EP10 - Band of Brothers - Employee Centric Cultures For ESOPs

The show “Band of Brothers” offers a perfect example of leadership from the character of Captain Sobel and provides examples of overcoming obstacles to establish a strong culture. Specifically, the show provides an example of an employee-centric culture: a culture that embodies a solid group of employees ultimately banding together.  This episode covers the 5 c’s of an employee-centric culture: Commitment; Care; Celebration; Communication and Community. The topic might be helpful to assess wherever you are in your journey to an ESOP as you build, improve, or sustain the culture of your business. 

Transcript

[0:09] Welcome to journey to an ESOP and beyond our podcast all about Employee Stock ownership plans whether you you're thinking about becoming an ESOP you already are an ESOP covering different topics that hopefully are very helpful today we're going to start off with this.

[0:27] You people are at the position of attention.

[0:36] You people are at the position of attention. Have you been blessing your trousers over your boots like a paratrooper no sir that explain the creases at the bottom.

[0:55] No excuse sir volunteering for the parachute infantry is 1 thing for kante but you've got a long way to prove that you belong here yet we have passes revoked. Your weekend pass is revoked meet everyone meet Captain soil, a Band of Brothers today you might think we're talking about leadership I guess indirectly we are but we're really talking about the topic today is going to be building an employee Centric, culture.

[1:25] What do I mean by that well the first thing is is that if you're thinking about esops the first thing that everybody's going to be throwing out and you're in conversation or if you're already an ESOP everything as as it talk as we talked about it we talk about employee owned companies employee owned companies like your employees own the company right but keep in mind we're not saying that they own the company they have a beneficial ownership meaning that they are they have they have they have in their retirement plan stock of your business and that stock as it grows they grow in their in their retirement value. And so that's really uh obviously a great great thing right and so what we're. What we think about when we talk about the employee owned companies in as they translate that to an employee Centric culture.

[2:12] It's something that has the potentialto provide an explosive amount of performance and I'm being a little dramatic but.

[2:21] Explosive in the sense of of everybody rowing in the same direction all these different kind of cliches that we might use and so today what I want to talk about like building an employee Centric culture now you you can be a business that is not an ESOP and not an employee owned company and still build an employee Centric culture and always thinking about culture is I guess something that. Runs in as a common denominator and my opinion um for whatever companies thinking about becoming an ESOP or already an ESOP in that. Culture is is such a powerful tool but it's also so ambiguous it's also so difficult to kind of explain. And if we were to take a a snapshot of a company and were able to capture their their culture it's hard to say what that person employee might say about what the culture is and it may be different from the leadership down into the. Rank and file so. We know that that that is kind of an ambiguous thing so it's not when we when we do a topic like this it's not like here you here you go right it's it's kind of going through as a leader and as you're listening going through and assessing where you think your culture fits and the topic today as we go into employee Centric culture is really going to get into, we're just kind of just some general things that I think are important and we're going to use a more of a a a.

[3:50] Not a program but just kind of a a stepping stone through what we were what we're going to call the 5c's of an employee Centric culture and each of these C's are going to kind of re reinforce or support where an employee Center culture is and what we're going to do is talk about.

[4:07] Um not only the the what this like the C is like for instance as we start we're going to talk. About the the idea of commitment but we're going to get into like the idea of of thinking about that if um trying to improve your culture if you're trying to build a culture if you're trying to sustain a culture either way assessing those 5 C's and looking at out of the the podcast what we want you to do is think about like a takeaway would be how do I actually go back and um either improve or sustain or build a culture out of these 5 CS so that's what we're going to cover today we're going to use the Band of Brothers because I think it's just a great great show um we're going to use it from the opposite perspective um poor Captain soil uh he's just not a very good leader guys and I'll I'll just kind of, spoil that for you and of course if you haven't seen Band of Brothers highly recommend it check out our website at journey to an ESOP calm um for other topics for other um areas that might you might be interested in as it goes to esops if you do have somebody that you're thinking hey that person is thinking about an ESOP share this podcast with them it may be helpful. Also do if you can a 5-star review on the podcast, and any anytime you have a question about esops please go to our website journey to.com and just. Throw in there your contact information and the question and we'll be happy to get back to you on those things.

[5:33] Dirt in the rear sight app but your password volt.

[5:47] Captain so looking for somebody to pick up when did you show on the Chevron surgeon Lipa yesterday sirlong enough to notice Liz revoked sir.

[5:59] Man Milwaukee Donald G so as we as we get back into Captain soil and his. Really just his behavior of trying to be a leader right.

[6:11] The thing I want to start with in the 5c's is we reserve unpacking the idea of an employee Centric culture. Is to is to start with 1 the first 1 is commitment. And at first you can look at some of the things that that Captain soil is doing with his easy company uh. Trying to get these guys ready to be solders right and and 1 level I remember watching this thinking. You know maybe he's trying to really help them you know but all he's doing is he's he's nitpicking things that of course he's looking to find problems. And his leadership style if you're looking to find problems then you're going to find problems but he's looking to kind of humiliate people. And and you know I know the military is different than than a business organization so of course keep in mind that that's not the same thing but at the same time leadership is leadership and, and and what he's working through is is is the idea of.

