Doug Flaig of Stratus Building Solutions On How to Build a Purpose-Driven Culture That Attracts Top Talent
An Interview With Chad Silverstein
Create a rhythm or cadence around reviewing the core values or purpose. We have an annual review internally of the core values and purposes and discuss how we’re going to enforce it. We share them in our employee handbook and we need to ask whether new questions have come up and what we need to address as an organization.
Purpose has become the new currency of success in today’s workplace, and leaders who prioritize mission-driven cultures are standing out in the war for talent. To explore this important topic, we are interviewing Doug Flaig.
Doug Flaig is the CEO of Stratus Building Solutions and has been with the company for over three years. A seasoned executive with a strong franchising background with likes of Dunkin’ Donuts, Burger King and 7-Eleven among others, Doug is a servant leader who relies on collaboration, the right team, clear metrics and influence to drive the growth of the company.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
Most of my career has been in franchising and I’ve worked with brands such as 7-Eleven, Dunkin Donuts and Burger King to name a few. Along the way I got the chance to do a number of different things so when it came time to interview with Stratus Building Solutions, I took a good look at the company and the leadership and joined them in January of 2022 as President and then became CEO the following year.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began working in leadership, culture building, or purpose-driven organizations?
Early on in my career I was a strong individual performer. At one point and I was getting promoted into a director role and I met with a mentor of mine and said, “I know I’m not going to come in as the top director, but I also don’t want to be in the back of the pack.” I asked him, “what do I need to keep in mind and what are the things I need to drive hard on to make that happen?”
And he explained to me that, “the first thing you have got to realize, it’s not about you. Now you’re really managing a big team. Now you’ve got to make it about them.” That was one of the things that really stuck with me, and I think shaped the way I approach leadership overall from that point on.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
#1 Authenticity. With me, what you see is what you get. There’s not a hidden agenda and I’m pretty clear at speaking my mind.
#2 Servant leadership. That whole concept that I mentioned of it’s-not-about-me has really stuck with me and I try to make it about the people that I’m leading and lifting them up and helping them get better.
#3 Strategic thinking. I like things about the steps ahead. You’ve probably heard of, “A-B-C as in ‘always be closing’”, but one of my recent leaders said, “A-B-C-D. Always be connecting the dots.” Meaning that you are always looking at the big picture and connecting the dots about how we can position the company where we are and where we’re going which is important to me. Along those lines I’m a competitive guy so I always want to win and I want the organization to win so whether it’s metrics or whatever it may be I always want to win.
Let’s now jump into the focus of our interview. What does a “purpose-driven culture” mean to you personally, and why do you think it’s critical for attracting top talent?
A purpose-driven culture obviously has a really clear mission and vision. But sometimes those can sound a little too corporate. I believe that if you can boil your purpose and core values down to something that everybody can own and know every day, I think that’s where the rubber meets the road. Core values are super important.
For your core values and essentially your culture, leadership HAS to model it. Every dysfunctional organization you see, you can trace the dysfunction back to leadership. Hands down. Every time. No exceptions. So from the top leadership has to model an organization’s mission, purposes and core values and actually live it, no exceptions, to succeed in developing the culture that you want.
If you’ve got clear purpose, clear core values and leadership is embodying those things then that attracts talent because they know they’re going to get clear focus. People are going to be rewarded based on hitting targets and meritocracy; not based on how well they can sweet talk somebody at a meeting or how much they’re kissing up to leadership. It’s results driven and I think top performers like it because they have freedom to make decisions.
How did you identify and define the mission or purpose for your organization? Was it inspired by a particular event, challenge, or insight?
Initially when I came in, we had a mission and a vision, but we didn’t have a purpose. We had to craft our core values and our purpose statement. I got together with our leadership team and we went over a lot of things to make it right. We had to make sure that when it comes time to make a decision, you’re thinking back to our mission and our core values to make sure that the decision ultimately is aligned with those things. For example, if we’re launching a new product, does that fit our purpose? If we’re going outside our purpose, why is that the right decision for the company? There’s a plethora of questions you have to ask.
Basically, it was inspired by the fact that we didn’t have it and we needed it.
What are the key steps leaders can take to embed purpose into the day-to-day operations and decision-making of their companies?
