133: Boomerang Employees: A New Perspective on Lifelong Loyalty with Lee Caraher

By March 22, 2017Podcasts

 

Lee Caraher says: "If your former employees are dead to you, then you're working too hard to find new ones."

Lee Caraher returns to talk about why it’s unrealistic to expect employees to stay for long stretches and the mutual benefits by “boomeranging.”

You’ll Learn:

  1. A fresh definition of lifelong loyalty for the changing times
  2. How to make a graceful exit for both employees and employers
  3. How to tell if you’re boomerang ready

About Lee

Lee is the founder and CEO of a highly sought after communications firm known for producing great results with its innovative approach to traditional, digital and experiential programs. She has a long history of leading high-performing, multi-generational teams that enjoy working together. Lee is a champion for creating a positive workplace culture that fully supports its talent, even when they choose to move on. She takes the long view to support employees building their own personal brands that balance loyalties to themselves and their employers. Lee believes that companies able to inspire lifetime loyalty from employees — currently or formerly employed — are the companies that are best suited to thrive. She has long recognized that people will leave employers and understands the real problems this causes for companies.

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Lee Caraher Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Lee, thanks so much for joining us once again on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Lee Caraher
Pete, thank you so much for having me back, I so appreciate it.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh yes. Well, I’ve really thought about our interview many times, almost every time I hear the word “millennial”. It’s like, “72% of people don’t like that term, millennials”.

Lee Caraher
That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
And so that was way back in Episode 35. My goodness, almost 100 episodes later. Tell us, what have you been up to since July?

Lee Caraher
Since July I have finished my second book and I’m getting ready for that to come onto the market. We had Christmas, and I survived in a new house, so that’s good. And our business has grown about 25% since we spoke.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, congratulations!

Lee Caraher
So a lot has been going on, yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I hope you’re keeping your sanity and you’ve also grown your help base proportionately.

Lee Caraher
I have, thank you. Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. So tell us about this new book, The Boomerang Principle: Inspire Lifelong Loyalty from Your Employees. Intriguing. And you’re not talking about Boomerang for Gmail; you’re talking about people.

Lee Caraher
I’m talking about people and not the thing you throw into the air. Yeah, I’m talking about people. And so many people I talk to and I did workshops with in my work with my first book, Millennials & Management, I was encountering all of these people who were like, “Why should I put any time into these millennials? They are job-hoppers, they’re going to leave before they become useful. I’m going to put all this effort into them and they’re going to leave and I have to start all over again.” And I was coming up against this all the time. And then I realized until very recently over 50% of the companies in this country had policies against re-hiring people.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow! I’m sorry. I didn’t know this at all. Let’s review that stat. Until recently, the majority of companies…

Lee Caraher
The majority of companies had policies against hiring people back.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s wild. So it’s not even just sort of frowned upon or taboo. It’s straight up against the rules.

Lee Caraher
It’s straight up against the rule. And when I say “policies”, I mean these are HR people saying, “No, we can’t do that.” That’s what I mean; that was their policy on that. So, it is really recent that people are thinking about this as a continuum, right? And most companies still don’t re-hire people. So, I think that’s very foolish, and I think the more that we think about… In the old model, the model that I sort of started my career at, and remember that I’m a boomer, we thought of one, staying at companies much longer than we do today, particularly young people.
Number two, we thought that we would stay with a company forever and ever, and we would retire with a nice golden watch. And three, really this idea of, “If you leave, you’re dead to me” was very prevalent, and frankly it was fine, because there were about 79 million boomers – “I’ll just find another one.”
Well, work has changed dramatically since I started work, being over, I don’t know, 25 years ago, and those constructs are no longer valid, and if we don’t shift our mindset to say, “Let’s stop measuring loyalty by tenure, but let’s measure loyalty over the lifetime of a person who’s been with us”, we’re going to be short-sighted and our businesses are going to suffer. So I wrote the book to help people break themselves of that.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s helpful, thank you. And it’s funny – when I read the title and the premise, and just sort of processing through a little bit, it was like, “That does make some good sense. It would be nice to break a little bit of the taboo and stigma.” But you’re saying, “No, no, it’s much bigger than just that.”

