Upper Arrow Success: Sydne Jacques’ Framework for Employee Retention and Culture Change

Anthony Codispoti (00:01)
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codaspodi and today’s guest is Sydney Jakes. She is the CEO, leadership keynote speaker and strategic consultant at Next Level Leadership based in Orem, Utah. She focuses on helping organizations improve workplace culture.

reduce turnover and enhance leadership effectiveness through proven frameworks like the Upper Arrow Growth Model and the Retention Revolution. Sydney’s background in engineering stretches back over 36 years, including her time as CEO of an award-winning engineering firm. She has also developed leadership tools that make complex challenges easier to approach.

With her combination of technical expertise and people-centric insights, Sydney has guided hundreds of teams to foster engagement and drive real results. Her organization’s mission is simple. Partner with leaders to transform workplace culture so employees stay and thrive. She’s written a book called Build What Matters that talks about how building people is our life’s work.

Whether leading a workshop or delivering a keynote, Sydney’s approach is practical, empowering, and always rooted in experience. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. Imagine being able to give your employees free access to doctors, therapists, and prescription medications. And here’s the fun part.

The program actually puts more money in your employees’ pockets and the company’s too. One recent client was able to increase net profits by $900 per employee per year. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, CEO, Sydney Speaks, Sydney Jakes. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Sydne Jacques (02:21)
Thank you, Anthony. I’m so excited to be here today.

Anthony Codispoti (02:25)
So Sydney, you grew up on a farm in Montana, and in your words, you had incredible parents and influences. How did that early life shape your approach to leadership and personal development?

Sydne Jacques (02:39)
I think it’s one of those things I did not, obviously I think a lot of things we don’t realize them at the time. But as I look back on my career and the things that I’ve felt passionate and moved to do, and including writing my recent book, so much of it comes back to my roots on the farm. you know, I just had parents that were loving and caring. was five kids in my family, but

My parents, never missed one of my basketball games or my sister’s concert or my brother’s football games. ⁓ And one of the things is interesting is that in addition to being there to cheer us on, they kind of became the team parent that everybody looked forward to seeing them because they were just so positive and caring. And then growing up on a farm, you learn how to work. But my dad always taught us one of the number one mottos was we work hard, but we play hard.

And so Saturdays were full of chores, but then there was always some sort of a reward at the end of the day, a softball game or a trip to Dairy Queen or something. And as I look back in what I learned about leadership, I think so much of it stems from my early lessons on the farm with my mom and dad.

Anthony Codispoti (03:54)
work hard, play

hard. How does that show up in today’s life?

Sydne Jacques (03:58)
I often have people say, I just can’t believe how much you play. And I do, I work hard, but every quarter my husband and I make sure we take at least one week off, if not more. And so I just, think it’s important. think one of the lessons my parents taught.

that I try to teach others that I work with is it’s important to have something to look forward to. For me, that’s travel. I love vacations. I love seeing new parts of the world and spending time with my family. Every morning when I get up, I know that there’s something out there on the horizon that’s on my calendar that I’m looking forward to. And that helps me. I love my work, but I also have love having things to look forward to also.

Anthony Codispoti (04:43)
What’s an upcoming trip that you’re really looking forward to someplace you haven’t been yet?

Sydne Jacques (04:48)
My husband and I actually got invited by some friends to go to Rhodes Greece. They own a home there. She was originally from there. They’re an older couple in their 80s and they’ve been wanting us to come for a few years and we finally got it on the calendar to go in October. So we’re excited.

Anthony Codispoti (05:05)
Nice. So Sydney, you started out as a civil engineer and you pretty quickly realized you were not built to sit in a cubicle and do design work, but you stuck with it for several more years. Why?

Sydne Jacques (05:21)
The biggest reason was because as a civil engineer, in order to earn your professional license, you have to have four years experience working under another professional engineer and then take a big nasty test. And I just felt like no matter what I ended up doing, because I didn’t know what I would end up doing in life, that whatever I did, it would be better if I had my professional engineering license ⁓ as a credibility and a fallback, really. So I just, had to.

I had to just keep working until I got to that point before I could really start looking at other options.

Anthony Codispoti (05:57)
So that’s interesting. Usually when somebody realizes, wow, this is not for me, this is not what I’m wired for, they look for something else pretty quickly, but you stuck it out for another four years.

Sydne Jacques (06:07)
Yeah, it was, I mean, at the time, you know, I’m in my 20s. I don’t really know what I’m doing. I just I felt like it was an important step in my journey. School was hard for me. So after getting through that much school, I’m like, I’m not quitting until I have that P.E. And then I’ll see what the next step is from there.

Anthony Codispoti (06:29)
Sidney, I often ask my guests what book that they would recommend to listeners. And one of the most popular answers I get is Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. You actually had the chance to learn directly from him. How did that opportunity come about?

Sydne Jacques (06:46)
So I will say this is one of the greatest blessings of my life, honestly. When I was working as an engineer, the organization I was working for, they decided they needed some help with training and personal development and leadership training. And so being in Utah, ⁓ they had the opportunity to contract with the Covey Leadership Center.

And I think because of my outgoing personality, especially compared to the other engineers, they asked me if I would like the opportunity to go get trained ⁓ through the Stephen Covey staff. And some of those meetings were with Stephen Covey to become certified in seven habits of highly effective people and principle centered leadership. And so I jumped at that opportunity, obviously, and it really was life changing for me in two ways. One, because

of the content and internalizing the content. Stephen Covey’s principle of begin with the end in mind. That was the first time that I really started writing a vision of if I got out of this cubicle, what would I want my life to be like? And I remember, and I still have it, I wrote down this vision of working from home, making six figures from home and taking my kids to school every day and not to a babysitter and.

And I really created that vision because of that. But then the other thing that happened was it got me out of my cubicle and in front of people doing the training. And I realized that that was my happy place. I loved, loved speaking in front of people. And it was that, that Covey leadership training that really gave me those opportunities and opened those doors and gave me that, that hope that, maybe there is something outside of this cubicle that I could do.

Anthony Codispoti (08:37)
So I’m kind of getting the sense of how the stars are starting to align for you, right? You stuck it out, you got your license. ⁓ Now you’re realizing that you enjoy leadership and training ⁓ and that you have a more engaging personality than perhaps most engineers do. And so this all lines up to, take it from there.

