TLDR;
Can genuine care and affection for your people truly drive business results?
According to Ryan Rigterink, the answer is a resounding yes.
In this episode of the Uncommon Leadership Podcast, I welcome Ryan Victor to explore the powerful yet often underestimated impact of leading with genuine care and affection.
Rigterink shares his journey of transformation and introduces his philosophy of “Purpose Management,” a framework rooted in leading with authentic love. Herein, he dives deep into how intentional value creation for employees can deliver hard, measurable business benefits.
He also challenges the traditional view that businesses must be cold and transactional, presenting a compelling case for why warmth, empathy, and genuine concern for people’s well-being are essential components of effective leadership.
Tune into this conversation as it serves as a powerful reminder that leading with genuine care and affection isn’t just ethically superior—it’s a strategic advantage that fetches remarkable returns in terms of employee retention, performance, and overall success.
To access more insights from Ryan Rigterink, explore his website: workgaze.com
or email him at ryan@workgaze.com
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Presented By: UncommonChange
Transcript:
Michael Hunter
Whether you are feeling burnt out, overwhelmed, or that something isn’t quite the way that you know it can be, you are not alone. I hear the same from leaders every day. On Uncommon Leadership, we explore aligning personal fulfillment with business success, creating authentic teams, and cultivating the resilience necessary to move beyond simply surviving today’s challenges into thriving.
I’m Michael Hunter with Uncommon Teams and today we’ll uncover fresh insights in what it means to lead with resilience. Joining me today is Ryan Rigterink. Ryan is an expert at helping business leaders build amazing workplaces. He is the founder of WorkGaze, which offers insights to hire for engagement and retention, and helps job seekers build personally meaningful careers.
Ryan believes the future of work is creating more value for both people and the business, and his mission is to help make that happen. Welcome, Ryan.
Ryan Rigterink
Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
Michael
I am looking forward to our conversation today. And let’s kick that off with, when did you first recognize that integrating your whole self, bringing that into everything that you do might be a valuable approach?
Ryan
Yeah. So about 15 years or so ago, I had a perfect storm in my life that, basically it was a kind of a reset across every part of my life. And so that, that was as challenging as it sounds and it really caused me to start questioning, you know, who am I, what am I here for? Like pretty much every question you can imagine, came up and, was pretty intimidating.
And so, what’s interesting about bringing our whole selves in is, for me to bring my whole self in, it actually, it’s going to probably maybe sound a little weird, but I actually had to leave parts of myself behind, like the things that were not, serving me or my future or showing up, in the way that I wanted to, just in terms of personal leadership and what I wanted my life to look like.
You know, for my best self, and, my whole self as, as well as, in the term of being like holistic, I first needed to leave, some things behind and, you know, that was somewhat counterintuitive, but, probably makes sense looking back, and, maybe should have been obvious, but it wasn’t at the time.
Michael
It never is. Those parts of you that you left behind, were those you or were any of them, parts that other people had offered or forced or suggested onto you that because it’s happened so long ago, you didn’t realize it wasn’t actually you and it’s just, they’ve always been there and so they thought that they were part of you.
Ryan
Yeah, that’s, actually a much deeper question than what it sounds like, as quickly as, you said it, there’s, probably hours to unpack in that question alone, but. I would say that, you know, self is not a static concrete thing, right? It’s, dynamic. It’s, partly the story we tell ourselves, partly, our agreements in terms of what you’re talking about, as well as the, like, the things that are put on us, the, environments and the context we’re in, whether or not that, you know, aligns and accelerates or, stifles and holds us back.
Yeah, self was, realizing who I was and how that maybe, the interaction of those things, and understanding that I own the relationship, in that, became really critical from, for my own journey in terms of that, because I, had to accept responsibility, greater responsibility for my relationship with, my contacts, the organization, the environment that I put myself, how I talk to myself, the stories that in the whole sense-making process of that, I either served, my best and my future or actually undermine that. And so I think, you know, there’s, a lot of different aspects of that, but it’s, you know, it’s ultimately, I think if you boil it down to it, it’s, it comes down to both, managing my agreements across those things and managing my relationship with those things, whether that’s people or an environment or a context or even an industry.