Lee Caraher
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, I’d love to start with digging in a little bit. So you say nowadays it is unrealistic to expect employees to stay in one place for a long time, and I am inclined to agree with you there, but you know me. If you have any data to bring to bear on that, I would like to get your take on that, like why is that and just how long is unrealistic?

Lee Caraher
Sure. I think there’s a couple of things. There’s a generational divide in that, so people who are millennials and people who are boomers and people who are gen-xers in the middle. So, the Bureau of Labor Statistic, which is what I use in my book has measured this – always measures this – every year they do a report, it’s released in September and they talk about tenure. And in 2016 for 2015, the tenure had gone from 4.7 to 4.3 years. And then it had dropped, in the previous year it had been 5.0 to 4.7. And then there was a blip in 2008-2009, obviously, when 8 million people lost their jobs. But the time when the average or the median was 7, 8, 9 years is over. ‘Cause if you think about the average, you’re talking about some people who leave at 18 months and some people who leave at 10 years, and everything in the middle.
So one, at least the US Government, how they measure it, is measuring down to what I think particularly older people in the workplace thought was standard. Number two is millennials – and there are more millennials than there are any other generation, so we have to remember that – they have been brought up hearing from their parents, “Do not stay at a company too long; you will be stale.” Because their parents – gen X-ers or boomers got caught…

People who lost their jobs in 2008-2009 – the 8 million mostly boomers who lost their jobs in 2008-2009 – those people had been in their jobs for a while, and some of them were ready to retire. And all of a sudden either they lost their jobs or they couldn’t find new jobs, or they had to stay in jobs, right? And they felt constrained, like, “I don’t have any options”, because of their tenure or where they got stuck at the end of their careers. So, that’s number two.
And number three is really this idea of the golden watch, and if this implicit contract is, “If I come work for you and I work hard, you take care of me” – that was broken a long time ago, right? It’s still part of the American dream, it was still talked about as the American dream, but it is so fictitious that I’m really not sure what it’s going to take to get it out of our lexicon.
But really in the late 80s and 90s is when publicly traded companies really started changing how they move to profit for the street, not necessarily for the health of their business by driving down employment to get to the margin, to get to the dividend. And I have all the research in my book, there’s pages and pages and pages of this stuff. But all of these things together have created an environment where individuals know that they’re going to have to work longer than they thought, they’re going to have to work for a long time.

Pete Mockaitis
We have to live longer too though, so we’ve got that going for us.

Lee Caraher
We got that going for us, but that requires more things, right? The longer you live, the more aches and pains you’re going to have, if you’re a negative person. Or the longer you live the more joy you’re going to have, if you’re a positive person, right? But, one, we’re living longer, we have to work longer. Two, we can’t count on our company to carry us, right? And we need to craft our own careers so that we have more options, because we can’t control.
We have so many things we can’t control when we’re employees. And most people aren’t the right type of people… I don’t mean “right”; I just said they’re not pre-disposed for working for themselves. Many many millions of people work for themselves, but the majority of people are employed by other people, and if that’s the case you need to have more options. And the more options mean that you are relevant and fresh and you know new things.
And the work that we’re doing today is changing so fast that if we’re not getting new skills all the time, if we’re not keeping relevant all the time, if our companies are not pre-disposed to teaching and providing that and we also don’t do it for ourselves – well, we don’t want to get stale, because getting stale means no opportunity, and no opportunity is really… Not to be a Debbie Downer, but really the death nail of a career when we think about how long careers are going to be today.
So all those things together say that people start their careers thinking, “I might have 3 or 4 careers over the course of my entire working career, number one. Number two, I have to make sure I keep relevant.” And millennials also want to have jobs that matter. And if they’re not in organizations where they think they’re making a difference, they will go seek it elsewhere.

Pete Mockaitis
So much of that is resonating, and I really felt that sort of experientially as I began my own career out of college and I was looking around, and I also settled on Bain & Company, strategy consulting, because I thought, “You know what? At the end of the day, I think this is going to provide me with the skills, the pedigree or resume prestige, whatever, the network and some good upfront compensation, such that I can sort of do anything.” And I need that, because who knows what I can count on anyone for?
Not to be hyper-paranoid, but that was sort of what I thought because I was spooked by the notion of lay-offs and it was like, “Oh my gosh, that could happen to anybody. Smart, great people I know have gotten laid off. That’s wild.” So, I’m right with you there. And so, I’d like to maybe talk a little bit then about, I guess the mindset there. So if we’re thinking that median tenure 4.3 years and on the decline, we’re sort of thinking, “I have less of a lifespan associated with a given employee for a term, a role with us at a company.” So then, if I had the mindset that, “They are dead to me. They’re not loyal, they don’t care, they left us for a modest pay bump”, if I am that Scrooge, how should I get over myself?