Sydne Jacques (08:40)
you

Thank

Well, I created that vision and every morning when I was running, I would repeat that vision in my head of I’m going to start my own business. And I had a very, very detailed of all the things that I would do. And so ⁓ when I had my third baby, it was just a time of reflection. And actually, I read an article by Michael Jordan that talked about fear.

in one of my Covey leadership magazines. And Michael Jordan said, think about fear. You can’t taste it. You can’t touch it. You can’t smell it. It can’t hurt you. So why do we make so many decisions in our life based on what we fear? And that day, something just clicked for me. And I remember coming home and talking to my husband and saying, you know, the worst thing that could happen if I quit my job and started my business and it didn’t work, the worst thing that could happen is I might have to go get another job as an engineer.

And honestly, that didn’t scare me because I was an engineer that had a personality, had communication skills. I’m like, I know somebody would hire me. And so that was the day that I just decided it was time to go out on my own and see if I could make it work.

Anthony Codispoti (10:16)
So what had been holding you back up to that point? If you were to think back to what the fear was, was it simply a fear of failure or was it something else?

Sydne Jacques (10:26)
It was a fear of failure and you know I had a great job with good pay and good benefits and to walk away from all that. ⁓ It was scary.

Anthony Codispoti (10:37)
So you started your own civil engineering firm.

Sydne Jacques (10:41)
So my first company, my tagline was the people side of engineering. And so instead of doing the actual engineering work, it’s kind of a weird niche, but ⁓ we did.

It’s called partnering and public involvement. And so it wasn’t the actual ⁓ engineering design, but it was working with teams and bringing teams together and then working with the public. So like Department of Transportation would hire us, cities would hire us to go out and be the liaison between the project and the public. So we would do websites, emails, people would call us all the time to complain about the projects. ⁓

So that was the kind of work that we did. So I built a team of, ⁓ had around 15 people when I sold that business.

Anthony Codispoti (11:31)
And was that those people that were working with you, were they also engineers or more like communication specialists?

Sydne Jacques (11:36)
Now

more communication and project managers.

Anthony Codispoti (11:39)
Okay.

And so when did you sell that company? Okay. Why exit?

Sydne Jacques (11:42)
five years ago.

I really wanted to focus on the speaking and training and getting my book written. so I had a, interesting story. I actually had a engineering firm that wanted to buy us and we went through months of valuation and all of that. And then one of my employees, my most senior employees came to me and he said, I don’t want to work for anybody else. What if I match the offer?

And I buy you out and keep the company just as it is because I love what you’ve built and I love the way it operates. And so that’s what we did. And it’s been awesome because it’s still called Jake’s and associates and they still are doing great business. But I’ve been able to hand that off to him. And then I just had a lot more opportunities and freedom to do the speaking and the training.

Anthony Codispoti (12:35)
Okay, so then I want to hear more about what you built Jakes & Associates into. So I understand kind of what the idea was and sort of this go between, you know, doing a lot of communications, but how did you get, let’s go back to the beginning. How did you get your first client?

Sydne Jacques (12:53)
Well, again, while I was working as an engineer, I had a chance to be a guest speaker at some conferences. One of them was the Utah Water Users Conference. I had just collected some fans there, quite honestly. Whenever I would speak there, the same group of engineers and consultants would show up to hear me speak. When I went out on my own,

They were the first people that I contacted and I just said, you know, decided I’m going on my own and these are the services that I’m offering. And it did take a while to figure out, you know, exactly my services and who would pay for them and how to make that work. But it was exciting times. was hard. It was really hard, but I figured it out.

Anthony Codispoti (13:42)
Are there other

groups out there that do the same kind of thing? Or were you sort of like inventing this whole business?

Sydne Jacques (13:49)
Well, it’s interesting because I think as an entrepreneur, you’re always looking for opportunities. And so I saw a group in Arizona when I was doing a presentation there that was doing this kind public involvement work. So I came back to Utah and started talking to people about it. And I really am considered a pioneer in public involvement in Utah because I helped develop a lot of the processes.

was early on and now there, I think there’s like 27 different companies in Utah that do that, that kind of work. So, yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (14:25)
But you were the first. Okay. You’re the trailblazer. ⁓

okay. So that business is going well. It’s going really well. You built a great reputation. you’re able to exit to your partner and you want it or somebody that worked with you and you wanted to exit because you saw more opportunities and perhaps even more fulfillment in doing the kind of work that you’re doing now.

as you’re making this leap again, right? Initially, you went from this like secure job with great benefits, you make a leap, start your own business, not knowing what’s going to happen, it goes well. But now you’ve got a great company, things are steady. And now you’re going to make another leap into something. Did you have like a stable of clients lined up as you were making that transition?

Sydne Jacques (15:15)
Partially because I really kind of took the company and split the services that we offered into. So I was already doing a lot of facilitation and leadership training and a little bit of speaking. And so basically when we split the company, he took the public involvement on all the employees and I kept the training that I had already created and I was doing so. It wasn’t starting from scratch, but it definitely.

took some time again to build up the clientele and the income to get to where I wanted to be.

Anthony Codispoti (15:50)
And how did you do that?

What have been sort of the biggest growth levers for you?

Sydne Jacques (15:54)
⁓ Common denominator speaking at conferences seems to always be a good way. And then going to people that I had relationships with, it’s interesting as I look back on my business even from the very beginning, ⁓ it really has grown pretty organically.

And so, you know, just focusing on people that already trusted me, that I had good relationships with and sharing that this is what I’m doing now and these are the services that we offer. And that’s where some of my first consulting and training contracts came from, were existing people or people that heard me speak and then were interested after that.

Anthony Codispoti (16:40)
So talk more specifically about what it is that you do for your clients.

