Transcript: How to Sustain a Flourishing Workplace While Balancing Growth and Employee Well-being // Robert Bortins, Jr., Classical Conversations

Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast

“How to Sustain a Flourishing Workplace While Balancing Growth and Employee Well-being“

May 27, 2024

Robert Bortins, Jr.

Intro: What are the essential leadership habits for a flourishing workplace? Well, once your organization achieves workplace health, or flourishing, how do you continue to improve? Today on the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, we'll look at how Robert Bortins, the president of Classical Conversations, keeps his focus on employee engagement for the long haul. Listen in for practical steps that you can implement in your own leadership situation.

Welcome: Welcome to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, your home for open, honest, and insightful conversations to help develop your leadership, your team, and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al Lopus: Hello, I'm Al Lopus, the co-founder of the Best Christian Workplaces and author of the book Road to Flourishing: Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being. And I'm passionate about helping Christian leaders like you create engaged, flourishing workplaces.

I’m delighted to welcome Robert Bortins, Jr. to the podcast today. Robert is the CEO of Classical Conversations.

And throughout our conversations, you'll hear us talk about effective patterns of a flourishing leadership team, examples of how data can inform effective action that would otherwise go unnoticed. We discuss techniques to resolve conflict. We discuss the link between flourishing cultures and the bottom line, and ways a top leader can continue to grow spiritually in their own leadership.

I think you're going to love this interview with Robert Bortins, Jr. But before we dive in, elevate your leadership with BCW’s Leadership 360 and coaching. Transform your leadership style and effectiveness with our cutting-edge Leadership 360 and stakeholder-based coaching program. At Best Christian Workplaces, you receive tailored feedback and strategic insights that empower you to lead with confidence and integrity. Ready to take your leadership skills to the next level? Well, visit us at workplaces.org/coaching and discover how our personalized coaching can revolutionize the way you lead so your people flourish. Don't wait; start your journey to exceptional leadership today.

And hello to our new listeners, and thanks for joining us as we honor your investment of time by creating valuable episodes like this.

Let me tell you a little bit more about Robert Bortins, Jr. Chief executive officer of Classical Conversations, Inc. is a job that Robert was born to, literally. Dissatisfied with the educational options she found as a new mom, Leigh Bortins decided first to homeschool her four sons and then decided to develop her own curriculum with Robert, her oldest son, as her first pupil. Then, in 1997, Leigh began teaching a once-a-week classical-model rhetoric program in the basement of her home with Robert and 10 of his friends. Classical Conversations Challenge I program was born, and from kindergarten through high school, Leigh home educated Robert and his three younger brothers.

Robert went on to earn a B.S. degree in industrial engineering from Clemson University. He worked as a management trainee for UPS and as a plant engineer for Easy Gardener. In 2011, he returned to the family business, Classical Conversations, Inc., to develop a marketing program. He was then appointed CEO of the family-owned company in 2012, and in the years since Robert became the CEO of Classical Conversations, the company has grown 300% and has become the world's largest classical homeschooling organization. Robert's a member of the board of directors of Homeschool Now USA, the Carolinas Rugby Union, and the Clemson University Rugby Foundation Board. He's also a member of a C12 Group, the largest professional development network for Christian CEOs and executives. Robert and his wife, April, live in North Carolina with their three children.

So, here’s my conversation with Robert Bortins, Jr.

Robert, it’s great to have you back on the podcast. I’m looking forward to our conversation today.

Robert Bortins, Jr.: Al, glad to be back. I always enjoy our conversations.

Al: Well, Robert, you've led Classical Conversations to be a flourishing workplace culture now for many years in a row, and you continue to improve over the years. So let me just say congratulations. And I know you have an engineering background, and this shows up in your leadership style. And you're known for goal clarity, specific measures, frequent check ins with your team, all of this. And describe some of the patterns that you and your leadership team have implemented to continue to focus on workplace health for the long term. What keeps you going week after week, quarter after quarter, year after year? What are some of the rhythms and habits that inform you and your leadership team when it comes to culture?