One of the leaders I admire always told us, “You have to tell everybody twelve times before it sticks.” Don’t be discouraged when you’re sharing the messaging, and it takes multiple times to get it right. At Stratus, we review our core values and purpose in staff meetings, at regular times throughout the year and it’s posted around our offices.
Whatever system your company is using you’ve got to be able to measure how everyone is being held accountable to the core values. We use a system called Entrepreneurial Operating system or EOS (some companies use Pinnacle and other programs). But whatever it is that keeps people focused on the right things to drive the brand forward is great.
What role does leadership play in championing and modeling a purpose-driven culture? Can you share an example of how you or another leader helped reinforce your organization’s purpose?
Leadership has to model the culture and live it. There are no exceptions.
For example, early in my career I worked at a telecom company providing services to Verizon and AT&T and we were building towers and modifying them and we developed a team of in-house tower climbers to work on these rather than substitute in contractors. Well, the in-house team had gotten a little cocky and a little full of themselves and were growing hard to work with, so much so that project managers were indeed giving work to subcontractors over our internal teams even at the expense of cost.
I took over the tower division and saw it wasn’t working. I met with them and laid it out: explained that our purpose is to serve the project managers and if we’re difficult to work with they’re not going to use us. And if they’re not going to use us, I’m going to dissolve the division.
And those guys were excellent, they were great, but it took a moment of clarity to see how they had gotten lost a bit and away from our values and purpose. And that’s okay we’re humans we just have to make sure we re-align from time to time.
How do you handle skepticism or resistance from team members or stakeholders who may not immediately understand the value of focusing on purpose?
You’ve got to provide a forum for feedback. You’ve got to give them the opportunity to share the listen and allow you to listen. As a leader you must be able to listen to criticism and address it.
Sometimes, someone might uncover something you haven’t thought of, and so you got to take that back to the leadership team re-craft it, re-craft it, and bring it back out as it relates to core values and your mission. When people feel that they have a voice they feel equity in the purpose driving forward. As a result, they execute on it and live it so everyone is aligned.
Ok, let’s talk strategy. Based on your experience, can you share “5 Steps to Build a Purpose-Driven Culture That Attracts Top Talent”? If possible, please include examples or stories for each. NOTE: these don’t necessarily need to be full lengthy stories. Just steps or tips with anecdotes should be sufficient.
- Leadership alignment. If your leadership is not aligned, you are not going to go very far and it’s going to get sabotaged.
- Clear purpose and core values. You may want a coach to help you go through this, somebody with an outside voice that gets away from some of the echo chamber and bring some outside perspective. Core values have to provide a framework for decision-making. One brand that I worked with was doing very well and then imploded after I left. They really did not have a clear purpose. And so you had departments and different pieces of the organization all driving towards competing priorities and when you’ve got competing priorities and competing against yourself, it’s true that a house divided cannot stand.
- Communicate your purpose and core values to the company. That can mean going out to different departments and meeting with different teams and fielding questions and sometimes hearing frustrations. What you ultimately want is buy-in and a crystal-clear vision of what is expected. Additionally, I think it’s vital to get your mission and core values out to the public through public relations. If you want to attract talent, you show them your purpose and core values.
- Be consistent. You can’t have a bunch of exceptions. If you make a bunch of exceptions outside the core values and mission, it waters everything down and everyone realizes it’s just words and not lived out.
- Create a rhythm or cadence around reviewing the core values or purpose. We have an annual review internally of the core values and purposes and discuss how we’re going to enforce it. We share them in our employee handbook and we need to ask whether new questions have come up and what we need to address as an organization.
Can you share a specific example of how embracing a purpose-driven culture helped your company attract exceptional talent or achieve a significant business goal?
I’ll give you an example from Stratus. When I got here, the culture here was fantastic and the franchisee group was probably the best I’ve ever worked with, but the leadership group was lacking a little bit of direction. We got focused in on our purpose and core values and that has resulted in a pretty strong three-year run. I was able to bring in some top tier leaders and drive the brand forward. And the results speak for themselves, we were named “Fastest Growing Franchise” for the third year in a row by Entrepreneur magazine, we’ve won numerous awards. The top talent really helped drive the brand forward. And we’ve continued to have double-digit growth, double digit overall sales growth and double digit same territory sales growth. So, establishing those values and purpose has attracted strong talent that’s facilitated a very strong three year period.