Sydne Jacques (16:46)
So there’s basically three different things that we offer. So the first one is keynote speaking. And that can be like at an association conference. So every year I have the chance to present at the world of concrete. My husband always laughs. He thinks that’s funny. But association conferences, the higher speakers, I love to do that. And then ⁓ leadership training where…

we come in and we do leadership training and it can be a full day or ⁓ preferably like one of my clients, we come in every other month and do the training. So we’re continually building on the concepts. As I’ve done a lot of research on ⁓ turnover and how do we better retain employees? One of the common factors that shows up in every industry is that there’s really a lack of good training for leaders. And so,

Oftentimes people get promoted to be a supervisor because they were good at their work. But now they’re expected to be a supervisor, but we don’t invest in training them, helping them learn how to be a good leader, how to be a good supervisor. And so that’s another service that we offer is the leadership training. And one of the interesting products that we’ve ⁓ created that has been a really successful clients too is that we do a

and micro learning where every Monday we drop a three minute video on a leadership concept. So it might be on how to better communicate or build trust or have more clarity and roles and responsibilities. And so every Monday there’s a three minute video that gets dropped to can either go to all the employees or just everyone in a leadership position. And then a lot of our clients are using that in their weekly team meeting. They actually show that three minute video.

And everyone ends with a challenge of this week, I challenge you to. ⁓ so that’s kind of a unique model that we use that’s been really successful because people are busy. But if you give them just three minutes of content to focus on, that’s been successful. And then the third thing is organizational consulting, where we’ll work with an organization on a year-long contract to help them improve their culture. ⁓

reduce turnover, create better leaders. Basically, our goal is to create cultures where people want to stay.

Anthony Codispoti (19:19)
What’s the single biggest mistake that you see people make as first time leaders?

Sydne Jacques (19:29)
I think.

I think they don’t realize how hard it is, honestly. think typically we look at leaders and think, they get paid more money than I do. It can’t be that hard. But there’s something that happens, especially if now all of a sudden you’re leading the same people that you used to be a peer with. That’s challenging because you have to have hard conversations. ⁓

and you have to communicate differently and more frequently. And so I think really that’s one of the hardest things is just realizing that it’s probably harder than it looks. And like I say, if your company doesn’t give you training, it’s really hard to just figure it out on your own.

Anthony Codispoti (20:18)
So as you’re coaching a first time leader, what’s a golden nugget piece of advice that you love to give them on how to handle the people side of what they’re doing now?

Sydne Jacques (20:31)
Again, it comes back to models. I love to work in models that are sticky. So I’ll share one with you really quickly. It’s called the HIP model and it is a way to have a conversation. ⁓ You asked three questions. The first thing, and I’ll just say going into it, this can be something where you’re handling a difficult conversation or we also encourage people to use this to…

appreciate and recognize people because that is one thing we are not good at. I’ve never had anybody say, ⁓ I just get too much recognition. can’t stand it. It doesn’t happen. So anyway, the HIP model, you answer three questions. The first one is what is happening or what happened. ⁓ The second one is what’s the impact of that. And the third one is what is our plan moving forward? Would you like a quick example?

Anthony Codispoti (21:02)
Yeah.

I would love one.

Sydne Jacques (21:28)
Okay, so one of our engineering firms, ⁓ have a rule basically that any work that goes out to the client has to be approved by the principal because they do very technical work. So one of the principals of the company has to approve that. So they had one engineer that just really had a hard time meeting his deadlines and over and over.

And so they had set a deadline for a Thursday at four o’clock. He was going to have his work turned in so the principal could review it on Friday because it had to be to the client on Monday. So Thursday at four o’clock comes and goes. Friday is Friday at four thirty. The principal gets the work that he needs to review before Monday.

So he comes in on Saturday, he gets it done. And when he sat down to have a hip conversation with that engineer, he said it went like this. He said, I said, this is what’s happening. Consistently, you keep meeting, missing the deadlines. And for instance, this week, this is what happened. The impact was I have seven year old twins and I had plans with them on Saturday.

And I had to cancel my plans with my kids so that I could come in and review this so we didn’t let the client down. And our plan moving forward is this has to change. We can’t continue to work like this. And he said, you know, something just changed. Helping him see it in that framework. so being engineers, they have a whole spreadsheet. The first question is always, have you had the hip conversation?

And so it’s really, really powerful. But like I say, on the recognition side, I had a president of one of my construction companies call me the other day and he said, I just have to tell you about this hip conversation I had. He said, I went out to one of our big projects unannounced. And so I called the crew together and I said, okay, this is what’s happening. You guys didn’t know I was coming, but this worksite is so clean and so organized. I am so impressed. And the impact is I’m happy.

The client is happy. We have safer work site when we’re clean and organized. And the plan is we’re here for two and a half years. So let’s continue to make this happen for two and a half years. But he said, just using your framework just gave me the right formula and the right words to instantly call them together and recognize them for the good work that they had done with that vision of moving forward. We want to continue to do the same thing.

Anthony Codispoti (23:57)
I love those examples. Thank you for sharing those. The intro, we talked about the upper arrow growth model and retention revolution frameworks. ⁓ Has anything we’ve talked about so far fall into one of those two things? And if not, can you kind of break down what each of those are?

Sydne Jacques (24:18)
Yeah, for sure. So the upper arrow, it’s really fun because it stems from when I started my own business and I really didn’t know what I was doing. And so I started studying other businesses to see what they did to become successful. And I realized that every successful business had two things. They had quality products and services and they had satisfied customers. So being an engineer, I was trying to figure out what’s the relationship with that.

And I thought, well, if you imagine a graph like this, maybe, ⁓ on the axis is zero. If there is zero quality, there’ll be zero customer satisfaction. And I just thought if you improve your quality, they’ll just be more and more satisfied. But what I realized is there comes this point of diminishing returns where you can continue to increase the quality, but the customers aren’t going to notice. So then, and I actually learned this principle by studying the airlines.

because I realized that every airline tries to get you there safely and on time. That’s the lower arrow. But then, if they all do that, what differentiates them? So I started looking at what I call the upper arrow, and it was things like, do I have to pay to check my bags? What kind of snacks are they going to give me on the airplane? Do I get free Wi-Fi? Do I get a screen to watch my movies?

What’s their frequent flyer program like? And those are all the upper arrows. Those are the things they do that differentiate them and set them apart. And so as I was building my business and I was kind of discovering this, I was thinking, well, what’s my upper arrow going to be? And I remembered back to a time when I was getting trained to be a facilitator and I was in a workshop in Minneapolis and on Monday we got these fresh baked chocolate chip cookies at three o’clock.