Robert: Well, Al, you know it doesn't happen by accident. You need to be deliberate and intentional. You also have to understand you can't fix everything at once, and you have to really institutionalize those habits and behaviors that you want to see before moving on to the next issue. And it's that idea of getting 1% better.

So we have company quarterly goals and share with the entire team, from the people sweeping the floors to the IT team, customer service, accounting. And these are all based on annual goals that we set about three or four months before the next year starts. And these quarterly goals that the company has are then broken down into goals for each team member. So we try to make sure each team member knows how their work is impacting the organization. And then, we do quarterly reviews, not annual reviews, because we just find the annual reviews, you know, you only remember what a person did the last two or three months anyway, so it’s not super helpful to either group of people.

And really, something that we've started doing is looking at work-related behaviors so that we can have a discussion about how individuals are individually wired and operate in how they feel the job requirements are causing them to operate. It's something called culture index is what we're using. And we believe this will help to make sure people are actually in the right seat on the bus and not just sitting there needlessly stressed out, because maybe they're doing the job, but not actually really naturally desiring to do that role.

So, I think it's just continuing to be intentional and knowing that if you're not getting better, your competition is, so you always have to continue to work hard.

Al: And you’ve been using the Entrepreneurial Operating System now for how long would that be, Robert, would you say?

Robert: Yeah. So EOS, we love it. We started that in 2020, just about six months before COVID. And that was a huge benefit to us, and it really just takes a lot of these questions that we get asked in the best Christian workplace and kind of institutionalizes them. But the bottom 10 that you guys provide is where we like to work, because we know that we look for themes and different ideas because we might just focus on improving one thing, but we see three or four things that will also be lifted up if we can get this one thing fixed. So, it's always trying to find what can have the biggest impact that you can realistically institutionalize over the next quarter or year.

Al: And how does that bottom 10, for example, when you get the report and you look at it with your leadership team, how does that get incorporated into the planning process, Robert? Is that part of your annual goals when the report comes out and the debriefing?

Robert: So, we do our annual goals. We define those in September, and we do ours in January, so we get our results back in February. So at our March quarterly meeting is when we kind of incorporate those, what we want to get done between then and next January. So, we know we're going to do it at that time frame, and so it's kind of built into our rhythms for the year.

Al: Yeah. And that's been, I think I counted you've been doing this nine survey cycles in a row, so that's fantastic.

Well, recently Giselle Jenkins, you're Best Christian Workplace consultant, pulled together a five-year report highlighting your trends and progress over the last five years. And I'd be interested, I know our listeners would be interested, to say, “Okay, so what did you learn from that?” Were there any surprises, or what's your growing edge as you lead a flourishing workplace after looking at the last five years?

Robert: Well, I really appreciate that. I’m a data-driven guy, as you said, from being a coach in sports to business. If you don't have good data, it's hard to make good decisions. You’re just trusting your gut. And so, you know, historically, we kind of compared the previous year to this year, and we’d go back and look to see what trends were. But having those full five years was really helpful, and it really helps us, I think, pinpoint improvements more strategically. I mean, we've been labeled a flourishing organization, but we're not satisfied with that. We always want to try to be improving because if you're not, you're dying.

And so one of the couple areas that we were surprised with was just that our seniority, like, especially after 10 years, and those in middle management were actually some of the groups that were scoring lower. And there’s probably a lot of overlap. And we have 170 employees. So there is room for upward mobility, but there's not always a lot of room. And we have our tenure is quite strong, so people enjoy working here and continue to work here, which is great, but, you know, can make people feel stuck. So, you know, we haven't necessarily fleshed out exactly what we’re going to do, but we're able to see that we need to dive in and see what we can do with that group of people to understand, one, that we do value them and their insights. And maybe your title's a middle-management title, but you've been here for 12 years, but that doesn't mean we can't do more to bring them into some of those decision-making processes earlier and lean more on their input. And it's just really just focusing in on one or two areas there. And we're a for-profit, but we're also very ministry minded. No profit, no ministry; no ministry, no reason to make profit. But we are looking at how we compensate people because we do have a very robust bonus system that if we're successful, our people can be successful. But as interest rates have risen and the cost of living has risen, we probably need to just kind of do some increases across the board. And that's something that we're definitely looking into as well.

