Transcript: 5 Initiatives that Will Help You Retain Your Best People // Garret Larsen, Cho-Yeh Camp and Conference Center

The Flourishing Culture Podcast Series

“Five Initiatives That Will Help You Retain Your Best People“

October 3, 2022

Garret Larsen

Intro: Are you finding it difficult to attract and retain your best people? Well, today's conversation is with a leader whose organization has low turnover because of a flourishing workplace culture. Listen in as he describes five initiatives that contributes to their workplace health.

Al Lopus: Hi, I'm Al Lopus, and you're listening to the Flourishing Culture Podcast, where we help you create and lead a flourishing workplace. We find the problem many employers are facing today is readjusting to our post-COVID, hybrid world. The great resignation is still evident, where employees are quitting at record levels, filling millions of open jobs, even as we face a cooling economy and record-setting wage inflation. We know that having a flourishing workplace with fully engaged employees is the solution. So this week, we're talking about moving forward on the road to flourishing, no matter where you're starting from.

How do you, as a leader, foster an environment of innovation in your organization? What role does inspirational leadership and an atmosphere of trust play in creating space for flourishing? In today's podcast, we'll learn from a leader who has consistently provided an environment for growth, flourishing, and even some fun in the workplace.

I'm delighted to welcome Garret Larsen, the president of Cho-Yeh Camp and Conference Center. Garret has been with the Camp for 15 years, and he's been president now for ten years. And he has a track record of inspirational leadership and innovation.

So, Garret, it's great to have you on the Flourishing Culture Podcast.

Garret Larsen: Thanks, Al. Just grateful for the opportunity to chat and share and grateful for the work that you guys do at Best Christian Workplace. It’s been a real great tool for us, for sure.

Al: Great, Garret.

Well, before we dive in and we talk about what you do, let's talk about the Camp, Cho-Yeh Camp and Conference Center. First of all, what does the name mean? It's very unique. And tell us a little bit about the mission of the Camp.

Garret: Yeah. Camp Cho-Yeh, we’re a co-ed Christian summer camp, retreat center, just north of Houston. And the word Cho-Yeh actually means “tall pine.” It’s an Alabama-Coushatta word for “pine tree” or “tall pine” here that we have in the Piney Woods of East Texas. And our bread-and-butter ministry is to be a summer camp for kids 6 to 16 and a great retreat ministry for churches and schools and other organizations. And our mission is to be a place where Jesus Christ transforms lives through meaningful relationships and outdoor adventures.

Al: Well, Garret, it's fall now as we're doing this podcast, and I'm guessing that you just had a great summer, considering COVID’s over, people are coming back. So tell us about the help you and your team were able to provide for others in this busy season. Especially, how did you help them refresh and move to the next season?

Garret: Yeah, it was no doubt a very busy summer. In fact, in a post-COVID world, I think we have a whole lot of kids and families that are just eager to get back to some sense of normalcy and make up for some lost time. And so our summer-camp program grew very significantly. We're about 15% above our all-time high, and we had 4600 campers over the course of the summer. And in fact, we actually launched a whole new facility. We were able to build a whole new camp out of shipping containers for 300 campers at a time. And so this was for church groups who are running their own summer-camp programs. And we have our own traditional camp program with 4600 kids, and we had this new facility with another 4,000 campers that came over the course of 10 weeks. And it’s just been a very busy summer.

And our challenge is that we used to call it our down season here in the fall, and—

Al: Yeah.

Garret: —those are non-summer months. And I think my team would shoot me if I stuck by calling it our down season, when every weekend we have anywhere between 400 and 600 guests from five to seven different churches coming through, or schools or what have you. We're operating typically through September. Probably, we have guests on site five days a week. So we're running hard.

And one of the real challenges that we have is how do we maintain a sustainable pace for our people in an environment where, as a not-for-profit, we don't have a tremendous workforce, right? We have to keep our overhead low, and yet we are continuing to grow and serve more people, and we want to serve with the hospitality of Jesus Christ. So how do we do that well, without creating burnout and wounding our people as they are trying to be the hands and feet of Jesus?