They were so good. And Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, right at three o’clock, the same delicious chocolate chip cookies. And on Friday, I’ve literally got a Ziploc bag in my purse thinking when that guy comes with the cookies, I might eat these for dinner tonight because I don’t know if I’ll have time for dinner before I get on the plane. And Friday came, it was three o’clock and then it was 315 and 330 and 345. And I’m thinking, did he get in an accident? Did he his job? What happened to him?

Anthony Codispoti (26:33)
Where’s my cookie?

Sydne Jacques (26:36)
And at four o’clock, they took our picture and sent us on the way. And so I realized that every meeting is better if you have chocolate chip cookies. And so as I was looking at building my business, I thought, how many engineers do you know that would make chocolate chip cookies for your meetings and your clients? And I didn’t know anybody that would do that. So I decided that would be my upper arrow that I would start baking chocolate chip cookies. And pretty soon people would say, hey, have you met with the cookie lady yet?

And so even to this day, I can’t show up anywhere without chocolate chip cookies. It’s become my trademark. ⁓ Usually, last week I spoke in Montana to a group of 1,500 people. I did not bake those myself, but we still had them. We still had individually wrapped chocolate chip cookies. So yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (27:11)
Are you still baking them yourself?

Well, there’s worse things to

be known than as the cookie lady, right? So the upper arrow basically refers to what is, how are you going to take your service to the next level? Right? How are you going to differentiate yourself? Yeah. Can you give any, so that’s your example. Can you give an example of how you coached a client into finding their own upper arrow?

Sydne Jacques (27:29)
That’s true. It’s true.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I’ve actually done a lot of research and I found that there’s three things typically that clients will say this is an upper arrow. And one is, are you using technology to give them the best service that they can? So like in engineering and construction, the people that are hiring you to design or to build something,

They don’t know what the technologies are that are available. They want to trust that you’re using them. The second thing is communication. They tell me that everybody better provide a quality product or they wouldn’t hire them. They’re like quality does not differentiate, but the way that you communicate with me and you let me know ahead of time if there’s going to be a problem. And I see this over and over. It’s not only in engineering, but I have a good friend that owns a software company and she’s like, if we’re

can see that we’re gonna miss a deadline, we can’t wait until we get there. We gotta be talking ahead of time. We gotta be over communicating. And that’s an upper arrow is clients want communication. They wanna know where things are at. They wanna know if there’s a problem on the horizon. But I really think the most important of all is trust. People wanna work with someone that they can trust. And so one of the courses that I have is it’s literally a two day course on how to build trust.

both internally with your team and externally with your clients.

Anthony Codispoti (29:18)
So that one’s interesting for me, because when I hear you say that, how to build trust is an upper arrow, like building trust is an upper arrow. To me, trust should be table stakes. Like that, that should be a requirement to, get into the conversation. Am I thinking about this wrong?

Sydne Jacques (29:34)
It should be, but is it? Sometimes I say what’s common sense isn’t common practice. No, and I think that’s where trust is. think that we all think that we are trusted in the way we do things, but ⁓ the reality is people want to do work with people that they trust.

Anthony Codispoti (29:36)
but it’s not in reality.

Okay.

So what’s a good trust building exercise for folks?

Sydne Jacques (30:02)
Well, there’s the trust fall. One of the one of the exercises that we work with teams on one of the we call them the pillars of trust. One of the pillars of trust is connection. And so just helping people learn how to better connect again, both internally on your team and with your ⁓ external clients. But one of the tools that we use is it’s simple tool, but so powerful.

and it’s called connection questions. And so I have a list of over a hundred connection questions. If you’d like to offer them to your audience, I’d be happy to share. But what we encourage people, the teams to do is to start every team meeting with a simple connection question. And it can be something, one of my favorites is if money were no object and you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go? But what happens is when every person starts the meeting by every person answering a question,

Anthony Codispoti (30:41)
Yeah, that’d be great.

Sydne Jacques (31:02)
Not only do you get to know each other better, and as you go on week by week, you’re going to have different questions and learn different things. But the other thing that happens is you’re starting the meeting with every single person participating and opening their mouth. And you’re sending the message that what you have to say, I value that. It’s important to me to hear from you. And many organizations, when we come in and start working with them, a meeting is led by a leader who pretty much

is 90 % of the conversation in that meeting and they tell you this is what we’re doing this week and this is how it goes and there’s not the interaction, there’s not the connection. And so that’s one of the greatest tools that we’ve used both again for internal teams or if you’re working on a project team and working with people from different organizations, it’s a great way to just really break down barriers and create more connection and the reality is that

The more connected we are, the more we trust.

Anthony Codispoti (32:03)
I can definitely see how those questions get people to know each other better and more. know each other. You know, I think the better things generally are. ⁓ and then what struck me as you continue to describe that, you know, when you, in a traditional meeting setting, when you’ve got somebody who’s doing the bulk of the talking, other people, whether they realize it or not, they’re almost being trained to be silent. Right. And so when you start out that meeting and you’re giving everybody a chance to sort of.

Sydne Jacques (32:24)
Yeah, exactly.

Anthony Codispoti (32:29)
break that seal on their mouth break that you know, proverbial ice. It opens up the entire meeting to more dialogue.

Sydne Jacques (32:38)
Yeah, I was speaking at a conference in Idaho, I think it was last year and I had a gentleman come up and he’s like, I know you’re not gonna remember me, but two years ago, I was in one of your workshops and you told us we should do connection questions and I rolled my eyes, but the president of the company was there and he said, we’re gonna do this in every weekly meeting. And he said, one of the things that we learned is that, especially for construction people who are not used to talking a lot, he said, if we put that question on the agenda,

then people would come in and they would be looking at the agenda like, what’s the question this week? And it got to where people really looked forward to it, but it also gave them a chance to prepare and not feel like they were ever caught off guard. he’s like, people would start saying, well, this would be a good connection question. Let’s use this one next time. And he said, I was amazed. I couldn’t believe how much that changed the culture of our team.

Anthony Codispoti (33:31)
Wow. Is this something that works well for remote teams as well?

Sydne Jacques (33:35)
It does, absolutely.