Al: Well, that's fascinating. Again, for our listeners, you wouldn't have picked that out, would you, unless you looked at that data. And here you have really one of the most critical parts of your organization, your middle managers, expressing through the data that their engagement hasn't improved probably as much as everybody else's. I appreciate that you're really going to focus on that, listen to what the issues are, and address it, even as much as providing some compensation.

It can be tempting for leaders of healthy organizations to turn their attention away from workplace culture and health once they've arrived. We’ve had a few leaders who said, “Well, okay. We've got to where our goal was. Now we're not going to really pay any more attention to this. We're going to go on to the next thing.” But you've really kept your focus on flourishing, as I've mentioned, over nine survey cycles. So why are you keeping an Employee Engagement Survey on the top of your list year after year? And what does the regular discipline of looking at data on workplace health provide for you and your leadership team?

Robert: Yeah, I mean, just like, you know, we want to have annual health checkup or, you know, make sure that our weight's under control or those things, we've got to do the same thing when we're in business. And, you know, we all have blind spots, and the higher you move up in the organization, the more difficult it can be to get a pulse on everything going on because no matter how much you preach open-ended honesty, like, people still know that you're the boss and you can fire them or give them a raise or make their life better or worse, depending on how they behave around you. So this is a great way to really get inside your business so you can ask better questions and make better decisions with your resources.

And, you know, one of the things that we say in homeschooling is every single day, God gives us grace for that day because we're a new person, our children are new people, the world around us is new, and the same thing in business. I mean, the same challenges in 2024 aren’t the same challenges we had in 2023 or 2022. And we don't want to slip back. We don't want to make progress three steps forward and then take two steps back.

And so, I mean, your Survey doesn't take a whole lot of time from the individuals, and you get clear, actionable data back. And our team members understand that we're hearing and that we're listening to them. And look, we don't have as many things to fix as we did nine years ago. I mean, when we first got on this journey, we had teams getting together every quarter to tackle different issues. And now we went from trying to tackle four issues a year to just one or two issues a year. But it's that idea of continual progress, and we want, really, to make sure that we're helping people reach their goals because if we're able to help them reach their goals, they're going to be more enthusiastic about us reaching our goals as a team. And so it really just marries these two ideas of having clear communication, you know, a healthy work environment, just like in marriage. You know, I take my wife out on a date every single month. I mean, we didn't say I love you and I do, and then everything was going to be hunky dory. It's something that you have to continually work at. I think that's the same thing for employee engagement.

Al: I couldn't agree more. That's fantastic. Yeah.

Well, Classical Conversations, you've had great scores in the areas of conflict resolution and teamwork within and across teams. So what are some of the specific ways that you and your leadership equip your staff for this positive interaction to deal with conflicts, to have good teamwork, not only internally but across departments, which is oftentimes the more difficult aspect. So how do you and your managers, your supervisors, create an environment for your staff to handle conflict and work together well, especially as the organization has grown?

Robert: Yes, it's definitely something that we've experienced. And since we have 45,000 different customers, we even have conflict in the field. So it's really just, you know, a couple of things. You know, we've tried to incorporate relational wisdom 360 training. We do things like crucial-conversations training.

But it really starts before that. It starts with setting a work-environment standard that is understood by all, that they understand the expectations, that, you know, you have them repeat the expectations back to you. So it's really setting up a framework while everyone is in agreement on how you're going to behave when you become in disagreement, because we all have our own backgrounds, we all have our own responsibilities and issues, and sometimes what IT needs to get done is in conflict with what sales needs to get done. And you have to decide which one is going to give and which one's going to take. And so I think just that we've given them a framework beforehand to deal with these issues. Of course, the EOS process, having an annual plan, “Okay. These are the five things we want to get done this year. Your thing that's so urgent, isn’t on those five things. The thing that I need to do is on those five things. So are you in agreement?” You know, “Yes. I see that this is an issue, but let's go ahead and put it to the side, and we'll try to get it addressed next quarter, next month, or the next planning cycle.” And so having a North Star that hopefully everyone is trying to get to helps navigate those conflicts. And just, we're all humans, we're going to have conflicts, so you have to be proactive in really identifying and training how you're going to behave in those situations before they occur.