Lee Caraher
Well, you need to get over yourself fast, because if how you think about former employees is, “You’re dead to me”, then you are working way too hard to find new ones, truly. Because a company that is good to return to is a company that’s nice to stay at, right? So, the residual halo of accepting and encouraging people to return when they have learned new skills and had different experiences and can come back to a company in a different role usually, and bring the knowledge that they’ve learned not on your dime, but on someone else’s to bear on your company, the halo effect is so positive that it creates actually the kind of environment people want to stay for.
So if the median is 4.3, if your company can get to be at 6 instead of 4.3 or a 7 instead of 4.3, you’re winning. You’re winning so hard, because you’re not churning your people out, right? You’re not having to replace people all the time. Every time you hire someone you know they’re going to leave you, so it should not be a surprise that they’re going to leave, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Just like when everyone who’s born will one day die.

Lee Caraher
Exactly. So everyone you hire is going to leave you, you just want to do it on your own terms. Well, the tables have turned for knowledge workers. Knowledge workers and the high performers and the people who get along well with other people – all these things matter – they are more in the driver seat and will continue to be more in the driver seat than the company, in terms of opportunity.
So, when you actually focus on making people as productive as possible, as fast as possible in a workplace by providing training, by being a good manager, by accepting people back into your organization after they’ve had experiences somewhere else – these are things that actually keep people in the seats. So this attitude of, “I’m not going to invest in these people ’cause they’re going to leave me anyway” just chases people to do the door faster than to say, “What is it you want to do in your career? What skills do you need to get that done? Let me see if I can match those up here. You have to perform.”
I’m not advocating for a lower performance standard; I’m actually advocating for a higher performance standard, which is attainable when people think your employees are invested in doing something for the team because they matter to the team and because the team is doing something that matters. And two, that the company is providing the kinds of opportunity that they can take advantage of to learn more, to become better.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s lovely, thank you. And I think that’s a nice, healthy dose of realism right there. It’s going to happen anyway, so…

Lee Caraher
It’s going to happen anyway, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. And I just think it’s more fun to invest in people. Call me an old softie.

Lee Caraher
Well, I can say it really comes out of this theory, this principle. And the Boomerang Principle is that those companies that encourage and allow their former employees to return have a strategic advantage over those that don’t – that’s the principle. I’ve really run my businesses that way for the last 18 years, and I had this epiphany in 2000 during the .com boom, when you could get a job with a pulse. And everyone would come in my office and say, “I got another job offer.” And it wasn’t for this company; it was for another company. The company policy was counter, keep anybody in the seat as much as possible. And it’s exhausting.
And one day I just woke up, I’m like, “I’m not doing that anymore. I am done.” People who want to play games and go get another job and have me counter, they’re going to leave anyway. They spent energy finding a new job; how can they… I’m going to stop doing that and I’m going to put all the effort into keeping people there. So, I didn’t even get a chance to tell my leadership team that I’d made this decision. Without any input I just made this decision, very autocratic.
And when someone walked into my office and said, “I quit. I got this job somewhere else and my last day is in 2 weeks.” And he was expecting me to counter him, and instead I said, “Good luck!” And he was incredulous, Pete. He was like, “What do you mean? You’re not going to counter me?” I’m like, “No, I’m not countering you.” “But you countered Joe last week.” I said, “Yeah, he’s the last one. I’m done.” And he was so mad.
And instead I turned my energy to saying, “Well, here’s what I know about that company, I know a few people there, here’s what they’re known for, here’s where their strengths are. You’re going to do well there.” And I said, “And, in a couple of years when you’ve exhausted your time there, please call me. Maybe there’s a position for your back here.” And he was so mad, “I’ll never work here again.” He was just mad.

Pete Mockaitis
After you were so nice.