Anthony Codispoti (33:38)
Let’s hear about the retention revolution framework. What’s that?

Sydne Jacques (33:42)
Okay, so the retention revolution about three years ago, I really dove deep into the topic of retention. I did a lot of research. so the retention revolution framework is it’s it’s a it’s a 10 10 step map of how to create cultures where people want to stay. So it includes things like the upper arrow identifying what your customers how do we serve our customers with upper arrows.

but then taking that upper arrow and internally saying, what are upper arrows that we’re providing to our employees? This was a real experience that happened to me as I was orienting some new employees and I always get out my flip chart. My team used to tease me. I couldn’t think without a flip chart and markers in my hand. But I had my flip chart out and I was doing the upper arrow teaching my employees that we’re always looking for ways that we can.

exceed our customers’ expectations and that I expected them to not only take cookies to all their meetings, but to be looking for ways and additional upper arrows. And as I sat there and I was drawing that upper arrow and then I saw all of my employees, I was like, wait a minute, I don’t just want customers that are extremely satisfied and loyal. I want every one of these employees to be extremely satisfied and loyal. And so I started to

just really ponder on this idea that that upper arrow applies internally. We need to be looking at ways that we can exceed our employee expectations so that we do create places where they wanna stay. And so that’s the basis of the retention revolution is taking those and saying, how are we communicating with our employees? What ways are we, like one of the frameworks that we talk about is financially.

We have to give them pay and benefits. That’s the lower arrow where they’re not going to stay around. But upper arrow, what can we do different that makes them think I’m never going to leave? And some of the companies that we work with, they have ⁓ a bonus system, but it’s where the bonus is money to go towards a vacation. They can’t use the money to pay their utilities or pay off a bill. It has to be

a vacation and they get reimbursed for their, you know, they turn in their receipts and they get reimbursed. Well, guess what happens? The spouse is like, you’re not leaving this company. I like these yearly vacations, you know, and the kids start to look forward to, you know, the vacation. And so just ways that we can creatively figure out what are, what are things as employers that we can do to retain our people because those kinds of things make a difference.

Anthony Codispoti (36:29)
So whether it’s that specific story or a different example, I would be curious to hear about an idea that you helped to introduce to a company that made a big difference in sort of turning around the culture.

Sydne Jacques (36:45)
Okay. Well, just sticking with the upper arrow, one of the construction companies that I was working with as we were talking about, again, one of the upper arrow frameworks that I have them dig into is fulfillment. We know more and more employees are saying they want to be fulfilled by their work. They want work to be fulfilling. And as I was working with this company, they’re an excavation company.

And, you know, the president of the company, he’s so awesome. He’s always open to being creative. But he said, you know, it’s really not that fulfilling to go dig a hole, bury a pipe and leave. And so he started to realize that his employees that were doing that work, they never truly saw the end product. And so one of the things that they started doing was they started saying, OK, when we finish a product,

Or when we finish a project, whether it’s a, it might be a water treatment plant, it might be building a hospital and they did the work a long time ago on the groundwork to bring the employees back and say, look what you were a part of. This, this building wouldn’t be here. These children wouldn’t be treated had you not done the literal dirt work to create the foundation to make that happen. And so it’s been, it’s been a, it’s been a huge change for them. and

employees are more fulfilled and they love that opportunity to celebrate and come back.

Anthony Codispoti (38:18)
How great of him to kind of recognize that, right? yeah, I mean, these guys are doing their job, they go on to the next job, but they don’t get to see the finished product. They’re there doing the stuff that gets buried in the ground and is so necessary, but people never really see or pay attention to. That’s a really cool story. ⁓ How about kind of at the other end of the spectrum where you’ve got things that are toxic or broken?

Sydne Jacques (38:36)
Exactly.

Anthony Codispoti (38:45)
What are some common warning signs that leaders often miss?

Sydne Jacques (38:55)
Well, the first one that comes to mind is turnover. think sometimes we want to think that if people are leaving that it’s their fault. But you see it a lot with the generations that, you know, if people aren’t staying, ⁓ then it’s the generation’s fault because they’re just job hoppers and they’re not loyal. But again, I turn that around and this part of the retention revolution is I think it’s our role to create a picture of the future.

that they need to be able to see, number one, we need to express more often that we want them to stay. ⁓ But number two, they need to be able to see that there is a future there for them. And one quick little story, I was speaking at a conference in Chicago and I went to the dinner the night before just to meet people. And it’s kind of funny, I was in Chicago, but the first person I met was from Utah.

And I just said to her, hi, I’m Sydney with Next Level Leadership. Who are you? And she said, I’m Becky. I work at Big D Construction and I’m a lifer. And I was like, what? And she said, ⁓ I’ll never work anywhere else. I’m a lifer. And I said, that was part of her introduction. And I said, how old are you? And she said, I’m 27. And I said, how do you know that you’ll be a lifer?

Anthony Codispoti (40:03)
Hehehehehe

That was part of her introduction.

Sydne Jacques (40:20)
And she’s like, I love the company. I love, they live their values. I love the leadership and I know that they will always be a future for me. Well, funny thing, because she’s from Utah, we were both involved in women in construction. ended up becoming friends and that was 10 years ago. And she has recently just received a big promotion in HR and she’s a lifer. She’s not. And, and I, I credit that company with creating that vision from when she first started that there is a path for you.

We don’t want you to say, I can’t grow. I’m going to go look somewhere else. I think too often we don’t understand the investment and the payoff to helping people see that there is a future path within our own company.

Anthony Codispoti (41:05)
Let’s talk about your book, Build What Matters. Can you elaborate on the core message of building people is our life’s work?

Sydne Jacques (41:16)
Yeah, it is. At the end of the day, there’s nothing else that matters more. so I think being, especially having the chance to work on so many different construction projects and seeing, it’s this one of the reasons that I love the industry so much is that you see a piece of ground become something that.

that is important, that’s valued, that gets used for decades to come. But at the same time, I look at the literally thousands of people that it takes to build a project. And so my message is, at the same time we’re building our projects, and whether it’s in construction or software or…

Medicine whatever it is. We need to be focusing on intentionally building the people and it comes back to you know I already talked about connection connection is a huge part of that being intentional about creating connections and and part of it is being intentional about who we are and how we want to show up and how can we show up and be our best and And I think that’s the first step. I think we can’t really build other people until we

we focus on ourselves and figure out how we can be our best self, then we can show up to serve others. And so I think it’s a progression from individually figuring out how to be your best self to connecting with others and then putting together that team and that culture so that ⁓ all of them are based on connection, they’re based on valuing relationships and truly creating.