And so we found ways to do that in our slower season. Typically, with our two arms of ministry: summer camp, which is pretty defined and clear, and it's kind of rhythms that we have. But our retreat ministry is running the year round. And so we have to be very intentional about making sure we have enough resources and people to maintain a sustainable pace and not overwork our team.

Al: That's really interesting. Just this conversation causes me to think about just some podcasts I did with camp leaders in April, May of 2020, just as COVID was causing them to think of what was going to happen over the next summer.

Garret: Right.

Al: And then it ended up being two summers of slowing down. But I’m so thrilled to hear that this last summer was a record-setting summer. That’s fantastic.

You know, you talk about having enough players on the team to keep a sustainable space, so how does having a flourishing culture, like you do, attract and even retain outstanding talent?

Garret: Yeah. I think what's become clear for us as we work with a pretty large span of generations—from a lot of employees still in college, particularly in the summer, to our full-time staff that run the gamut from fresh graduates to folks in their 50s and 60s and even 70s—and so for us to recognize that in order to retain this talent, we've got to make sure that we're a great place to work. And so we've seen that over the years. We have lost very—we have very little turnover. We have a great retention rate among our full-time staff, with most of our leadership team have been here for years and years.

But yet there's always new challenges. I think part of it is that they're in a place—most of our team who have come from other organizations love working here right off the bat because they realize just how much healthier it is compared to where they've come from. Some of our newer folks don't always realize that, particularly if we've had interns that come through, and then they leave. And almost without fail, when we had somebody who leaves, and after a year or two, within 12 months, I'm getting a phone call or an email or a note from them, or I bump into them, and they remember with great fondness what it was like to work at Camp Cho-Yeh and what a difference it is. And the grass was not always greener on the other side.

And so for us, being able to have a culture where people want to work, to stay engaged, and feel like they're being used with all their God-given strengths, that's fun and people really enjoy it. So it's been really helpful for the ministry, maintaining both our ministry and financial bottom lines, of how do we do ministry really well and how do we run a really efficient business model to do it? because for us, one of our mantras is no margin, no mission. And so we have to make sure that we're running a really great not-for-profit business as well as a ministry.

Al: Yeah. Well, you've participated in the Best Christian Workplaces Survey for four years in a row. And first of all, let me say congratulations. You've got 83% of your employees are saying they're in the engaged category, or the results say they're in the engaged category. So first of all, that's fantastic. So when you think about year after year after year continuing to discover the health of your organization, so what keeps you on that learning curve as you kind of complete the cycle of discover, build, and grow? How have you found coming back and doing the Survey on an annual basis?

Garret: One of the pieces for us is not to become complacent and to believe our own hype, right? I mean, we can talk all day about how we’re a great place to work and how we enjoy leading people. But for us, to be able to actually put that to the test and allow people the opportunity to say that for themselves and to share that is huge.

I think another piece for us is to recognize that we need help identifying our blind spots, right? Blind spots are just that: they’re the areas that we can't see, no matter how hard we try. And so for us, this has been tremendously helpful in looking at and identifying, what are the areas that maybe we're not so great at?

And then the other side is that it actually gives us the vocabulary to say, “These are the areas that we really do thrive as a culture.” And when you recognize we want to play to our strengths and say, “Man, this is a great thing that we have at Camp Cho-Yeh, and how do we keep that up? What are we doing that's creating this?”

You know, so every year when we take the Best Christian Workplace Engagement Survey, we take it very seriously. And we debrief it, and we digest it, and we meet with the teams, and it becomes part of our vernacular that allows us to just keep it in conversation and to highlight the areas that are really important to us as a culture.

Al: I love that. And, you know, one of the areas that you've done particularly well in is this factor that we call inspirational leadership. You're well above the sector averages for this key. What are some of the practices that you've put in place, Garret, where you actually are focusing on inspirational leadership and connecting with the staff throughout the work that you're doing?

Garret: Yeah. That was such a humbling and encouraging score to see that come through. And I'll never forget: my dad was a very successful leader in the corporate world, and I remember as a young CEO here at Cho-Yeh, I was reading on the porch one day at our vacation home in New York. I was reading a bunch of leadership books, and my dad looked at me, and he said, “Garret, you can put all those leadership books away because the only thing that matters is trust. Do your people trust you? And if they don't trust you, they’re not going to follow you.” And that has resonated deeply for me in leading and I think was one of the things that highlighted in our scores was just the foundation of trust that our people really genuinely trust the management team. And ultimately that stems from me.