Michael
And with yourself as well.
Ryan
Yes, 100 percent starting there, I would say.
Michael
Yeah. How did you, as you went through that process of deciding what to keep and what to leave behind, How did you know which to do with which?
Ryan
Could you maybe restate that? I would love a little more context on what you’re asking.
Michael
I heard you say that, as you went through this transformation, there were parts of you that you left behind so that you, the rest of you could move forward. How did you identify which parts to keep with you as you move forward and which, parts of you to let go of as you and leave behind?
Ryan
Yes, there’s a really good standard that I think is that I use as a guideline for that. It’s, it goes whatever is good, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is, worthy, think about such things. And so I think for me, that’s a good barometer of a lens of evaluation on those things. Ultimately, if it doesn’t meet that criteria, then, perhaps it doesn’t inspire, the level of hope or goodness that is possible.
Michael
I like those words, those are positive, uplifting descriptions that I’m sure helped you through the transformation, just on their own, that you knew you were focusing on those aspects versus focusing on the reverse of those to figure out which things leave behind or focusing on the parts that would help you move forward and so, the parts of you that aligned with that carried along and the parts of you that didn’t kind of disappeared on their own to some extent.
Ryan
Yeah, some, certainly faded away on their own. I think quite a few of them took a deliberate act of, like forgiveness, and whether that’s of other people or circumstances or expectations of myself or, you know, disappointment in this world can kind of wreak havoc on us if we don’t manage ourselves properly through that.
And so, for me, that was, you know, I’m very type A, task-oriented, love to get results. And so, you know, I had, you know, I had a journey that didn’t get the kind of results that I wanted. In fact, one of the conclusions that I had in that process that I, needed to proactively move past and leave behind was there was a massive amount of work and effort and finances, and time that went into a project that, had a fantastic mission.
I still, you know, I could spend years of my life doing that mission now and feel good about it, right? So there’s nothing wrong with those investments, of myself and, resources but at the end of it, I had nothing but a negative of ashes to show for it. So some of, some of my own expectations that I needed to move past in a real-world sense is I’d have been better off, had for a period of years that I had sat like, laid in a hammock. This is what kind of haunted me, right? It’d have been better if I had laid in a hammock for a few years, then had I done and expended and, done all of the massive body of work that, that I had done in that process and so it costs me, it cost my family.
But you know, is that a true statement? Is that a true conclusion? Like maybe on its face, but you know, so much of these things that we have to put in a greater context of, well, okay, almost like interrogating our own thoughts and our own agreements in that sense of, well, is that really true? I mean, I had people tell me I got the equivalent of a master’s or PhD in entrepreneurship and business through that process, even though, you know, the results today weren’t what they wanted.
You know, ultimately would that serve a greater purpose later? And, it has, right? So, these are, this is just kind of where the messy middle where, things haven’t turned out the way we want and, sometimes in that middle, we have the inverse of what we’re pursuing. There’s sometimes, sometimes you have to dig a deep foundation before you build something that has potential to go high.
But the real human journey through that is, I can attest, at least in my case, it, kind of chews you up and spits you out from time to time, so.
Michael
It can be pretty challenging at times, for sure. And it sounds like it was one of these wouldn’t wish it on anyone else and would never give it up for myself experiences.
Ryan
I think there were, if I’m being honest, there were plenty of days I would have given it up for myself. But it’s absolutely true that I wouldn’t wish it on my worst nightmare or on my worst enemy kind of thing. So yeah.
Michael
Looking back, are there still some of those that you wish you had not experienced?
Ryan
No, I mean, there’s, I think when we steward our experiences and we steward ourself well, like all losses can be redeemed, right? There is a redemptive value that when you put those things in the right hands and steward ourself the right way in that, that, we come out better for it on the other end, even though, you know, the middle might be messy, right?
So I’ve got a level of self-leadership, and lessons learned in terms of being able to understand the high-level paradigms of industries and people and insights now that I have that I never would have, you know, never would have probably refined, or, had that skill set, sort of distilled into me, through that process.