I think legacies because at end of our lives, none of us are going to say, wow, I was really good at my job. It’s going to be all about the relationships that we built and the people that we were able to impact.

Anthony Codispoti (43:15)
When you talk about this message, do you ever run into resistance or skeptics?

Sydne Jacques (43:23)
Um, some, but I…

Anthony Codispoti (43:26)
Cause I would imagine

there’s some people that are hearing this and they’re like, well, Sydney, that sounds all nice and good pie in the sky, but I got a hard business to run here and I got to make the bottom line work. I don’t have time for any of that crazy stuff. Make, make a business case for what you’re talking about.

Sydne Jacques (43:31)
Thank

Yep.

Well, the business case, I think there’s two parts of it. One of it, one, does come back to what we were just talking about as far as turnover. ⁓ Turnover is expensive. The statistics of what it costs to replace an employee is phenomenal. They say it’s a…

1.5 times their salary by the time that you find someone to replace them and retrain them. And so the business case that I see is do you want to continue to pay that money to continue to train new employees or take good care of the ones that you already have? And I think that sometimes we feel like we have so much to do and we’re so busy we don’t have time to stop and do the things like the training and

And it pays off financially. But the other part of it is, I think, is that idea of legacy, especially when you’re a business owner. I know, you know, being on business number two, it is stressful. You lay in bed at night and you think of all the things that have to be done and payroll and getting enough work to feed all those mouths and all those things. And it’s stressful. And yet again, I think we have to.

We have to have the insight and the intention to say, but when this is all over, what are people gonna remember? They’re not gonna remember their paychecks. They’re gonna remember the way that I treated them. They’re gonna remember, I still have ⁓ kids in the families of my former employees. They call me Auntie Sid because we just created a really fun relationship.

and I’ll forever be their auntie, even though we’re not related because, you know, we just created connections of loving and caring and, and, and that’s what, that’s really what matters.

Anthony Codispoti (45:39)
I love that. ⁓ You’re an engineer. So I’m sure that the book is broken down into four core principles or six or so. I don’t know how many but maybe can you pull out ⁓ one or two of your favorite give people a sneak peek of what they’ll find in the book.

Sydne Jacques (45:46)
you

It’s actually a lot of the things that we’ve already talked about. ⁓ One that I will share that is really powerful that I get a lot of good comments on is talking about starting with the individual piece is the idea of creating a personal brand. I first had this thought, I was meeting with one of my clients who was a public works director for a big city that we were working with. He was telling me about two different. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (45:58)
Okay.

Sydne Jacques (46:23)
companies that were doing construction projects in this city. And he described the project managers that he was working with. And he described the first one as being a pit bull. And he’s like, this guy is like this invisible force at my ankle that just never goes away. He always needs something. Everything is urgent. He’s like, when I look at my phone and it’s him, I don’t even want to answer it. He said, but I have this other project manager and he’s a problem solver. He’s like, he over communicates. He always tells me what’s happening.

And he said, I wish I could have every project with a guy like him. And as I was driving home that day, I just couldn’t stop thinking pit bull, problem solver, pit bull, problem solver. And I had this realization that we all have what I think now has come to be called a personal brand, but it’s a way that we show up. And I thought if he had lunch with somebody else tomorrow and he’s like, Hey, I had lunch with Sydney Jake’s yesterday. Have you ever worked with her? She’s kind of.

And I thought, exactly, what would he say about me? I don’t think he’d call me a pit bull, but probably not a problem solver. so science teaches us that there’s power in three. They call it the trifecta. So I thought I’m going to come up with a personal brand that is three words or phrases I would want somebody to use to describe me. And so my personal brand is happy, high energy and show up to serve.

Anthony Codispoti (47:22)
fill in the blank.

Sydne Jacques (47:49)
And I kind of tease that when you think of an engineer, that’s not usually what you think of. But I decided that would be my personal brand. So every morning while I’m brushing my teeth, including this morning, I’m thinking to myself, happy high energy show up to serve. And I was thinking of you, Anthony, and thinking when I show up to serve, I want to do that, be happy and high energy.

Anthony Codispoti (47:52)
No.

Sydne Jacques (48:12)
Now do have to add, had one coach that taught me once you should always do squats in the morning while you’re brushing your teeth because it gets the blood flowing, gets your body going. So there’s a lot happening in my bathroom in the morning. But that’s one of the principles of the book. I think it’s important to really be intentional about how we show up and how we serve the world.

Anthony Codispoti (48:26)
That’s funny.

And so do you have a process you take people through to sort of figure out what their three words or phrases are?

Sydne Jacques (48:41)
⁓ Basically, it’s spending some time brainstorming to figure that out. It’s a very personal process. But then what I encourage people to do because everybody doesn’t like doing it while they brush their teeth. What I started having people do is to actually put an appointment in their phone for whatever time they’re getting ready in the morning. Mine would be seven o’clock in the morning. My phone goes off and it says, I am happy, high energy and show up to serve.

And then I put a repeat. So every single day I get that message at seven o’clock in the morning. And again, I was speaking at a conference in Arizona in April and I had a woman come up to me and she said, five years ago, I heard you speak at a conference and I just have to show you. And she pulled out her phone and she’s like, every morning I still get these three words that tell me to show up and be genuine, kind and caring. And

And she’s like, so that’s how I start every day. So I love that when… What?

Anthony Codispoti (49:42)
rewarding is that for you? When you’re at

one? How rewarding is that for you, Sydney, when you’re at one of these events, somebody you don’t know heard you speak, they were part of a workshop, but and they’re like, Hey, you did this thing and it’s still working for me. How does that make you feel inside?

Sydne Jacques (49:58)
It’s why I keep doing what I do. I feel like I’m getting old. But I just, don’t want to stop doing what I do because I just think if there’s even a handful of those people that I’m able to touch and it changes their day and it makes their life better, then I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing.

