Welcome to a bonus episode of Punk Rock HR! In this special episode, my guest is Lance Haun, vice president of market insights at The Starr Conspiracy and one of my oldest friends.
This episode comes from a webinar where we talked about an exciting concept — the reverse mullet. Lance describes a traditional mullet as “business up front, party in the back.” A reverse mullet is what happens when you prioritize the employee experience before everything else.
This concept can be embraced by everyone, whether you work in human resources, marketing, sales, or hold positions such as an executive leader or a business owner. So if you are ready to learn how to grow into a reverse mullet and how it can impact social good, this episode is for you.
If you want to take a deeper dive into what a reverse mullet is, then check out my previous episode on the topic with The Starr Conspiracy’s Bret Starr.
Want to watch the entire webinar with me and Lance? Sign up now to watch the full webinar and conversation!
Punk Rock HR is proudly underwritten by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is a B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head over to thestarrconspiracy.com.
What Is the Vision of Your Company?
Most businesses are structured with the business first or in the front. Employees are somewhere in the back. That’s what you might call, as Lance does, a mullet approach.
The reverse mullet turns that around and puts employee experience first — an approach that helps companies meet the needs of employees and get to where they ought to be. But to implement a reverse mullet in a traditional mullet organization, simply swinging around the mullet can be incongruent with your company’s values and operating structure, not to mention cause some whiplash.
This concept is a significant shift, so it’s best to grow into it. The first step, Lance says, is “having a really strong vision for what your organization is.”
Lance adds, “If you think about what you want to do as an organization — not what you want to do as a CEO, what you want to do as an organization — I think having a strong vision there is super-helpful.” Having a strong vision helps greatly with the next step: communication.
Switching to a reverse mullet isn’t about emphasizing productivity goals, or profitability. In all honesty, Lance says, employees don’t care about that stuff unless they are “a major institutional shareholder, or if I’m a CEO whose pay is dependent on those numbers.” Employees instead want to know how this change will improve their work experience.
“A lot of the things that we see people start with is just creating a communication plan that’s about talking about the ideal employee experience that leads to high productivity, for example.”
Democratizing the Workforce
Let’s say you flipped the mullet around, and now your organization wants to build a new structure, starting with communication. This isn’t something high-level executives can just build out by themselves. Many companies involve their employees in the new democratization of work. One way is by creating a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
DAOs can be defined as organizations that make decisions by consensus and don’t reserve power for executives alone. Lance shares that there are many good things about this concept, including employee input and the consideration of “what sort of management tax do we want to put on our entire organization?”
Through democratization, businesses can communicate with their workforce and understand how employees benefit from proposed changes. Lance says it’s about asking, “What kind of decision-making power do people want? What’s the important things? And what’s the non-important things?”
The Reverse Mullet for Social Good
Now, let’s pretend you’re working to build a new structure and a different culture at work. No company can single-handedly solve racism, sexism, and transphobia, But what leaders and companies can focus on are the things they can control.
Starting smaller can be very effective, Lance shares. Maybe instead of saving the world, you work on saving pets. Or you try to create better employee experiences because it’s within your control.
“I think the best place to start is employees, enabling them, listening to them about the issues they care about and then supporting them,” he says. “I think, in really focused ways, rather than trying to just spread money everywhere, spread effort everywhere. I think finding some of those focused areas where you can make a difference.”
Listen to customers, employees, partners, etc., to understand their current experiences and the experiences they hope to have. “I think there’s also a role here in thinking about how you use outsource partners, contractors, freelancers … because employees are going to see how you treat an outsource partner,” Lance says.
Russia’s war against Ukraine is an example. The Starr Conspiracy has partners and friends in the country. And while they can’t solve the biggest issues there, Lance says, they can still help take care of those people.
In short, embracing the reverse mullet means that, “for every organization, you’ve got an opportunity to make an impact on social good.” And for now, that is the best that we can do.
[bctt tweet=”‘I think the best place to start is employees, enabling them, listening to them about the issues they care about and then supporting them,’ ~ @thelance of @StarrConspiracy about the reverse mullet. Tune in to the latest episode of #PunkRockHR! ” via=”no”]
People in This Episode
Full Transcript
Laurie Ruettimann:
This episode of Punk Rock HR is sponsored by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is the B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head on over to thestarrconspiracy.com.
Hey, everybody. I’m Laurie Ruettimann. Welcome back to a bonus episode of Punk Rock HR. My guest today is Lance Haun. He’s the VP of market insights at a company called The Starr Conspiracy. Lance also happens to be one of my oldest friends. And on today’s episode, we talk about a really cool concept called the reverse mullet. I don’t want to spoil it for you. And you heard me correctly, the reverse mullet. But do me a favor and head on over to laurieruettimann.com/podcast to see Lance in a mullet wig.