Right. So. it was very much a learning experience. I call it, my expensive tuition.
Michael
I like that, yeah. How do you take all this experience and build cultures where the people that you’re working with, the companies that you’re helping, feel safe and empowered to bring their unique talents into everything that they do?
Ryan
Yeah. So I think. There’s a lot to that. It’s another very big question, but, I think it starts with love, right?
I think there’s so often, we try and do things in organizations that, there’s an outward appearance of, but it’s not necessarily always backed by action. And so I think if you, any, time you can start with a genuine love and goodness, towards other people, that’s, really. In a lot of ways a necessary starting point.
And so, from that, actually, piloted a form of leadership called purpose management, which I, guest lectured at a couple of different businesses, business colleges about, talking about, you know, in a nutshell, it’s like, how do we show up, to not just sort of our own interests, but the other’s interests at a higher level.
And, how can that value exchange actually be higher in both directions, when that occurs? And so when we have people showing up, that are not just in it for themselves, but are both serving and being served at a higher level, with good intentions for someone’s future and the results both today and tomorrow, that just gives us a lens, that, you can sense it, you know, you can, I think we’ve both been in conversations, with thousands of people over the years, and you can sense when somebody’s got genuine goodwill and wants to see you succeed versus if they’re just in it for themselves and what they get out of it.
And so moving from, I think a people love and goodness forward and, really, taking action, not just giving words, but, actually building the systems and the actions and the reinforcement of those words, that’s powerful when that is done consistently over time. And so, you know, we talk about psychological safety, it’s sort of becoming talked about which is great, but like what I say often with leaders is, you know, we could talk about psychological safety we can even measure it. But can you build it? And that there seems to be a gap yet in practice that we’re talking about here. It’s how do we practically change the dynamics of an organization so that it, genuinely dignifies people in the future that they want to have, and not just what they can do to serve the bottom line of the organization.
So, that’s sort of, some starting points, if you will. I think a lot can be done along those lines. And certainly we are but I think you get a long way there when you can show up with the, not only the right mindset but the right heart.
Michael
Heart especially, is often not valued and sometimes explicitly devalued in business. How do you show the business value of creating cultures that focus on heart and people’s unique talents and centering on that, versus having this center be dollars or customers or whatever the primary metric that business uses?
Ryan
Yeah. So, you know, in a case study, we actually quantified it with dollars and so, you know, there is an ROI. I actually love this piece of it. There’s an ROI to strategic goodness. When we show up and we take care of all stakeholders at a higher level, it’s, kind of, some would call it the rule of the universe.
I would call it kind of a, the fruit of the golden rule, right? When, we give in a way that’s meaningful, like that comes back to us and we quantified that in a call center, where, you know, people showed up, not just to do tasks, but were invested in their own futures. And we quantified that, you know, as you can imagine, a call center is really high attrition rates.
Industry average is seven or eight months for call center reps. And we, you know, I came alongside their leadership and, that, when we measured it, for them, it was moved from eight months to 24 months, and early 30-day turnover dropped 90%. And so when you quantify that across the silos of businesses, I mean, that’s a very significant financial ROI.
To what can be seen as, maybe soft skills or light fluff or like whatever, you know, you can approach it and just strict dollars and cents. And yet people don’t experience the same thing. And so, I love the fact that employee experience is being elevated. That, strategic goodness is starting to be talked about and, the fact that, you know, being less transactional and more relational. In, the employer-employee relationship is, especially what the younger generations coming up, like they don’t want just a paycheck and I love that about the younger generations that, you know, what, my generation sort of just figured we had to put our head down and deal with, whether you liked it or not kind of thing.
It was the price of doing business. You know, it’s a different world today and there’s different standards and expectations and I love the fact that the, I know I’m going off of sort of in a tangent here, but I love the fact that the younger generation is, their concept around work is more work to live versus living to work.
And it’s one of the things I think they’ve got right.
Michael
Absolutely. Have you run across any situations where this people focus, didn’t bring ROI or maybe even it went the other direction?