Anthony Codispoti (50:16)
You know, as we talk, I want to go back to the question I asked just a few minutes ago about, you know, skeptics of sort of this, you know, pie in the sky approach and, our purposes to build people. And I love the point that you made, you know, one about leaving a legacy behind. And two, like, hey, for those people that are just, you know, numbers driven, bottom line focus, like, hey, this reduces turnover and turnover is darn expensive.

Sydne Jacques (50:44)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (50:44)
Is there a mechanism in what you’re doing or do some of your clients take it on themselves to actually try to measure the impact in some financial sense or is that a little too, I don’t know, foggy to try to put a number to?

Sydne Jacques (51:02)
Yeah, no, that’s a really good question. And there are are parts of it that are hard to measure this year. One of my clients where we’re our program is called winning at work winning at home. And it’s been really fun because each quarter we’ve had a different emphasis first quarter we talked about how do we ⁓ create better physical health.

And we did a wellness challenge that’s been going on. And then second quarter, we talked about financial health. Third quarter was emotional. And fourth quarter is ⁓ life fulfillment and stress management. And so we’ve been dropping the three minute videos every week on those categories for them. ⁓ And we had a meeting the other day and they’re like, this has been great. And we feel a change in the morale, but we can’t really measure.

in numbers what this has done. And so it’s hard and at the same time, they’ll tell you that it has been worth it. ⁓ But I think that ⁓ what we can measure is what we keep coming back to is the retention because it’s something that we can measure the numbers, we can measure the money that goes with it. And ⁓ especially when we get people into leadership,

positions, it’s really hard to replace those. And a lot of the organizations that I work with, their goal is to promote within. And the only way that we can prepare people as leaders to promote within is if we’re doing these kind of things, if we’re building trust, building connection, providing leadership training so that these people can ⁓ be promoted and stay within their company.

And that’s where we have the cultures that people don’t want to leave. They want to be promoted. They want to stay there.

Anthony Codispoti (52:56)
What percentage of your business is currently in the construction industry?

Sydne Jacques (53:00)
What percentage of it? Currently between engineering and construction together about 90%.

Anthony Codispoti (53:08)
Is that intentional? Do you feel most comfortable in that realm? Or do you feel like you want to spread your wings?

Sydne Jacques (53:15)
That is a great question, Anthony. I would say I am comfortable there because that’s what I’ve been doing for 30 years. But part of the reason that I wrote the book is because I want to be able to take my message to other industries. I mentioned that I did a keynote in Montana last week and it was actually a kickoff for 1,500 school district employees. So had teachers, bus drivers, lunch ladies, principals, counselors.

And it was so fun because I did interviews ahead of time and a lot of people had already read my book. And so like I was interviewing this one principal and he’s like, I love your upper arrow so much. He’s like that lower arrow for teachers. He’s like, we have curriculum assessments, we have testing. He’s like, there is a thousand things we have to do, but the upper arrow is how do we show up? Do we show up with passion? Do we?

you know, show up with personality and he’s like, I think sometimes we get so beat down, we forget that. And he said, my daughter’s first grade teacher loved penguins. And so she taught math with penguins. She taught science with penguins. She taught English with penguins. And he’s like, at the end of the year, their test scores were higher than anybody else and they all loved penguins. And I was honestly thinking to myself, I wish that would have been my teacher because I love penguins too.

And so it was just, it was really fun to talk to these people who had read my book and had already said, ⁓ that applies to us exactly. And so that’s my goal is that I want to branch out to other industries and take my same principles to other industries to help them.

Anthony Codispoti (54:56)
any industries in particular that you have your eye on.

Sydne Jacques (55:01)
⁓ I would love to work with franchises. I think my models really, the Upper Arrow especially and the Retention Revolution, think both of them, any business that’s a franchise, whether it’s a fast food or place where they cut people’s hair, I’ve just always thought, huh, my model would just fit them perfectly.

Anthony Codispoti (55:28)
And so for the franchisor as well as the franchisees, yeah. Sydney, what’s a serious challenge that you’ve overcome in your life? How did you get through that and what did you learn?

Sydne Jacques (55:32)
Yeah.

So when I started my business, I was pretty optimistic and probably overly, overly optimistic, let’s say. So at the time when I started my business, my husband had a good job and then he lost his job and my business was not producing much. And so this was…

We had just had our fourth baby now. so there was this program, a government program called WIC where ⁓ as a mother of low income, you can go and you can get basically baby food and juice and formula for your baby. But in order to get that, you have to kind of go through a lesson every week before you get your vouchers. So I was sitting in a WIC meeting.

and no judgment to anybody that was there or that uses the programs. I was using them. But this one particular day as I was sitting in the meeting, I don’t know if you’ve ever had one of those experiences where you just kind of have this feeling that comes from head to toe. And my feeling was you are capable of more than this and you got to figure out how to live your best.

And it really was a time that it just, again, I went home and had a conversation with my husband and said, we just, got to figure out how to make this business work. And it was, it was hard. It was, it was a really, really hard time and it didn’t all change overnight. But ⁓ I think a lot of it again, came back to how we started this conversation. It was almost like I could hear my dad’s voice saying, Sid.

You can do this. This world is waiting for you to do big things. so at the time when my kids were all getting free lunches and I was getting free government food, it was hard to see that. It was hard to see that that future was out there. But because others believed in me, especially my dad, I look back 25 years later and it’s…

it’s been an incredible journey. So I feel strongly ⁓ because a lot of times when people see the work that I do, I get to travel almost every week, I get to work with international clients, and I think they think you just land there. ⁓ So I like to go back to remind people that it wasn’t easy. And I believe that everybody has that potential inside of them to do whatever

they want to do. ⁓ My life isn’t everybody’s life. It’s just, it’s different. So what is it, you know, that you want to accomplish and maybe your circle of influence is, is your family or maybe it’s, you know, your neighborhood, whatever it is. I really believe that we’re, on this earth to serve others and, and that we can all have the opportunity to do that.