I know that if that as a person I tend to be direct, and nobody ever wonders what I'm thinking. There's no question about it. Communicative. I'm pretty clear in how I communicate. We use DISC.

Al: Yeah.

Garret: And that has been a huge resource. I'm a facilitator in that. And so we actually, we use it in our hiring. We use it in our coaching. We actually adapt how we work with people. Every door on the organization, every office has a display out of their DISC profile and strategies to communicate. And that's been a real helpful piece.

So in terms of building trust, part of it is that we have a culture. I tend to be somebody who processes verbally. So we're a highly collaborative culture. We talk about things. I walk around, and I kick ideas around with people, and that really engages people, and they see my heart. The people who are—I know that particularly our summer staff are scared to death of me. They're intimidated. But any of our full-time staff find that so silly because they're the ones that when you work with me, you realize that I'm just a goofball, and I mean business, but I’m just a guy that is passionate about what we do. And so that’s been fun.

I think for us to be a collaborative environment that we—when our executive leadership team meets, we actually take real notes, and we distribute those notes after every time. So there's no cloak and dagger. There's nothing behind the scenes happening. We're pretty authentic and clear about it. And people really—and we're transparent. I think that's the big thing is people just trust the leadership team, and a lot of that is because they trust me, which I work hard at, just to make sure we're doing that.

Al: Yeah. Wow. Your dad gave you great advice: if they don't trust you, they won't follow you. And boy, the Survey results indicate they are following your example, for sure. Boy, that's just great.

And along with inspirational leadership, your staff always feels like they're really encouraged to experiment and be innovative in their jobs. And just listening to you at the beginning, you know, you talked about using shipping containers in your camp. And so I want to hear more about that, perhaps, as we go on. But they also feel like in addition to the experimentation and being innovative, that they have the decision-making authority they need to do their job. So nobody's micromanaging them, for sure. And that's very high. And then also, I think it would be great for you if you would give us an example of how innovation is a part of your DNA as a team. Help us understand why people feel empowered. You've given us a little bit of that already. I mean, being authentic and transparent, having, even, leadership-team notes prepared and distributed. But what are some of the other ways?

Garret: Yeah. One of the areas I think that I just have to call out is part of my DNA is to be a guy that's never satisfied with what we have, with status quo. I’m a builder. I love to run fast and to see things get better and to reach more people. And so I’m always moving and going. And I think that when an organization takes on a leader’s personality in that regard, and I think when that's a part of my DNA as a guy that likes to innovate and be creative and try new things and take some risk, I think that just comes out. And one of our team members that we hired, I told her from the outset, she was a little nervous about trying some new things, and I said, “Listen, if you don't fail, then you have never tried anything worth trying. Like, that's an indicator to me that you're not doing your job well enough, is if you've tried something and you haven't failed at something, then you're not trying hard enough.”

And so for us, we have an abundance mentality at Camp Cho-Yeh as opposed to a scarcity mentality. And I think in Christian not-for-profit circle, we tend to operate in a scarcity mentality. And I think if we can just change that and know that, man, he owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and if we continue to walk in his vision and seek out what's next and what he has for us, it's amazing when they make that shift of, what can we do? You know, we call it the blue-sky thinking of what can we do? And then we never brainstorm the budgets. We just brainstorm and create. And then we'll scale it back and figure out how we can actually make it happen.

But we're constantly asking, how can we do this better? And I think when you do that, it creates a space that's safe for our team members to do that as well. In fact, we even have in our performance review of creative problem solving, and we talk about it frequently in our weekly meetings that we have. You know, what are the things we value in key employees? And certainly, creative problem solving is one of those things that we value in our team.

