lot of times too. You see organizations that are gamifying things at work for performance measures and things like that, trying different things, and some organizations it thrives. Some generations absolutely love it, things like that trying different things. And some organizations that thrives, some generations absolutely love it. Some generations probably are like what are you doing? This is not how we used to do things and that's another dynamic that we're seeing.

Speaker 2:

And we've got multiple generations in the workforce right now. We've got the baby boomers, we've got Gen X, we've got millennials, we've got Gen Z. Gen Alpha is showing up now. So you get all these generations that are in the workforce and each one of them have different levers, more or less. That will kind of get them motivated.

Speaker 2:

Now I'm not going to paint a broad picture or a broad stroke, basically to say, okay, this generation only does it this way. No, there are baby boomers that behave and act like the youngest of workers and playful and creative and all that. And then there are some young workers that are stoic. Everything has to be black and white to this, to this, to this and every degree in between. But I think ultimately it's understanding your teams, creating an environment for them to thrive in, no matter what their motivators are.

Speaker 2:

But know what they are, ask them. You know what motivates you. You know what kind of discipline things work for you, and I'm not saying about you're going to discipline employees. It's like your self-discipline. You know what kind of discipline things work for you and I'm not saying about you're going to discipline employees. It's like your self-discipline. Okay, you know what gets you out of work, what get what made you come to work today, even though you weren't feeling a hundred percent. Why did you come into work? You know what? What? Why? Right, you know it's it's. It's more than why I need the money. Okay, yeah, that's, that is a motivating factor, for sure. But if you didn't care for the company and you weren't feeling like you know, I don't feel well, I'm not going to screw them and hopefully you don't have employees like that. But again, it's just understanding your people and having that communication flow continue helps a long way in keeping your organization thriving and growing.

Speaker 1:

What one piece like, if you can narrow it down to like a sentence or two. What piece of wisdom would you embellish to others about how to avoid burnout in the workplace?

Speaker 2:

Sleep. Get lots of sleep, preferably not at work, but they allow it. I know some Eastern European countries. They have built-in nap times at work. I wish the West would kind of grab onto that. They'd be surprised on the productivity you'd get out of it.

Speaker 2:

But sleep is so important. It's when we repair the damage we do to ourselves on a daily basis. I don't care how healthy you are. You could eat nothing but kale salads and smoothies and have 0% body fat. Lean mean exercise, all that good stuff we still do damage to ourselves. The air we breathe, the information we consume, the fatigue and challenges of life take a toll on us. So when we sleep, that's when our body's repairing all that damage. And if we don't get good sleep, then that damage doesn't get repaired. So then today's damage gets piled on to tomorrow's damage, and then the next day and the next week and the next month, next year, and prolonged stress is what turns into burnout.

Speaker 2:

So if you have prolonged stress, not only are you flirting with burnout, but you're also damaging your body and the majority of chronic diseases, stress is a component of them.

Speaker 2:

It's like how you ended up with hypertension or diabetes or heart disease or cancer or anything else is because your body is so stressed, your brain is going well. I need to allocate resources from other areas to attack that stress and that means the defense mechanism, quite frankly, of your body is not up to speed. So that's why you can start running into problems and some health problems and mental problems and all of that. So it's the one secret sauce if there is one is if you can get good restful sleep, then it helps you navigate through stressful situations easier and you can manage your stress, because if you don't have prolonged stress, you won't burn out. It's not a zero to burnout thing, it has to be prolonged stress that turns into burnout. And figuring out why you're stressed. You know what's causing it, what are, what are the ingredients, and sometimes you have to look within and unfortunately a lot of people don't like doing that.

Speaker 1:

No, the introspection is not a lot of the the first thing that people do when looking at attacking stress or burnout of those situations, man, that's, that's a phenomenal answer on that. Thank you so much for you know, for for that suggestion, man, I could talk to you all day about this. This has really been a a great informative conversation. One thing before we we let out, though, is how can people get a hold of you if they, if they want your services, you know, share all your socials? Whatever you want, man, the floor is yours.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the best place to find me is just go to breakfastleadershipcom. The socials are either at the depending if you're looking on a phone or a website on a computer socials either listed up to at the top or at the the bottom or in the ellipsis button. You'll see links there. Podcast show is available on all the major platforms. Books are on Amazon.

Speaker 2:

Doing a lot of work with individuals and organizations on debt management, because 70% of Americans are under an insurmountable amount of debt.

Speaker 2:

And financial stress, in my personal opinion, is the worst stressor because, as much as we hate to pay bills, we do enjoy the ability to be able to pay bills, and when you can't pay your bills, that has a domino effect on every aspect of your life at home, at work, everywhere.

Speaker 2:

So, you know, I recognize that through my own burnout journey, you know, financial stress was a real, real bugger for me. So now I'm, you know, helping organizations kind of, you know, look at some options to figure out. You know how they can one, you know, help their employees with their debt management in a confidential way. So it's not like your manager will know that you, you know, have, you know, eight credit cards that are maxed out. You know your boss won't know and no one else will either, but I hate seeing people you know really drowning in financial debt, because I know how stressful that feels, and so it's been kind of an avenue that I've been working on a little bit, in addition to all the other great things they get to do. But long story short, just go to breakfastleadershipcom. You'll be able to find pretty much everything on me.

Speaker 1:

Man, that's awesome. Thank you so much for being a part of our Scaling Up Success podcast today. Really appreciate your time.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

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Ryan Van Ornum

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