Lee Caraher
It was not his strategy. His strategy was, “I like it here. I’m going to get another job. I haven’t been able to get a raise off-cycle, so I’m going to go get another job, she’s going to be forced to give me a raise like she does everybody else, and I’ll be happy.” Well, I was done. And I can tell you the reaction of the staff, first it was sort of like, “Oh my God, what just happened?” And then by the end of the day, it was, “Ah, thank God!”
And when I was able to turn our attention and our resources to keeping people there by not countering, but by throwing of those resources into our culture and into development and training, people stopped leaving. So, when I started this company… So my company’s now 15 years old, today we’re about 32 people, right now 5 of our people are boomerangs – they have left and they’ve come back to different positions, but over the course of our history, I think that number’s like 13. I probably should find out that number. But 13. Well, we’re a small company, but every person we bring back saves us about $100,000, minimum.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow. And what are the major drivers of that big number?

Lee Caraher
The major drivers are the time it takes to bring people onboard, the fee we have to do for recruiting and retaining, and the productivity loss between someone leaving and then opening a new rec.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Lee Caraher
In general in our business someone doesn’t become fully-functional for 9 months. So if we can shorten that up by 6 months, ’cause we should not expect someone to return and just be automatically 100%, because we have changed, they have changed, they have to do something different. But if we can shorten up that onboarding process by 6 months, oh my goodness. If we can not have a recruiting fee because they used to work for us, oh my goodness.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s so cool. I would love to hear then – so you’re talking about lifelong loyalty and you’re sort of reframing the term, not like, “I’m staying here for 30-40 years” but rather, “I think that this is an awesome employer for over the course of my life, and I will recommend them and possibly return.” Or how do you conceptualize that term, “lifelong loyalty”?

Lee Caraher
Absolutely. So, that is the key. I don’t want people just to be loyal to me while they work for me. I want them to be loyal to me for their entire career, and when I say “me” I mean my company. And what that loyalty looks like is, I go out into the world and when there’s an opportunity, I think of my company first. So it’s either as a vendor or a partner or an employer or an employee.
So that if they’re out there and someone says, “What do you think about Double Forte? Do you know anything about them?” “I do, I would hire them in a heartbeat.” Or, “If you’re looking to get into public relations, there’s no better place to go in your career. Go there for a few years, you’re going to learn so much.” Or, “You should hire those guys. Don’t even talk to anybody else.”
I’ve worked to shorten up everything, because someone who used to be here has shortened my sales cycle, shortened my retention cycle and made it much… It makes it more glideful. I don’t even know if that’s a word, but you sort of glide through it instead of everything is hard, everything is a hustle hustle hustle. I’m not saying you don’t have to hustle; I’m just saying you don’t have to hustle so hard if people are out there advocating for you.
So, over the course of someone’s life – literally life – they might be loyal to 9 employers over their time for different reasons. But what you definitely don’t want in this age where people have personal brands that have tons of influence and purchasing powers and partnership power as advocates, someone out there saying, “Whatever you do, don’t go to Double Forte.” That would be the kiss of death. I’d have to start marketing. And I don’t, right? Everything is by referral.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s so powerful, thank you. So now I’d like to hear a little bit in terms of exit interviews and the whole kind of process when someone’s leaving. What are the things that need to go, and what should they be replaced with?

Lee Caraher
Yeah. Well, on the employee side, you might leave ’cause you’re disgruntled, you might not like who your boss is. There’s lots of reasons to leave. You might be leaving because your time is done and it’s time to go somewhere else, or you’re not motivated, right? So, when you’re leaving ’cause it’s not great, you have sort of a grating sense of it, right? The most important thing is not be stupid. Just don’t be stupid.
And I’ve heard so many stories, Pete, oh my gosh, like some guy put the sugar in the salt thing or the salt in the sugar thing. Another person replaced the water filtration system. Didn’t replace it, but added food coloring to the water filtration system. Just dumb things. Or shredded stuff, or signed up for all these magazines on the company credit card, or whatever, they’re just dumb stuff in retribution. They thought it was funny but it was funny for a reason, ’cause they had an ax to grind.
Well, you’re not just leaving a company. You’re leaving people who have to clean up after you. So, just don’t be dumb, number one. Number two – tie up everything in a bow, right? Tie up all your projects, leave a memo or an email, “Here is everything that I’ve been working on, here’s everything you need to know, here are the next steps, here are the key deadlines, here’s what I recommend that you do, and here’s how to reach me if you don’t understand what I just said.” Tie everything up in a bow so that no one is picking up your slack as you walk out the door. If they’re picking up slack it should be their won because they weren’t paying attention, not because you didn’t leave it well tended.
And three – I think say “Thank you” – “Thank you for the opportunity, thank you for being here.” Make a meaningful connection with the people you’ve worked with as you leave, and then keep those connections overtime. I’m not saying the next day call them and say, “Hey, want to have coffee?” No, but make sure you’re on LinkedIn, send a note, get together with the people who have mattered to you in your career at the previous employer, and on a regular basis, send them email. If you see something interesting in the news, make sure they get it. Blah blah blah. These are easy things, if you just put your brain to it.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so good, thank you. And so that’s on the employee side. Now on the employer side, what would you recommend if you are the manager and someone is departing? How do you make that an optimal exchange to facilitate lifelong loyalty?