And so as a culture, it's designed and created for us to be, like I said, let's experiment. And I think Boxwoods is a great example of that. It's just after the pandemic. We just acquired this property that we've signed a contract on on March 3 of 2020, and then we finally, it takes a year for us to actually get the property. And we have 14 acres on this beautiful lake. It's now 2021, and we're like, man, we have a long-term vision for this property, but we need something to do now with it, that is going to impact lives and generate some revenue. And we kicked it around the team, and that collaborative culture just started talking about, well, we could do teepees or platform tents, or we could do a variety of things that some day needs to be able to be removed so we can build a family camp out there. And somebody said, “What about shipping containers?” And next thing you know, we start crafting all these ideas, and yes, and this; how about this? And three months later, we pitch it to the board as an idea that we want to do. And two months later, we pulled the trigger, and we rolled, and nine months later, we have a camp, a 300-bed facility. And it sold out for the summer. And this little piece of property that was 14 acres on the lake was not having much impact for Kingdom purpose, and then it was transformed over nine months, and now gets to impact over 4,000 kids, who come to know the Lord better because of this facility. So that was fun.

And we tend to be a little bit of a ready, fire, aim. I think as on the DISC, as a high DI, I'm a guy that doesn't always have to have all the systems figured out before we get there, and so we can figure it out as we go. And I think that allows us to run some risk and be creative and knowing that, “Listen, I watched that guy do it and it turned out great, so let's roll and see.”

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

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And now, back to today’s special guest.

Al: I really like what you said, Garret, about the fail at something, and you’re encouraging people to fail at something. I’ve used the analogy over time: if you ski, and you don't have any snow on your pants at the end of the day, and you haven't fallen—

Garret: Right.

Al: —that you really haven't learned how to ski any better than when you started the day.

Garret: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.

Al: And so fail at something because that's a way of growing.

I’ve got another, in my recent book, Road to Flourishing, another story of when I was working with innovative Internet companies in the late ‘90s here in the Seattle area, there was one organization that just was doing a great job. And they would have their employees actually put yellow stickies at the doors of their cubicles, with all the stories of how they had failed on the yellow stickies. And supervisors were taught to go around and say, “If nobody had yellow stickies of any failures on their cubicle doors, that they weren't trying hard enough; they weren't experimenting enough.”

Garret: Right. That's great.

Al: Yeah. So I'm loving what you're saying about the blue-sky thinking, creative problem solving, getting things done, making sure that things are better. Those are all great parts of an innovative culture. And it does seem like innovation is easier when people are clear on the mission, vision, and goals of the organization. Tell us a little bit about that. How do you rally your staff around the mission and vision of Cho-Yeh Camp.

Garret: That is a big passion of mine is providing clarity for people. When I’m meeting with other folks, the others in the camping industry or in church ministry, I'm always—one of the biggest challenges I think people have is a lack of clarity on what are my expectations? Where are we going? What are we doing? What's the preferred future that we're headed towards?

And I had an executive coach for several years, who was such a gift, and she framed it for me in ViMVa3.

Al: Oh.

Garret: So, ViMVa3, right?: vision, mission, values, and the top three priorities. And as the leader, my job is to provide that constant bearing, the true-north bearing of, “Okay, here's where we're headed. This is what we're doing. This is where we're going.” And so I can guarantee that everyone in this organization knows our vision, they know our mission, and they know our values.

And the top three priorities, we change every six months. Every six months, we're constantly revisiting, what are these top three priorities that we have? And this is just constantly in conversation. We have a weekly meeting that we do every Wednesday. It’s 45 minutes, called Roundup. And that's been really a helpful part of our culture is having some clear communication, hearing from me, and hearing from various parts. But at the end of the day, it all points to, okay, how is this aligning with our mission, our vision, and our values? And what progress are we making on our top three priorities?

And so we have an infographic that displays this, and it's not just something plastered on a wall or sitting on a shelf or engraved in metal on a nice plaque. But it’s something we live. We review it every few months with our team. Every time I have a board meeting, it's the second page of our—it's the agenda. And then this infographic with our mission, vision, and values. And that's helpful for us. It’s the lens through which we make all of our decisions. We scrutinize what it is that when we're coming up with strategic plans or thoughts on new programs or initiatives, how does this align with our values? Does it fit the mission? Is it furthering the vision that we have? So that's been tremendously important, and I think it's one of the key things of leadership is providing clarity on the direction that we're headed.