And then, when you do have those crucial conversations, as the book and training’s called, review those processes before having that conversation and just being okay with walking away. “Okay. Seems like we're in conflict. I don't know that we're going to be able to resolve it right now. Let's take an hour break and come back together.”

Al: So, you talk about framework, Robert. Standards and framework. Would your organizational values be part of that framework?

Robert: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, we have our core values, which is grace, humility, integrity, diligence, and excellence. We also look at, like, the biblical standards for conflict resolution, typically found in Matthew 18, but there's other verses that really say how Christians should operate. If God told man to operate in this manner, then it's probably best for everyone. And so it starts with going to the person first that you have an issue with. And if they disagree or can't get that together, bring someone else in that's kind of a neutral third party to hear both arguments. And if that doesn't work, bring in a manager that's above everyone to try to make it work. So, we really want people to be able to work together in a healthy environment. And so that requires, you know, not taking the monkey off other people's backs and being that superhero manager, but saying, “Look, if this is really an issue, have you talked to that person?” “No, I haven't talked to him.” Well, I'll be happy to talk to him after you talk to him.”

Al: Yeah. There you go. That’s really helpful. And boy, you can tell, I can tell, that you’ve really inculcated that throughout the organization. That’s fantastic.

I trust you’re enjoying our podcast today. We’ll be right back after an important word for leaders.

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Al: And welcome back with Robert Bortins, Jr.

Well, you know, Classical Conversations is continuing to grow in terms of reach and your size of your staff. Some organizations struggle to maintain a cohesive culture as they grow, just because there's more new people coming in and it's hard to really integrate them into your culture and into your values. So how do you make sure that you have a good fit with your organization when it comes to bringing in people, and how do you set them up for success on the team?

Robert: Yeah. That's a great question. And again, goes to being intentional before they get on. So are we doing a good job with our job descriptions and making sure that we know what we actually want? Hire is costly, but it's not the monetary cost for me; it's the emotional cost because I want these people to be successful inside my organization. And if they're not going to be successful, it's difficult to let people go. And you want to make sure that you're giving them all the training and tools. So we don't want to feel like we let them down, but we want the right people on the bus. So we need to cultivate our bench.

And kind of how we do that is whenever we have a new job, we go in, first send it out to all of our customers and say, “Hey, we're hiring for this role. Do you know—is someone in your family or do you know someone that might be interested in it? because if you're doing business with us, there's some sort of level of understanding of this culture that we're trying to put in, that we have some basic understandings and have some core values that align already.” And so that's where we try to always start.

And then, just being intentional with the interview process. We have questions that we have standard that we always ask. It's not just someone going in and saying, “Hey, I like this person. Let me have them work with them.” It's being intentional on trying to put them into situations to see, you know, let's go out to lunch and see how they interact with the server. You know, let's, you know, ask them some tough questions and then trying to follow up with any of their references. So you can't skip those steps. And yeah, it might take a week or two to get someone in that you really like or a little bit longer than you'd want to fill that position, but it's much better to have the pain on the front side than pain on the backside.

Al: Yeah. I appreciate that. Yeah. And emotional cost. I mean, there is certainly a financial cost. But for leaders, there's an emotional cost, which you want to avoid that cost as much as possible. Yeah.

So, well, of course, another way to look at growth and workplace flourishing is to consider how a flourishing culture contributes to the growth of the organization and even impact the bottom line. And that's something you look at, I know, very closely. So, you're a systematic leader, and you have clear goals and measures. But over the past few years, how have you been able to see links between workplace health and financial health of your organization?