Ryan
So, I’m sure there are, I’m sure there are instances, I, have not seen it. It also very much depends on how you quantify the answer to that. So, if, you know, you’ve got companies right now that when they have, turnover and people leave the company, they view that, sort of the old school mentality of; they view that as not being loyal as though, you know, if they needed to lay off the employee, that would somehow be considered different.
But, you know, so some of these things are, like, they’re only one direction in terms of the, frame of thought on it. But, you know, companies who treat their people on the way out really well. Even though immediately the cost might appear to be a loss of talent or a loss of whatever, like how you view that, is completely different.
If you view that as somebody that you’ve invested into and now is actually a strategic mouthpiece and an ambassador for your company and how you treat your employees and, potentially even now a third-party referral for customers and employees. Like it, it depends very much on your mindset, even in how you measure that.
And so what might appear today as a net loss, if you are; if you have a long time horizon on this and you value, the reputation that’s built and, the long-term sort of fruit around some of this stuff, the payoffs and the dividends on that aren’t just for this quarter. It’s, you know, if, done right, it yields a dividend, whether that’s reputational or whatever, or actual referrals for a long time. And so, yeah, I think sometimes we need to recalibrate our standard of measurement on some of these things, because, it determines sort of the result, how we measure determines the, what we quantify and the results of our, perception around those results.
Michael
As you’re working with a company and you notice that recalibration might be useful, how do you bring that up and help them evaluate the ROI of doing that?
Ryan
So every, company has a different starting point. It’s very situational. So there’s not a cookie-cutter approach to that. It very much depends on, what the mindsets of the leadership are, the current, you know, everything from the current level of turnover, the current, employee, relationships.
I mean, it’s very situational even across team to team within a company. So, I think what’s critical though, is, to get senior leadership buy-in and then create a sort of an internal, pilot, if you will, that then doesn’t force people into a change, which, typically, can backfire and not go so well, right?
The ROI on that tends to be really low. Because ultimately most change initiatives have to be a mindset shift. And so if you can start small and build the internal, case of the results that are coming from it, even though it’s a different mindset, then people want to elect in, in the same way, that, in the same way that people are willing to do more work right now, when it’s in their best interest, like on a, you know, take the example of, ATMs, right?
You go back 20 years ago, We didn’t count our own money. We didn’t, you know, envelope it and do all this sort of stuff. We walked in and a teller did that every time for us. Well, now we’re actually much more willing to do the work that leaves less work for the bank to do because it’s more convenient for us.
And so we still have choice, and we still can choose what’s in our own preference and wellbeing but if we apply that to the workplace, I think introduce choice. Introduce the benefits and people will self elect into change, when they’re ready for it. And that, tends to be how we can start small and then have it permeate through an organization and without it being a top down sort of forced change initiative, which again, doesn’t usually go well.
Michael
That’s a perfect segue to my next question. How do you help the people that you’re working with, the teams that you’re working with, find their way through all the change, uncertainty and overwhelm that seems to be life these days?
Ryan
Yeah so a pace of change is, it seems like it’s only increasing. And so I think that’s very much a challenge.
I think there’s a certain amount of it that we need to adjust, based on the person. People have different levels of sort of change tolerance. And so, you know, whenever possible, manage that change at a pace that you can bring as many people along as possible, knowing full well, that, there’s also a pace of reality that if we’re gonna stay competitive, if we’re going to actually, we can’t always bring everybody along in that.
And so, that’s a judgment call in the moment. But I think, changing, you know, it kind of ties back to your earlier question about self and, how we speak about ourself. And, there’s a thing called psychological anchoring, you know, our value that we create for a company. And a lot of these arenas is going to be changing as the landscape changes, as AI is being introduced, as all of these constant sort of changes are happening.