Lee Caraher
First, I think, don’t avoid the exit interview. Have one. Have an exit interview, and ask for feedback. There’s different points of view on this, and particularly we’re recording this on March 3rd and in San Francisco right now we’re in the wake of the Uber scandal around female engineers at the company. So, there’s definitely toxic companies that maybe you shouldn’t be as truthful when you’re leaving as after you’ve left or whatever, because you can’t imagine the benefit of that.
However, when you’re an employer you should have an exit interview, and my belief is, “What can I do as an employer to help my soon-to-be former employee be successful somewhere else? What can I do for you? What can I do for you as you start? Can I make a phone call for you? Oh, I know somebody over there. Let me make a phone call and say, ‘Joe’s coming over there in a couple weeks. You are so lucky to have him.’ What can I do to ease your way into your next place?” These are easy things. These are easy things to do.
And if you’ve done a bad job of firing someone or you’re letting somebody go… This happens – we have bad days and something happens and we’re like, “Oh my gosh, I totally screwed up.” Well, it’s on the boss who screwed up to reach out. Maybe not the next day, but when you know you’ve done it, reach out and say “I’m sorry.” Reach out and say, “I’m really sorry I handled that so poorly. I apologize. Is there anything I could do for you?”
Maybe the person will say, “No, there’s nothing you can do for me”, and hang up. And maybe the person will say, “Yes”. And do what they ask. But if you screwed up and you’ve been rude and you have done something not to your liking, which we all do – not one of us has not had a bad ending because it was our fault – pick up the phone and make amends, because that person will be out there in the world and you might want them to return some day. They might be your boss some day. Just saying.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good, that’s good. I can’t help, whenever you reference or say the “You’re dead to me”, I think of Zoolander. “You’re more dead to me than your dead mother.” So you’re saying if you say that to the employee, you should apologize.

Lee Caraher
“You’re dead to me like your dead mother.” Yeah. If you put some expletives in between that, you definitely should apologize.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood, understood. So now you also have an assessment tool on your website to share if we’re Boomerang Ready, both on the employer side and the employee side. What are some, maybe just golden distinguishing questions that you might share from there?
Lee Caraher
Sure. For employers: Is there anybody in your company who has returned? ‘Cause if there isn’t, you’re not Boomerang Ready. So that’s number one. Is your leadership just dead-set against having people return to you? So one, understand what’s written down as a policy and then what’s in the air as a policy are two different things.

For employers: Do you know where your former employees are? Do you keep in touch with them? Have you created a private alumni club? Which I think is going to be one of the most strategic things that you can do for business development, is actually a company-hosted alumni club that keeps people connected to you. So, if you can say “Yes” to an alumni club, yes, people come back to you, yes, leadership’s open to it, then you’re Boomerang Ready and you’re probably having people leave at good times. People leave at good times. If you say “No” to all those things, then you are working really hard to recruit people, and people probably are on the lower end of that tenure track, for sure.
On the employee side: Did you leave badly? Are you keeping in touch with your former employers? Are you in their alumni clubs or not? Have you reached out to your old boss? You’re responsible for your network. No one is responsible for your network but you. And we can all make sure that it’s strong and that we keep in touch and are professionally useful and helpful to the people who are in it.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good, thank you. So tell me, Lee – is there anything else you want to make sure we cover off before we hear a newer round of your favorite things?