Robert: Yeah. I mean, Classical Conversations is, I mean, my parents bootstrapped it from the ground up. They didn't take outside financing or anything like that to get it started. So to be financially healthy means we can do more and more things in the workplace to be healthy. And I mean, we've seen as our top line rises, so is our bottom line. And that's while being an offer more benefits. And people understand exactly, like, I try to communicate to them on a quarterly basis, “Hey, as a team, we were able to do this. So now as a company, we can do this for all of you all.” And really, like, as business leaders or owners, you might understand how those things correlate, but the front-line individuals don't necessarily understand. And the more you can help them out and say, “Look, we were able to reduce warehouse costs by 10%. Thank you to the warehouse team. Because of that, we’re all able to get an extra day’s vacation next year, or we’re going to add a holiday, or we’re adding a week to maternity leave because we’re now in a place financially where we’re able to offer those benefits.” And so tying those two things together.

And I mean, when there's not a whole lot of data in our, you know, particular realm. But when we look at publicly traded companies that are in the educational-service space, I mean, we're in the top 10% of a lot of those key metrics on the revenue side or the profit side and those things. So it's very, I think they can go hand in hand. I believe they do go hand in hand. And quite frankly, what's the point of making a lot of profit if you have a miserable place to work? If you have a fun place to work, it's all right to make a little bit less profit because you're not stressed out going there on a daily basis. So we've seen the company grow significantly and through a lot of challenges over the last few years. And I mean, now we've come to a point now where, I mean, we could basically start with $0 in our bank account on January 1, and except for that first payroll, pretty much pay all our bills for the rest of the year.

Al: I love that description.

So, Robert, you've had a flourishing workplace culture now for a number of years. And what you're saying is that from a revenue as well as a bottom-line standpoint, you would be in the top 10% of organizations like yours from a financial metrics standpoint.

Robert: Not on the revenue side, but on the percent of profit, percent gross profit, days inventory outstanding, turns, like, those type of financial metrics.

No, we’re not a billion-dollar company yet, but maybe soon enough.

Al: Not in terms of gross level, but in terms of probably growth over time.

Robert: Yes.

Al: Yeah.

Robert: Absolutely.

Al: Yeah. So you’re seeing growth as an organization. And again, people want to work with you, as you mentioned, people want to work with you. They love what you do. They're engaged. You've got 80% of your employees engaged, which is significantly above the average. Yeah. So that leads to good outcomes.

So, it's interesting that in a high-accountability growth environment, your people also rate life balance as one of the top ten areas of strength. So how do you accomplish this, Robert? You know, are there some specific practices that you have in place to encourage life balance in your workplace?

Robert: Well, I think the biggest thing is we've stopped shooting ourselves in the foot. When we've had times in our past where we've had less life balance, typically because we've made a poor decision or we forgot to do something that we'd done for the last five years, but we didn't institutionalize it or create a standard process around it, and causing havoc ourselves. And so I think that's important.

You know, I truly believe that if someone is stressed out in their own lives, that they're probably not going to be bringing their best to your workplace. And so we want to make sure that people are taking their vacations. So we do allow people to roll over some vacation hours, but more importantly, want them to take time off. Not because we don't like to see them every day, but we really believe that time off is there to help you engage with your family, making sure you have a healthy family life because that's going to be important to being productive at work, as well as, you know, all of us just need time to take a step back and decompress and really make sure that we have a full 360 view on what life looks like. And so I think that's been great for us, making so that, you know, if we do need you to work 60 hours next week, you can do it because we're not requiring of that from you every single week, because we've put in enough processes and places. And quite frankly, having good profit and good growth allows you to hire more people and do more things for your team so that you don't have to be understaffed.

Al: Well, that's a great thing to have your employees recognize that, yes, there is good, healthy, work-life balance. And that ensures, again, sustainability as an organization.

So, I've begun to ask questions, like the next one, just because it's something that our leaders, our listeners are interested in, that is that I know that you're committed to growing in your own leadership as you shepherd the flock that God has entrusted to you. So tell us a little more about your growth through the season. Can you share a few reflections on what's influenced your own growth as a leader? What are some of the catalysts, perhaps, or turning points, which is oftentimes what causes leaders to really reflect and grow, that you've experienced to spur you on to grow as you have as a leader?