And so some of that is, is a mindset shift of, the connected to the, who am I, of, how do I create value for the company? And even, in the form of leadership, how do I create, value in how I lead people? You know, the traditional command and control versus, you know, leading out of, inspiring and, creating trust and, really leading environments, creating, environments that empower and, support, the initiatives of the people with sort of a distributed leadership mindset.
those are very like my role in each of those would be significantly different, but, the fact is I don’t change. How I show up changes, how I create value changes, and ultimately, how I relate to the thing or the person or the organization that relationship might need to change. And so, recognizing that personal value like you as a human being, like that value can’t be touched. But what can be done is how all these other changes that we can adapt. And so giving people permission to have the time they need, but then also, I think calling out the aspects of it, in a way that don’t threaten the individual, but understand that there’s an adaptation and role and relationship and how value is created over time, that can become sort of a road map where people can all of a sudden, maybe not be able to make the leap, mentally can, sort of give something them to grab ahold of on the other side of what feels like a chasm at times.
Michael
And can help them decide, as you mentioned earlier, whether this changes for them or not.
Ryan
That’s right.
Michael
Not every change is for every people, every person, that’s okay. Everyone needs to come along, if, we really care about the person, then helping them find a new position that remains a fit for them, whether that’s in the company or external is the best thing to do for everyone involved.
Ryan
Absolutely. Yep. I, you know, I have, my wife and I, we have four kids and you know, they are all vastly different. Like you couldn’t probably find four more unique and different. And, you know, I, so often in, when it comes to leadership, I, draw on, you know, what does a good father and a good mother think and act in these situations? And exactly what you just said for me to take one of my sons, who’s super gifted in music. And then a daughter who is super gifted in analytics and strategy. If I told her she needed to do music and I told my son he needed to do analytics and strategy, like that’s like, that’s just, that doesn’t make any sense. I mean, it sounds even perhaps foolish to bring that up, but, that’s oftentimes what we do with when it comes to employees, we try and sort of cram a, square peg in a round hole kind of thing instead of like actually looking at each person in who they are and find out how they can show up in a mutually beneficial way through choice. And if that’s another role in the company, if that’s a role outside of the company, or if that’s them, you know, changing with, the new role, all of those are options.
So, ultimately though, kind of going back to an earlier point, if we care about people to begin with, those things become obvious. Just the next step of, how someone would act. But if, you don’t have that heart to start with, those, become, have to become intentional steps, so.
Michael
And you have a few tools for our audience to help them do this, right?
Ryan
Yeah, I do. Absolutely.
Michael
Illuminate us, please.
Ryan
Okay. I wasn’t sure if you were asking it or not. Sure. Yeah. I developed a coaching program, for leaders to really do this, paradigm shift to move out of command and control or enlightened command and control into, more of a purpose management or a, inspire and, trust and, build that sort of higher value creation in the employer-employee relationship.
And out of that came, some of these tools. So currently, developing a platform called WorkGaze that takes some of these mutual value creation insights, and adds them into the higher recruiting and hiring process, specifically. So if we look at how hiring has been done for hundreds of years, the, like the resume has been around for 500 plus years and it basically looks at, okay, what have you done to date? And looks pretty much from like a qualifications and a keyword parsing sort of approach. And so what we recognize in this process that to really create value, higher value between employers and employees like we can’t just recruit based on the past and manage the present, but ultimately what’s in a mutual best interest is, how can we build a really high value shared future?
And so what we’re doing is we’re adding in what are the insights that both the employer and the job seeker, can add in terms of that future, shared future and adding that, strategically into the hiring process. And so it’s kind of a little bit of a, blue ocean, where we’re creating some things that are new and hadn’t been used.
We’ve done it in, sort of spreadsheet analog fashion, but now we’re creating the, digital tools and the machine learning and the algorithms and everything to actually power that in a much more, user friendly way. So I’m very excited to launch that. We’re working right now on the job seeker side and, once we finished standing that up, we’ll be, also following right up with the employer side of that.
Michael
Nice. That’s very exciting. I can’t wait till everyone is using tools like this. That’ll be a great one.
Ryan
Yeah. So I’m really excited about it and it’s, You know, it’s exciting because it’s, my own business, but it’s, that’s actually not why it’s most exciting. It’s most exciting because, I got my wife and I, we have four kids who are young professionals are in college or just out of college.