Anthony Codispoti (58:54)
Trying to find something to say that would make that, like put an exclamation point on that, but I think he said it all very beautifully. And so I’m just going to leave that story there. I appreciate you opening up about that. ⁓ We had a chance to talk about Stephen Covey and learning from him. We’ve talked about your book, any other books ⁓ that you found helpful or podcasts or courses that you might recommend to our listeners.

Sydne Jacques (58:58)
Yeah, thank you.

anything.

There’s a book called the trusted leader and Like I said, we do a lot of work around trust. And so that’s one of my favorites ⁓ A lot of entrepreneurs are probably familiar with the traction book. That’s also Also one of my favorites as far as podcasts right now Ed Mylet is one of my is one of my favorites. He’s just ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (59:36)
Gina Wickman.

Sydne Jacques (59:46)
Just so positive. love his personal growth and his commitment to improvement. He’s awesome.

Anthony Codispoti (59:56)
We talked about the brushing your teeth and saying the three words and doing the squats. Any other habits that you have to kind of kick off your day or keep you on track as you go?

Sydne Jacques (1:00:06)
⁓ Exercise is really important to me. I can’t always, I prefer to start my day with it, but just because of the way my schedule is, it doesn’t always happen at the beginning of the day. I am a Sunday planner. So every Sunday I get out my planner and I still use a paper planner. People laugh at me sometimes, but I like to be able to open it up.

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:30)
She’s holding it up for those listening to the audio version and I can confirm it is

in fact an old school paper copy.

Sydne Jacques (1:00:35)
Yes, so every Sunday I pull

out my paper planner and I plan out my week and so I have all of my meetings and I always plan in what time am I going to be able to exercise and I always plan in connections, connection to my four adult kids. I try to try to figure out how to best connect with them and and I have an adorable grandbaby that I have to have time with him every week or else life just is not fulfilled.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:03)
What’s your grandbaby’s name?

Sydne Jacques (1:01:05)
His name is Finn. Yep.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:06)
That’s awesome.

What’s your superpower, Sydney?

Sydne Jacques (1:01:13)
I think my superpower is ⁓ connecting with people and staying connected with people. ⁓ My husband teases me that I just collect friends and never let any go, but my Christmas list just grows and grows every year. I still do a hard copy Christmas card. So if you want to be on my list, Anthony, I’d be glad to you one. But I just, love.

I love to maintain relationships and I do think it’s a superpower that I’m able to still have so many friends from different decades of my life.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:49)
Can you give me some pointers on that? You know, I’m very fortunate ⁓ to have this podcast where I’ve gotten to meet so many incredible people. We’re approaching 300 episodes now and thank you. I appreciate that. ⁓ And so many of these folks I would love to stay in touch with and everybody gets busy. And how can you stay in touch? Like, you know, your husband’s kind of laughing at you for collecting all these friends over the years. Like, how do you do it?

Sydne Jacques (1:02:00)
Wow, congratulations.

It’s true.

Truly one of my biggest tips is whenever someone comes to my mind, I immediately send them a text and just say, hey, I was just thinking about you. How is your world? ⁓ Part of my morning journaling is I, for me it’s prayer, for some people it’s meditation. But when I pray in the morning, I kind of ask for one person that I should try to connect with that day.

and almost always a name will come to me. Sometimes it’s a family, a friend, a business person. And then I write it down. like last night at 10 30, I’m texting a friend from way back saying, just thinking about you, how are you doing? And he’s younger. He’s like my kid’s age. And he’s like, actually, I’ve had a hard day. Do you mind if I call you right now?

And I’m like, no, that would be great. But I had written it down in the morning and I knew I couldn’t go to bed until I checked in with them. And so that’s my best tip is, I guess it’s kind of two part one when you think of somebody check in with them. But I love the process of in the morning, just saying, who should I connect with today?

Anthony Codispoti (1:03:25)
See, now as an engineer, I was expecting that there’s some sort of a spreadsheet involved and like follow-up dates and like a whole system there.

Sydne Jacques (1:03:35)
I do have a mentoring spreadsheet for all the women that I mentor, but…

Anthony Codispoti (1:03:40)
So say more about that. We haven’t talked about the mentoring that you do.

Sydne Jacques (1:03:44)
Yeah, so it’s, I was the only female in my graduating class in 1989. And so I just have become a magnet for women, especially female engineers, that it’s just, it’s just been a cool thing. But I really do keep a spreadsheet of, you know,

making sure that I check in with them or like if they’re expecting a baby, I want to make sure I keep track of that and know that and write down what goals they’re working on. And through the Women in Transportation, I’ve set up a formal mentoring program, but most of what I do, it’s informal and it’s just, it’s a way to give back. It’s a way to help others.

Anthony Codispoti (1:04:34)
Sydney, I’ve just got one more question for you, but before I ask it, I wanna do two things. First of all, everyone listening today, go ahead and hit the follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast app, but if you have an extra second, leave us a comment or review. It helps more people find the show, which is the kindest thing that you could do for us. I also wanna let people know the best way to get in touch with you or to follow your story, Sydney, what would that be?

Sydne Jacques (1:04:38)
Okay.

Okay, so my website is Sydney Speaks, but Sydney is S-Y-D-N-E. And if you know Simon Sinek’s work, I just say I’m still trying to find my Y because everybody thinks there should be a Y at the end of my name. So sydnespeaks.com ⁓ is my website. It’s got a lot of good information on there, my contact information, some videos you can watch and some things about my book.

Anthony Codispoti (1:05:25)
Great, and we’ll put that link in the show notes for folks. So last question for you, Sydney. ⁓ I’m gonna stay in your collection of friends now. I’m gonna get on your Christmas card list and you and I reconnect a year from now and you’re excited. You’re celebrating something big. What are you celebrating one year from today?

Sydne Jacques (1:05:43)
One year from today, I’m going to be celebrating the fact that I’ve grown my ⁓ next level leadership programs to over a million dollars in revenue. That’s my goal.

Anthony Codispoti (1:05:57)
I can’t wait to celebrate that with you. Sydney Jakes, I appreciate you sharing your time with us today. I want to be the first to thank you, opening up and sharing that story. Thank you.

Sydne Jacques (1:06:00)
Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate it. It’s been fun to get to know you and I’m excited to put you on my Christmas card list, Anthony.

Anthony Codispoti (1:06:15)
I’m looking forward to that. Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.