What advice would you give to leaders of smaller companies or startups who want to build a purpose-driven culture but don’t know where to start?
I would be really clear early on about your mission and vision, your core values and your purpose. And again, getting a coach or someone that can offer an outside perspective can be really valuable. It’s important to stick to your values and not let the new shiny thing distract you from what matters and what you do best. You want to be set on your “true north” on what you’re doing and where you’re going.
What are some common mistakes leaders make when trying to create a purpose-driven culture, and how can they avoid them?
Number 1 is, “Ivory-towering it.” Just saying, “we’re going to make a decision and we’re going to push it on the organization” without collaboration or insight from different voices.
Another common mistake is you create your mission and then it’s done and you never re-visit it. Never bring it up. If you’re not have a regular review process for that, it’s like writing down a business plan, putting in a book, putting on a shelf and never looking at it and you lose direction.
Lastly the communication part that I mentioned. There has to be a cadence for bringing up what drives your cultures as far as purpose and values and driving that home throughout the year so that everyone is on board and bought in.
How do you ensure that your organization’s purpose evolves and remains relevant as your company grows and the world changes?
You have got to re-evaluate it yearly. Think about if it’s 1902 and I’m a buggy whip salesman and this new industry called “cars” is emerging, I might want to revisit my business plan or if your industry is changing, pivot as to what you’re doing.
Look at AI. AI is changing jobs in ways that we aren’t even aware of yet. So you’ve got to be willing to pivot and adapt, but make sure your core values remain the same as your market conditions change. You’ve got to be reviewing your purpose, and we review ours annually.
What trends or shifts are you seeing in the workplace regarding purpose, and how do you think these will shape the future of business?
One is that obviously a lot of people want to work remote, but there’s a trend of moving back to the office which there’s definitely something to be said for. It creates a collaboration working face to face and establishes relationships that can’t be replaced by Zoom or digital meetings. I think companies need to look at that and see how it affects their purpose and can they be flexible?
Also, I think in the workplace there’s been an anti-capitalism push. I believe leaders need to be thinking about this issue. Your team won’t get excited about helping the owners or the shareholders make more money. That’s not a very compelling purpose. But at Stratus we are commercial cleaning. We want to have something that offers a feeling of purpose around what we’re doing. So three components of that are that we lift people up, we protect people’s health and we give back. Those are purposes which people can get excited about. Lifting people up can be promotions or raises and recognition. Protecting people’s (our customers) health and conversely their families is a big value portion. And we’ve been working more on giving back to our local communities. For example, our franchisee in Asheville, North Carolina started a fundraiser for victims of Hurricane Helene. Having real purposes that you can get behind are more important than ever.
In your opinion, how does having a purpose-driven culture impact not just employees, but customers, clients, and the broader community?
Whether it’s through sales materials, conversations or other channels you can share your company’s message with customers. You get that connection because people see good things happening and it encourages them to do business and be part of that organization.
Hands down results show. For the last three years Stratus has been crushing it. People want to be part of a winning team, and a strong purpose, mission and core values drive that.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people by building purpose-driven workplaces, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I think it would be an organization that helps leadership focus on the right things so the organization can succeed. Winners embrace that. I think people who are selfish don’t practice servant leadership. At Stratus I’m in my sweet spot. I get a chance to impact my corporate team, my master franchisees and their organizations and that flows-through and reflects on the unit franchisees. Right now we have 91 master franchise territories, we have 4,500 unit franchisees across the U.S. and Canada. That helps me think about all the families we’re impacting and I take that very seriously. I love the decisions we are making because we’re impacting not just customer but families as well by protecting people’s health, lifting people up and giving back.
How can our readers further follow you online?
You can read my contributions to Forbes at https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/people/dougflaig/ and follow my LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/dougflaig/ .
This was great. Thank you so much for the time you spent sharing with us.
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein is a seasoned entrepreneur with 25+ years of experience as a Founder and CEO. While attending Ohio State University, he launched his first company, Choice Recovery, Inc., a nationally recognized healthcare collection agency — twice ranked the #1 workplace in Ohio. In 2013, he founded [re]start, helping thousands of people find meaningful career opportunities. After selling both companies, Chad shifted his focus to his true passion — leadership. Today, he coaches founders and CEOs at Built to Lead, advises Authority Magazine’s Thought Leader Incubator.
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