Robert: Well, I mean, I think being involved in the C12 Group, if anyone's not familiar with that, it's a local monthly roundtable of Christian business leaders that get together and go over curriculum to just improve our leadership. I mean, having the BCW Survey every year—I know that's coming up—makes it so that I don't want to take my eye off the ball. Just reading the Bible and seeing how important it is to be in the Word and in communing with God. I mean, most of those people in the Bible, even the heroes, had fallings because they didn't keep their eye on the prize. And thankfully, my name's not in the Bible, but I do believe it's in the Book of the Lamb. And I think as Christians, we are really ambassadors here on earth to our heavenly Kingdom, and we're just visiting here. And as visitors, we need to really just tell people all about the good place that we're from. And if we're not improving as a leader, it's going to be very difficult for us to do that.

I mean, Patrick Lencioni, anything that he puts out, got to consume that right away. Good to Great and Great by Choice by Collins. And I mean, it's just you got to be reading or listening to audiobooks all the time. I mean, if you're not, like—you got a commute on the way to work, you can listen to pop radio or you can listen to a good book. So I choose to listen to—

Al: Or the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, is an example.

Robert: Absolutely. Or the Refining Rhetoric podcast after you listen to the…

Al: That’s right. Yeah. So, to our listeners, yeah, Robert has his own podcast, and, yeah, he's got great listeners.

So, well, Robert, we've learned so much from our conversation. And thanks, yeah, especially this last issue around personal growth; being in a group like C12, getting feedback; honest, open feedback from your staff, those that you're actually shepherding so that you know exactly how they're experiencing your leadership is a great thing, as well as your personal devotions and readings. And yeah, what are some of the habits that you have as an organization—going back to our conversation. We've just learned so much—the habits that you have, from quarterly to annual to just regular cycles in your company, how you've looked at five years of data and what you've learned from it, and how that was able to help you focus in on a key aspect in your organization and how you annually look at getting feedback on your culture so that you can identify any possible blind spots. And I really love the focus on teamwork and making sure that you've got good conflict-resolution processes in place.

So yeah, Robert, this has just been a great conversation. How about anything that you'd like to add that we've talked about?

Robert: Al, I mean, just let people know, keep listening to this podcast as well. It's a big part just hearing other people's stories and how they do things. I think the biggest thing that I've learned from as a leader is some things that other people have done that I've been able to manage not doing by being in groups or podcasts like this one, so I can learn from other people's experiences, the good, the bad, and the ugly. So just have that hunger to learn on a daily basis.

Al: Well, Robert, thanks so much for your contribution today. And most of all, I appreciate your commitment to equipping parents to build flourishing homeschool communities. So thanks so much for taking your time out today and speaking into the lives of so many listeners.

Robert: Thank you, Al. And I know that your organization has improved ours. And so I know our families, they might not have ever heard about you, but know that you've had an impact on hundreds of thousands of families around the globe because of your organization and how you all have really fed into us.

Al: Well, thanks, Robert.

And thanks so much for listening to my conversation with Robert Bortins, Jr. I hope you liked it and enjoyed it as much as I did.

You can find ways to connect with him and links to everything we’ve discussed in the show notes and transcript at workplaces.org/podcast.

And if you have any suggestions for me about our podcast or have any questions on flourishing workplace cultures, please email me, al@workplaces.org.

And leaders, if you want to improve your leadership, expand your organization's impact for good, and see greater faithfulness in our broader culture, help us achieve our goal to see more flourishing Christian-led workplaces. To help, please share this podcast with another leader or launch a program in your organization to discover and improve the health of your workplace culture. If you're interested in learning more, go to workplaces.org and request a sample report.

Outro: The Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Best Christian Workplaces. If you need support building a flourishing workplace culture, please visit workplaces.org for more information.

We'll see you again next week for more valuable content to help you develop strong leaders and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al: And join us next week as we talk with April Chapman, the CEO of Generous Giving.