Al: Well, I love the idea of clarity. And that's the first time I've heard of ViMVa3. So that's Vi for vision, M for mission, Va for values, and then number three afterward.

Garret: Right.

Al:  ViMVa3.

Garret: Three, yeah.

Al: So you have vision, mission, values, and three top priorities. And you communicate that regularly. Wow.

Garret: Yeah. That was from my executive coach, Berria Camps, and she was fabulous at this. And that was just a helpful tool because it's just a nice tool to remember and to be able to repeat.

Al: That's great. Fantastic.

Well, another strength—and I've got to call this out—another strength is having fun at work. And of course, you're in a camp environment. And, you know, of course, camping always just does sound like fun. And so what are some of the regular practices that bring a sense of fun into the workplace? Give us—and those of us that don't have that gift of fun, that are so serious, we don't have that much fun—give us some hints on how we can have some fun in the workplace.

Garret: That’s great. Well, I have to say it is easy here because that is literally built into the facility. It's one of our key strategies about why we exist is that if we can get kids here and have fun with them, then we have the opportunity to put them in mentoring and discipleship relationships with our counselors. And so it's a part of our culture. It has to be. So that's helpful in that.

But culturally, it would not be very difficult if we're not intentional about it. We could just go through the mundane and not enjoy some of the pieces that we are very intentional about with our campers to do it ourselves. And so we’re, for us, I think as adults, some of the best joy we can have in our job are some of the relationships. So how do we foster some deep and meaningful relationships among our staff?

And every Tuesday we have Cho Rec. So that's after work, it's at six o’clock, and we all gather together. And if you can make it, great, but it's an opportunity. We play soccer, or we do volleyball or ultimate Frisbee, whatever it is. And I think that after-work mentality helps bring some great connection and friendships and competition, which is great.

We have our Friday staff lunches, so we bring—you can bring your families in for lunch on Friday. We gather together. We just sit around the table. We're not allowed to talk shop. And it's not a meeting, but just an opportunity for us to connect and have some relationships.

And as an innovative culture, we're always adding new things, and we just added a big slide out of culverts. And honestly, we needed to find out where the safety issues were going to be. And so we invited—we had a staff day down there. And we didn't give them any rules. We just let them do it to see, what do young people do when you give them a new toy to try out? And okay, we did learn some rules that we needed to add.

Humor is a big part of what we do. I think it's a—we're a culture that likes to laugh and connect.

And then we go out of our way to add a couple of retreats a year, where on a staff retreat we have some significant conversations and strategy planning. But we also just go have fun, and we go to the beach, and we go miniature golfing, and we do some things that are just a time for us to be able to kick back, relax, and have some fun together.

So, it’s fairly easy at Camp, but honestly, the things that we do, you could do any place, and so it’s really to just enjoy each other’s company, enjoy each other’s time, and laugh and have a good connection.

Al: That's funny. You're at the miniature golf, just triggers an event. We had one of our first all-staff retreats, and we're distributed all over the country. And so we bring people in for an annual retreat. And we just had one a couple of weeks ago. But, yeah, I remember miniature golf and getting everybody together. And we all have images of one of our teammates who got on her hands and knees because the ball was just at the lip of the cup, and she was kind of blowing it to see if she couldn't get it into the cup without counting another stroke. Yeah, so.

Garret: That's great.

Al: Yeah. And those are all great examples of how putting fun into the workplace.

Now, so what's the value of having fun in the workplace, from your perspective? Why do you do that?

Garret: For me, it’s retention.

Al: Yeah.

Garret: People don't leave companies; they leave people. And how do we help provide a place where you generally enjoy the people you work with and connect with? And another thing my executive coach reminded me of and encouraged me to do is to make sure any time we have a new employee, find them a friend, help them make a friend, because that's all they need to do is have one good friend at work that they enjoy coming to and talk with and connect with. And suddenly their level of engagement and connection just will increase dramatically. So for us, it's an issue of retention. If you're not having fun at work, listen, you're not working at Camp for the money.

Al: Yeah.