Now, this concept called the reverse mullet, it applies whether you work in human resources and marketing, sales, you’re an executive leader, you’re a business owner. It’s the thing that happens when you prioritize the employee experience. So without further ado, sit back and enjoy this conversation with my good friend, Lance Haun, king of the reverse mullet.
Lance Haun:
I’m Lance Haun. I’m vice president of market insights here at The Starr Conspiracy. Been in the industry for a long time. It feels longer every time I do one of these webinars. But work on research and insights for The Starr Conspiracy, work as a columnist, do stuff like this, speak, do webinars, write, all that good stuff. It’s been an adventure.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Where are you based?
Lance Haun:
I’m based in Vancouver, Washington, just outside of Portland. How about yourself, Laurie?
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, everybody, I’m Lauri Ruettimann. I’m a writer, speaker and just bon vivant, just a charming lady in the world of human resources. And I have a book called “Betting on You.” But more importantly, I am a friend of The Starr Conspiracy, passionate about the messaging that they do on work tech. And I’m coming to you live today from St. Louis, Missouri, in the home of Steve Smith, where I was doing a keynote. And Steve, my friend, [crosstalk 00:02:31].
Lance Haun:
Yeah, one of our partners.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah, Starr Conspiracy. Loaned out his computer. So Lance, I feel like I’m on brand for this discussion about [crosstalk 00:02:39].
Lance Haun:
Totally. You’re in St. Louis, I think they got some mullets there.
Laurie Ruettimann:
I think so. So let’s talk about just table stakes. What the hell?
Lance Haun:
Why are we talking about mullets?
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah. What is that?
Lance Haun:
Doesn’t make sense. So really quickly, let’s talk about a regular mullet. So the mullet, business up front, looks good from the front, party in the back. Our friend Vadim rocked one. I think he’s still rocking one. I don’t know. He’s —
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yes, saw him the other day. Yeah.
Lance Haun:
Yeah. Does he still have the pink tips or —
Laurie Ruettimann:
No. He’s gone corporate.
Lance Haun:
That’s tough. That’s the party in the back. So it’s business up front, party in the back. You get the long hair. Sometimes you can perm it. There’s lots of different styles with the regular bullet. A reverse mullet is party up front, business in the back. So when we talk about this, we talk about most businesses are set up like a mullet, where you’re putting the interest of your shareholders, customers, and then maybe employees towards the back. The good stuff is in the back, things that are good for employees, things that are good for customers, shareholders. We’re all business up front. And so, what we’re going to be talking about today is why we should reverse that. We should put the party up front. We should be worried about the business towards the latter half of this. So it doesn’t look good. Obviously, look like Cousin It with the hair in front of you. But you can really look at it that way. Basically, that’s what we’re going to talk about today. We’ll go deep into that. That’s why we’re talking about mullets. That’s why I’m wearing this ridiculous wig.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, Lance, first of all, I want to see you and your daughter in a photo in that wig. So just put that on. The context is really important, because the world is on fire. Things are crazy. We’ve got stuff going on in Ukraine. And people are still bitching, moaning and complaining that you can’t find talent. Give me the context of what’s going on. Why would a reverse mullet make sense and even matter in this moment?
Lance Haun:
Yeah, it’s a good point. We’ve seen a lot of this stuff about how nobody wants to work anymore. You see the signs. I drive around my neighborhood and I see signs out all the time. “Hey, work for us. We pay $15 an hour, pay $20 an hour,” those sorts of things. But then you see when you actually go through this process — and you’ve seen a couple articles on this. One person who did, he applied for 50 positions, got a response from one. Do we really have a crisis at this point? Are we in a talent war? Are we using those terms again? Think we could look at the world right now, you could see that something’s really broken.
And I think we used to talk about this a lot as human resources professionals. We talked about low engagement scores. We talked about dissatisfaction at work. We talked about turnover. We don’t have just one canary in a coal mine. We have thousands of them now, millions of them, that are quitting their jobs every single day. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people are quitting their job every day. And people have told us for years what makes them dissatisfied with work. And what’s locked them in in the past was just there’s not a lot of opportunities to do anything about it. But I think one of the things we see now is that they’re acting on it. They’re quitting, they’re ghosting, they’re shit-talking your employment brand online, because you make them upload the resume first and then you make them fill out all the same shit again. Legitimately just boycotting brands, not just from an employment perspective, also from a customer perspective.