Lee Caraher
I would just say that, like I said earlier, a company that you return to is a company to stay for. And for knowledge workers, keeping the best people in your company is a strategic decision that is culture-based. And the more we can create these positive cultures, the more we’re going to be sustainable and strong and profitable.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, thank you. Okay, now could you share with us a recent-ish favorite quote?

Lee Caraher
Yes. Well, it’s a little controversial but, “Nevertheless, she persisted” is currently my favorite quote.

Pete Mockaitis
Elizabeth Warren.

Lee Caraher
Elizabeth Warren and Mitch McConnell, Senator McConnell had her sit down and in that discussion he said, “Nevertheless, she persisted”, which is offensive to all of the women who have worked really really hard just to get where they are.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you. Okay, and how about a favorite study or experiment or piece of research?

Lee Caraher
I’m doing a lot of research right now around girls and science and stem. And I actually got kicked out of the Girl Scouts, but the Girl Scouts did a piece of research last year about girls and science, and I just think it’s fascinating, and I think there are lots of things that we can do to make sure that we’re not unconsciously biasing our girls against science and math and engineering careers. And as we’ve seen in the last movie Hidden Figures, women, black women who were at NASA had everything to do with getting to the moon, but the men who were in the capsule did. So the more we can encourage our girls to be scientists, the better our world is going to be.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, thank you. And how about a favorite book?

Lee Caraher
Breaking Through Bias. So you can see a theme here. Breaking Through Bias by Andie Kramer. She’s a lawyer in Chicago, in your hometown, and she wrote this book with her husband about all the communication mistakes that women make that actually don’t help us go forward. For instance in meetings if there’s two women, often they will sit next to each other, and that is a mistake – women should sit at opposing sides from each other, so it’s harder to pass over. So, right this moment in time, this is a book every young woman should read.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright, thank you. And how about a recent favorite tool?

Lee Caraher
Focus at Will is my favorite app right now. So Focus at Will is an app that uses music to create an environment where you can focus on the things that you’re trying to get done, and you can choose the type of music and the intensity of that music based on their science. And they get a lot of feedback and are constantly evolving this thing. And I can tell I was using this app… I started using this app halfway through writing my book, and I saw a dramatic change in my productivity once I started using the app in my writing. So, I’m a huge fan.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. And so, I must ask, for the cheapskates that are listening, those who are like, “Can I just get a few of those songs on iTunes or Spotify?”

Lee Caraher
No.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. They are unique, they are custom compositions.

Lee Caraher
Well, they’re definitely something in the classical lot. They’re definitely music. It’s music that has been composed, but how it gets put together for you… I mean I guess you could do it yourself. That’s a lot of work, I’d rather not spend the time. I’ll spend the money instead of the time on that. [laugh]

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. And how about a favorite habit?

Lee Caraher
Right now I am in the middle of a social media habit that is 100 day… What’s today, Day 3 of 100 days of positive. Last year I did this 100 days of positive, which was 100 different images with 100 different positive sayings or quotes or feelings on them and I’m putting them into my social media stream so we can just have more positive things in our social media streams.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good, thank you. And is there a particular nugget, something that you articulate in The Boomerang Principle that seems to really be resonating and getting folks engaged?

Lee Caraher
Well, definitely the “Dead to me” thing is getting… ‘Cause they know that concept. And when I say, “If your former employees are dead to you, then you’re working too hard to find new ones” – that really captures people’s imagination and then I can really explain what’s behind The Boomerang Principle more than anything else.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. And once again, what’s the best way for folks to get in touch or see what you’re up to?

Lee Caraher
The best place to go is my website – www.leecaraher.com, and on Twitter I’m @leecaraher.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright. And do you have a final sort of call to action or a parting challenge for folks seeking to be more awesome at their jobs?

Lee Caraher
Take care of yourself first.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that. Can you give us one example of self-care that is just great?

Lee Caraher
Well, first if you’re on an airplane, definitely put your mask on first before you help the next person, ’cause you might pass out before you’re able to help yourself. But we need to be resting, moving and being recharged with whatever that is, every single day, so that we can be the most effective teammates, colleagues and leaders that we can. And if you find that you’re only working, then you’re not doing yourself or your company any favors.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, thank you. Well Lee, it’s been a whole lot of fun once again. Good luck with this book and all you’re up to!

Lee Caraher
Thank you so much! I so enjoyed talking with you again, Pete!

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