Garret: So you got to know that there's purpose and there's power in what you're doing. But at the end of the day, are you making a difference? Are you having fun doing it? Are you using the strengths that God has given you? And so, certainly, having fun at work is a big part of it.

Al: Boy, you're just—I talk about the great resignation, and we're experiencing the great resignation in Christian organizations, where after COVID, now people are looking for other jobs. They want to get into a role where they can actually feel like they're making a difference. And in order to—what's the solution to people leaving? Well, if you have a great and a flourishing workplace culture like you do, people are going to stay. And just, again, having fun as part of that is a great way of retention. I appreciate that testimony.

Well, you know, I'll have to say, I love what you do. I just love camping. Camping experience can be so formative in the lives of young people. And there's also a special responsibility, though. And fun is one thing, but also having it in an environment where it's physically and emotionally safe for campers. And that's become a bigger issue as time has gone on, and particularly in our culture. And I see that your Camp, you’re exceeding the national safety standards in its commitment to preventing abuse. So what have you learned in this area that you can help other leaders with, to uphold a high standard in their operations?

Garret: Well, I think in camping, I think every camp director’s biggest nightmare is one of two things, and that would be a camper’s death or an incident of abuse. And so for us, we take both of these things very seriously. And I talk about being a culture of high trust, the importance of trust within the workplace. And that is true, and we are. But honestly, we are also a place that operates out of a commitment to distrust when it comes to camper safety. So we love to give people the benefit of the doubt, but there are things that we're going to put some safeguards in place that does not bank on the luxury of trust.

And I think oftentimes some of our Christian organizations, and churches in particular, are really bad at this, because we want to operate out of a place that is trusting and with integrity. And so we have those things, and we operate that way, but we are creating policies and protocols that are going to make sure that a camper’s safety isn't dependent on what we assume to be true or what is what we think or what we think we know about somebody, because I think history has revealed, and all the experts revealed, that there are some very key strategies that people with ill intentions put in place. And we meant, we work hard to make sure that this is not an environment that is going to be easy for anybody with ill intentions to come.

And so we find third parties who come in and, again, help us to identify our blind spots. We reached out to Rick Braschler, who's one of the leading industry experts in camp safety. And he came in and did a site visit for us and a policy visit. We work with Praesidium, and we've been working with them for over 15 years, and going through our policy and procedures to make sure that we're a safe facility and program. And we're going through the accreditation process now with them. And from physical plan, to policies and procedures, to screening methods, we take this thing very seriously.

And, you know, as a dad with four kids, man, I can't imagine having something like that happen to my own kids, let alone under my watch. And so we go out of our way to make sure that when a camper comes to Camp Cho-Yeh, that we can say with utmost confidence that we've done everything in our power to make sure that those kids are safe.

Al: Well, thanks. This is really helpful, Garret.

You know, and let me ask, then, we've talked about your situation, your environment, your mission, vision, values. As you look ahead for the next couple of years, what do you see on the horizon for the Camp? What excites you personally? Where do you feel God is leading you? Maybe even, what are the challenges that you feel like you're facing and maybe coming to with new ideas and energy?

Garret: Yeah. That's a big question and one that fires me up. One of the great things at Camp Cho-Yeh  that we've been navigating is pretty significant growth over the last eight years. And we're just full. We have, if you take out our bookends, the first and last week at Camp, we're operating at about 95, 96% occupancy. And here we are, one hour outside the fourth largest city in the U.S., Houston, and we have 800 acres, most of which is undeveloped. And it's parable of the talents for us, of golly, we have a whole population of kids who need the life-transforming experience of Camp and to be challenged to grow in their faith. And we have these wonderful resources, and what are we going to do? How are we going to put these to work? And so we have this vision to impact more lives, more deeply. And our heart in this is, how can we grow the number of lives that we impact while doing it in a deeper way, not watering down the secret sauce that we have?

So, we're actually in a capital campaign right now, that we're on the tail end of it, to build out a new junior-high and senior-high facility that will open in 2025, if all things go well, and that we can cross the finish line here. And then that will allow us to have kind of these four camps that these kids progress through and tailor made for their age groups, for their spiritual formation, and connections, and ultimately their faith formation.