And, I’ve worked with hundreds of other youth and, ultimately, what I see is a world where we ask really difficult questions of this particular age group. Like what do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to do? Like, and there’s not, some do, but I’d say the majority don’t have enough experiences and personal data to even really assess that. And so what we’re doing is making something that’s dynamic, it puts the control in the hands of the individual in terms of self, guided, self-directed, career navigation, but adds that insight into helping really people find not only an organization, but a career that they thrive in and they can build towards and you know, without necessarily, needing to have a PhD in being a career coach, can also come alongside them as, a manager or, someone in an organization and have those insights to, for that to be mutually beneficial in the workplace as well. So yeah, I, my goal is that there’s no more meaningless work and that we can genuinely help people thrive, both at work because the spillover affects to homes and families and, society. I think, I mean, imagine, everywhere you go, people thoroughly invested in what they’re doing, like it bringing joy and it’s, serving their interest of the future that they want to have, like, every place we go would be better for that.
And so if we can create a world that has, you know, even a dent of 10 or 20 percent impact on that, hopefully, a lot more, but if we can even impact that in measure, I think the benefit to society, is vast. So I’m very excited about it.
Michael
Absolutely. This, I say it this way that we should all; I want to be in a world where we are; everyone is focused on doing the work that they love and divesting everything else to someone else. So whatever you don’t want to do, there’s someone who would love to do that for you. So don’t do it yourself. You’re making them unhappy by not letting them do it for you. Cause you’re making you unhappy by making you do it.
Ryan
Yes. Yep. And the things that are challenging and maybe we don’t enjoy as much, you know, sometimes those are underlying skills we need to learn, but if there’s ultimately serving a future that we are invested in, then, you know, that seems a little less awful and, a little more joyful, even in that process.
Michael
Yes, I was talking with a client about this just yesterday, actually. And my suggestion to him was, if you feel, something you might call a weakness is holding you back, then, and you feel it’s something that you really want to be able to do yourself and that handing off to someone else isn’t the right thing to do.
And yeah, get good enough at it that it’s not holding you back. You don’t need to become a superstar at it. If the amount of work it’s going to take to become a superstar is something that’s not a strength and the amount of value and change you’ll get out of that is way less generally, than if you applied even a tenth of that amount of work into strengthening with the strengths that you already have.
Ryan
Absolutely agree. Yeah. Yeah, the whole work on your weaknesses versus leverage your strengths is, that’s, I think the pendulum has swinged in the right direction on that leverage our strengths.
Michael
Ryan, if people would like to talk to you, learn more about WorkGaze, have you, what it might be like to, have you work with them, how should, what’s the best way for them to find you, learn more?
Ryan
So they can go to workgaze.com and they can, they can contact me through there, or if they prefer email, they can email me at ryan@workgaze.com. So, be happy to.
Michael
That’s super simple. And I’ll have all those links in the show notes. What would you like to leave our audience with today?
Ryan
Oh, there’s reason to hope for a better future. You know, regardless of what you’re going through today, there is a tomorrow. It’s better than today and, you know, there’s reason to invest in your tomorrow. It’s the thing that going back to the story of, when, what you asked earlier about my, really difficult, perfect storm season. Like there were times I wanted to give up. There were times that, you know, I’ve said before I wasn’t suicidal, but I didn’t necessarily want to live either. And so if you’re in that place today, especially with the amount of change and uncertainty and everything else, like I just want, if you can hear anything from today, just hear that, that you’re good, your value cannot be questioned whether you are job searching right now, have been out of a job for a while, or in a very secure job. Like, that’s, not your value, and there’s reason to hope both today and for the future.
Michael
That’s beautiful, Ryan. Thank you for joining us today, and thank you audience for joining us as well. If you aren’t sure of your value, contact Ryan and me. We’ll help you understand what it is. And if you are sure of your value and you aren’t sure how to talk about that with your boss or your spouse or anyone else, contact us as well. We’d love to help you with that.
Ryan
Indeed. Well, thanks for having me on. I really enjoyed the conversation.
Michael
This was great. Thank you so much, Ryan. Have a great day.