Now they’re posting memes on Reddit boards, like [r/recruitinghell] and [r/antiwork]. There are all kinds of things out there. There’s definitely a turn in what’s happening out there in the world. And something has to change. I think we’ve seen a lot of passive action. We’ve had a lot of people hope that, “Maybe this is just going to be temporary, or maybe I don’t have to do anything about this right now, but just ride this out. And hopefully unemployment will stabilize, and people will stay longer, and we’ll just go back to normal.” I don’t think that’s happening.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Lance, I think about the reverse mullet and if we swing it around, we’ve got the party in the front and we can meet the needs of the employees where they are to get our organizations to go where they ought to be. But if you swing that mullet around, number one, you can get whiplash, and number two, it could also be incongruent for your organization. So I just wonder, any quick thoughts if you’re in a forward-facing, traditional mullet organization, where do you even start? You got to grow your hair out. That’s the thing, cut your bangs. It’s detrimental, and then you got to start the process all over again. So how do you grow your hair out? How do you grow in that reverse mullet?
Lance Haun:
Well, okay. A couple different things. I think the pitch isn’t just, get a new HCM solution.
Laurie Ruettimann:
When does that ever solve anything?
Lance Haun:
Just get worked in, you’ll be fine.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Totally.
Lance Haun:
Come on. A couple different things here I’ll go over. One, I think is having a really strong vision for what your organization is. So I think if you think about what you want to do as an organization — not what you want to do as a CEO, what you want to do as an organization — I think having a strong vision there is super-helpful. If you’re in HR or you don’t have access, that’s not a great place to start though, because it’s a long initiative if you don’t already have something in place. One area to think about is communication. A lot of it is not trickery, it’s just thinking about, how do you create that environment where employees want to excel?
You hear a lot of CEOs talk about, “We get productivity goals. We got to hit this number of widgets produced, or we’re not going to be profitable.” Instead of that — so if you think about, “What do I care if the profit is 10 cents or 9 cents?” It doesn’t matter, unless I’m a major institutional shareholder, or if I’m a CEO whose pay is dependent on those numbers. As an employee, do I care about that stuff? Not so much. So a lot of the things that we see people start with is just creating a communication plan that’s about talking about the ideal employee experience that leads to high productivity, for example. So switching this around, you can say, “We do want high productivity. We do want to create widgets. That’s part of running a business. We got to be realistic. We want to make money. We want shareholders to make money, too.”
Laurie Ruettimann:
[crosstalk 00:08:06] plans with that mullet. Come on now.
Lance Haun:
Yeah, exactly. Don’t want to get that — but let’s do this in the employee experience. So let’s take this back here. Let’s create a safe environment for each other. We know that safe environment — we’ve dealt with safety issues, both of us in our HR career. We know how detrimental, how expensive those are, how it shuts down a plant for hours or days when you have a safety incident, for example. That’s one way that an employee’s incentives are very well-aligned with the organization’s incentives. So you say, “Hey, let’s create a safe environment for everybody. Let’s finish the work in front of us before moving to the next. Let’s make sure that we’re finishing the job. Let’s make sure we’re delivering high-quality goods,” because what we find is most employees don’t want to work for a crappy company making crappy products. They want to work for a good company making good products.
And so, if you talk about making quality product, you talk about taking it one step at a time. Those things are, I think, really powerful stuff, and people care about that stuff. And I think changing your language, I think people say, “You’re just switching the words around. Who cares?” But I think it changes how people think about the challenges that you’re having as an organization.
Laurie Ruettimann:
All right. So we’ve flipped the mullet around. We’ve reversed it. We’re trying to build this new organization. We start with communication. And we have a vision for our workforce. And it’s not top-down. We involve them, we speak [crosstalk 00:09:21].
Lance Haun:
That’s right.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Right. So can you talk to me a little bit more, because there are all these movements out there that really interesting organizations are doing to get their employees more involved in the actual democratization of work to reverse them. So what does that look like?
Lance Haun:
Yeah. It’s a crazy world out there. So you look at DAOs. You and Bret talked about this on your podcast. And I think he does a really good job of talking about that. There’s a lot of those movements taking place here. And I think part of doing that — I’m not necessarily endorsing DAOs, by the way. I think there’s lots of good things. I think there’s also thoughtfulness about, what sort of management tax do we want to put on our entire organization? Again, goes back to a type of employee experience that people want whenever they do. What kind of decision making power do people want? What’s the important things? And what’s the non-important things? I don’t think we need to have people weighing in on the payroll provider. As long as it’s —…
Laurie Ruettimann:
But Lance —
Lance Haun:
You can.