But honestly, this is, we become really passionate about it because we have seen firsthand some of the key changes and a degradation of faith and character and grit in our young people. And it is most evident in our college-age staff that work for us, because we’re there, we’re with them from six to 13 weeks. And the last five years, we’ve seen a rapid acceleration of decline in some of the—their ability to endure and deal with hard things and their mental health, emotional health. And so that has fired us up of, golly, we have got to lean into this. And we think Camp is just so powerful to help kids navigate these truths and to navigate the world that they're trying to navigate. I mean, the role of social media and TikTok and the narratives that are coming at them now, I can't imagine what it's like to grow up in today’s age. And so for us to be able to pair them with young men and women who love Jesus, who are of great character, and to help provide at least a bearing on true north as to, “What does Scripture say about this? What does it look like to live a life passionately following Jesus?”

You know, for us, that's what gets us up in the morning, and we know that we have the opportunity to impact more lives, more deeply for Jesus. And that’s the vision we’re headed out is, how do we build the next generation of leaders?

Al: You've just communicated the way many of us feel, that the declining character of our youth is a huge issue. And so how do we make a difference? How do we see them grow, as you say, to have a vision for more lives, to grow more deeply? What a great concept and one that we're all 100% behind you on, Garret. That's for sure.

So, gosh, this has just been a great conversation, and we've learned so much in this conversation. We've learned about inspirational leadership and how, as your dad taught you, trust is at the core. If they don't trust you, they won't follow you. And some of the things you're doing to build trust by understanding how people are wired; to understand how, you know, your own self-awareness, how you're wired; using DISC, for example; being highly collaborative; being authentic and transparent with your entire team and your entire staff. How innovation has been a key for you. How you're asking and encouraging your staff to take some risks, to fail at something, to actually fail at something, and that they won't be punished for it. To do the blue-sky thinking that you've talked about. And to rally around the vision, mission, and values, and your three priorities. But also to have some fun at work. And I love the ways you describe it, and you're very intentional about it, with your Friday staff lunches, your Tuesday sports events. We could talk about what you like on terms of the sports events the most. But then, you know, to finally, really address the safety issue, because that's such an issue for us in the camps. And how, yes, Christ is really the solution and the model for when it comes to character and leadership, and you guys are doing such an important job there, being a great example as a flourishing workplace as you do that. So thank you, Garret, so much.

But let me ask you, what would you like to add that we haven't talked about yet?

Garret: Yeah. Thanks, Al. Probably the thing that resonates for me in thinking about leadership that I would just add is I had a mentor telling me that if I am not emotionally healthy, spiritually healthy, that it's going to have a dramatic impact on my capacity to lead. And I have seen that play out in my life. When I'm pursuing the Lord and I'm engaged with Jesus in a meaningful way and my spiritual disciplines are in line, it’s amazing to me the difference in how effective I am in leading others and how that permeates through and trickles down. But when I'm off kilter, if I'm not pursuing Him seriously or authentically, that, too, trickles down, and it has an impact. So I'm very mindful of just maintaining my own health.

And one encouragement I would have is, man, if we're going to be in charge of leading people in a Christian environment, where it’s healthy and flourishing and encouraging, then we have just got to be serious about our walk with Christ and just pursuing Him and staying rooted in His Word, and then community.

Al: Yeah. I've heard people say over and over again on this podcast that we can only bring to leadership who we are. And if we're just encouraged and our relationship with Christ is strong, then we're bringing a whole lot more than if we're not in that position.

So, Garret, I want to thank you for your contributions today. And most of all, I appreciate your commitment to leading your organization in the mission of sharing Jesus and transforming lives through relationships, through outdoor activities, and through your camping programs.

So, thank you for taking time out for your day and speaking into the lives of so many listeners who are listening to this podcast. Thank you so much, Garret.

Garret: Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for having me today.

Outro: Thank you for joining us on the Flourishing Culture Podcast and for investing this time in your workplace culture. If there's a specific insight, story, or action step you've enjoyed, please share it with others so they can benefit, too. Please share this podcast with friends on social media, and show your support by rating, reviewing, and subscribing wherever you listen.

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