Laurie Ruettimann:
The key is to ask and involve your employees. [crosstalk 00:10:12]
Lance Haun:
That’s right. Yeah.
Laurie Ruettimann:
To have that communication. So I love it. All right. So we reversed the mullet, and we’ve talk about the benefit to employees. More communication, potentially more democratization. What about with our customers? Because I think that’s a process of explaining that you’re operating your organization differently, or is it? Do they even care?
Lance Haun:
No. I think this is, it’s really an alignment of incentives. We don’t have to tell people that we’re a reverse mullet organization, although we’re out there evangelizing it, but you don’t have to tell people that. You just have to operate that way. And the ways that organizations will operate that way, it just becomes apparent in the way that they’re interacting with your people. I always like the example, there’s a dive bar down the street from my — the people there are great. People know each other’s name. It’s a “Cheers” vibe, but it’s not that classy. You could tell that they’re unencumbered by worrying about profit of their employer. Their employer’s going to be fine, because they’ve got regulars, they’ve got people they interact with. They have a Christmas party every year where a lot of their customers don’t necessarily have families around the area. They bring people that they know are shut-ins to this Christmas party.
And so, I think it’s one of those things where, again, it’s not a piece of software. It’s not necessarily even a big, huge management shift. If you’ve got the right idea, it becomes very apparent to your customers very quickly that you’re an employee-centered organization. And I think you want to support those companies, right? I think especially now. When you look at the world and everything that’s happening, you want to support your local organizations. You want to support organizations that are taking care of their people rather than companies that aren’t.
Laurie Ruettimann:
For sure. All right. So we’ve got a system here where we’re reversing mullet for employees. Customers don’t even know it, except maybe they know it because life is better. They enjoy being with you more, shopping with you more, interacting with your employees, who look happier. Totally on board. What about executives and boards of directors who are like, “No, we’re in charge.” What do you do with your CEO in a reverse mullet organization? What do you do with the chair of your board? What happens to those dudes? And I choose dudes intentionally.
Lance Haun:
Yeah, they’re mostly dudes. You can’t pat them on their head, say, “Yeah, you’re still in charge. You’re still …”
Laurie Ruettimann:
But they [crosstalk 00:12:12] who are in charge. Their names are on the [crosstalk 00:12:15].
Lance Haun:
Absolutely.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Where do they go? What do they do in a reverse mullet organization?
Lance Haun:
I think one of the things that we see, some organizations I think are doing this really well is — this is a long transition. So it’s not something you just pull the cord on. Convincing a CEO that this is the right move, that it’s going to be actually, it’s going to be OK for them is big. It’s also part of the societal change here that I think I should mention. I think 100 X — CEOs getting 100 X more salary than the average employee is not sustainable in anything. Unless we want to start pulling out guillotines and doing that sort of thing to these guys. But I think we can’t sustain that. You don’t have to make it that stark for CEOs, but you have to say, “Look, change is coming. We want to be successful. We want to have a durable, long-lasting future as an organization. What does that look like?”
You have to be really thoughtful about how you approach this with CEOs, because they got to their position because they’re very good at disseminating information, taking control, taking care of big issues like that is part of their bread and butter. They’re smart. They can decipher what’s going on in the world. And so, also, not talking down to folks. And saying, “Look, this is real. I think it really is a stepped approach. Here’s some steps that we could start going that direction.” And knowing that if you’ve got a really honest CEO, someone who could show a little transparency or vulnerability, they can also say, “This is part of our journey. We’re not going to get it right 100% of the time.” The Starr Conspiracy, we don’t always get it right. But I think the commitment to it and steps is the way to do it. Not just because it maybe pulls that out, draws it out long enough for them to maybe say, “Maybe we go back to normal at some point. Maybe we go back to the regular mullet at some point,” but because it’s a big shift, like you said. It is like growing out a mullet. It’s cutting those bangs off. It’s going to be a big change.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, all right. So we’ve got CEOs who are there for a reason. And we’ve got to work with them to let them know, “We know you like being a CEO. Things may change, but don’t worry. We’re not going to cut your heads off.” Or to flip the mullet around. I think about social good as this final piece. What is the outcome for that? Because a lot of people would say we’re too far gone. It’s difficult to build a planet. These are big problems, bigger than companies can solve. No company can solve for racism, sexism, transphobia. Too big. What do you want a company to do?
Lance Haun:
Well, why not focus on what they can control? Just like individuals, we talk a lot about, what are we doing in our local community? What can we control? So for example, you’re not trying to save the world, but maybe you’re trying to save pets, save the lives of pets and trying to find places for them to live. I don’t think it has to be a huge thing. It has to be things within your control. And employee experience is within every organization’s control. You look at where you can start there. I think the best place to start is employees, enabling them, listening to them about the issues they care about and then supporting them, I think, in really focused ways, rather than trying to just spread money everywhere, spread effort everywhere. I think finding some of those focused areas where you can make a difference.
And I think we see this happen in a lot of different ways. So one, you look at something like Ukraine, what’s happening there with Russia’s invasion. The Starr Conspiracy is not going to solve that issue, but we can take care of some of our partners and friends there. Bret has done a bunch of posts about these, if you haven’t seen it, on LinkedIn. But we’re going to get body armor to our friends there in Ukraine. And that’s something we can do. That’s something we can control. We can’t get rid of Putin as an organization. I don’t think anybody can, honestly. But we can make a difference when we listen to our communities, when we listen to our customers, employees, when we listen to our broader community. That suggestion came from one of our outsource partners.
And so, I think there’s also a role here in thinking about how you use outsource partners, contractors, freelancers, because I think that makes a difference, too, because employees are going to see how you treat an outsource partner. We know a lot of people in the HR tech space use Ukraine outsource partners and developers and people that live there. Some large organizations are actually based or founded in Ukraine. And so, making sure we don’t do the same mistake that we did with COVID, which is basically as soon as they might pull everything out of there like, “Sorry, you’re an outsource partner. That’s part of the risk. Goodbye.” Rather than doing that, thinking about what sort of positive impact can we do. And I think that’s the most meaningful thing we could do. I think if you get larger, you can do larger things. But I think for every organization, you’ve got opportunity to make an impact on social good.
Laurie Ruettimann:
I’m going to ask you straight away, are you pulling my leg or do you really think the reverse mullet can fix work? Because, Lance, I’m effing passionate about that. And a lot of gimmicky things come and go like, “Oh, this piece of software is going to fix work. This idea, being vulnerable — buying a Brené Brown book is going to fix work.”
Lance Haun:
Absolutely.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Brené Brown. But she has not fixed work yet. So reverse mullet, is that going to do it?
Lance Haun:
I think so. I’m really passionate about it, because it’s a bigger idea than just a piece of software or a book or something that is a one-off thing. And it’s something that’s evolving. And I think it’s sort of a — what I think about it as an ethos, or something that you could point to the North Star and you could say, “In every decision I’m making …” If we are thinking about a payroll system, what kind of payroll system is going to meet the needs of our employees the best? I think you can make a lot of decisions based off that matrix. And I also think it’s flexible, too. The needs of some employees and some industries are going to be different than others. So we look at this as a professional services organization, but what a great employee experience looks like in a manufacturing organization is really different, but it could still be successful.
So I think it’s one of those things where I don’t think it’s gimmicky. I think we could call it whatever we want. I like the reverse mullet, but we could call it whatever we want. But that employee-centered experience, I think is a really durable idea. Maybe it doesn’t fix work for everybody, but maybe it fixes work for enough people to look around and say, “Well, I’m going to look around at some ships that are sinking and some ships that are doing really well. And I’m probably going to try to find a way to get on the ones that are doing really well.” And that’s one thing where I feel pretty good about capitalism is, that, if we let employees make decisions about where they want to work, if we enable those pieces, that’s one of those invisible hands that everybody loves to talk about. That is actually impactful. If you don’t have availability of talent, if people just figure out that you’re a shitty place to work for, your talent supplies eventually dries up.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, Lance, it’s been really fun to hang out with you today.
Lance Haun:
Yeah.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Mullets to talk about, employee-first organizations. And if people want more information, they can head on over to thestarrconspiracy.com. And we hope that you’re going to lean into this reverse mullet. We hope that —
Lance Haun:
Getting rid of my regular one right here. Gone.
Laurie Ruettimann:
And for Lance —
Lance Haun:
We’re getting rid of the mullet.
Laurie Ruettimann:
For Lance Haun, I’m Laurie Ruettimann. And thanks again. Don’t forget to check us out at thestarrconspiracy.com. Bye, everybody.
Lance Haun:
Thanks, y’all.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Hey, everybody. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Punk Rock HR. We are proudly underwritten by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is the B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head on over to thestarrconspiracy.com. Punk Rock HR is produced and edited by Rep Cap with special help from Michael Thibodeaux and Devon McGrath. For more information, show notes, links and resources, head on over to punkrockhr.com. Now that’s all for today and I hope you enjoyed it. We’ll see you next time on Punk Rock HR.
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