[7:09] The employee Centric cultureemployees are wanting to experience a culture. That they feel that there's a strong commitment and their best interest and I and again this is kind of interesting to take it from a military to a business organization but let me let me say this that the commitment that.

[7:31] Captain soil isillustrating to the audience as he as we're watching this unfold. Is is really a commitment to himselfversus a commitment to the. His platoon why why do I say that so and I think that's really the the main. Difference between that and sowhat does it mean to be committed to others now you can he can be hard, core on these guys he can revoke their weekend passes and all that stuff and then also be committed to them but as as things go on they're going to feel and experience that he's really the only committed to himself this is not about them him making them better it's about him, getting something out of it for himself which is really this this terrible leadership quality that he has because it keeps it keeps coming back over and over and over again so in the first C that I want to kind of talk about with employee Centriccultures. The experience the employee is going to have from the leadership group and also from each other is really that hey we're we are committed to what we're all trying to accomplish together we're going to share in that we're going to be part of that and the organization.

[8:47] Is going to um look to things that are um foundational to establish commitment so foundational meaning that there'll be things for instancelike within the. The the communication side of like how do we say to the employees like what is what do we do what do we about right so the foundational Parts might be the company's missionthe vision, the core values the communication of those types of things will will build the expectation of what what it means to be in a in this company and when we think about that it might be things like does the mission and the core values and the vision aligned with what is actually happening in relationship to the experience that the that the employee has the experience that they have would be. As they come in on a day-to-day basis as they go into their whole year process of like being reviewed and and promoted and that kind of thing are they experiencing that there is a as an alignment with that foundational, Mission Vision and core values to what they're experiencing that is how they're going to be coming walk Walking Away with this first sea of like yeah, the organization is committed so there's a there's a corporate level of commitment and that's what I'm describing first then there's this next level of commitment in terms of how they're actually interacting.

[10:17] Um whether it's peer-to-peer individuallyor it is um managerially speaking from the perspective of like an employee underneath the management and as you start to kind of.

[10:32] Look at that part and assess that part um what I what we would want to we want we want to create in an employee Centric culture is 1 that translates safety, in a sense security right um Safety and Security meaning that that there's a there's a sense that the employee knows what's going to happen. And and not necessarily everything like every single day what they're what's going to happen but they they understand what's expected of them and they understand that the company will. From a managerial standpoint or from the standpoint of of how they all will function and response and reaction to what the employee does is predictable.

[11:17] And so the commitment we're making is we're committing to certain things so let me give you an example of of.

[11:24] The company is committed to say for instance in their core values to promote Within. That might be something you see in in some employee Centric cultures that says hey if there's a job opportunity we're going to look first at the um people that have worked here and it may not always make complete sense like you know well maybe you didn't get the promotion but they're going to at least give people a shot at at that promotion first before they go out and look at hey how I'm going to bring in you know a new key manager um so that's an example of making a commitment to the employees it might be like that. Translates to the employee like yeah I have I'm I'm I'm being the the company is committing to my future I'm going to commit my future to the company and that's where commitment I think really resonates well with people when they know that they have um as an example right of the opportunity going into the future uh another level of commitment by might be that that we're going to as a company.

[12:27] It give feedback to a to an employee on an ongoing basis and we're making a commitment around that like level of feedback so that the employee can be. Uh in a position where they're actually getting good feedback and and things are doing and they can correct and move those things through so what you're seeing in in. Um this example of not being not feeling that is like where when maybe something foundationally is even said but it's not followed through. Um through the from beginning to end so um is leadership may or may not, follow through on on the Promises they made the other thing I can say is like and commitments in business organizations is sometimes. Um start like you you can have this like things start and stop start and stop like a or it doesn't really get you know fulfilled right you might have this great this is great initiative that like Hey we're going to start doing this this way but because there's not a a follow through there's a perception on the employee side that there's really not a strong commitment, um and that can also as we start thinking about theEmployee Stock ownership plan. That can also be an issue when we're thinking about when do we announced the Employee Stock ownership plan to the employees.

[13:45] Because there's going to be a perceptionabout what this Employee Stock ownership plan is from the employees perspective and. We want to make sure that we've timed that perfectly and this is where it becomes difficult to say and answer the question that that gets asked a lot which is when should we announced the Employee Stock ownership plan if you haven't yet, done your ESOP when should you announce it and if you have already done that obviously you've already announced it and I would tell people just in general you know based on this idea of making your commitment and your follow through that you want to announce it. When you really are confident about this is happening right and it may be you do it in in couple stages but keep in mind that we want to keep coming back to building you know assess the level of of how people perceive the commitment from the organization and we want to follow through on these things and make sure that it's not um. Confusing and also that it's not you started this you said this and then you didn't follow through and do it and that is 1 of the 1 of the.

[14:52] Chief concerns I have when people say hey we're wanting to tell people about the ESOP we want to make sure that we build a very strong commitment with our people. And be um following through on all the things that we've decided that we're going to do.

[15:07] 6833 isn't that the intersection no sir it's here full grid house.

[15:16] Is there a problem Captain solo who's so bad who broke silenceI think it's major Horton sir.

[15:27] Thank you what what you see did he join usit's like maybe he's moving between the platoon sir what.

[15:39] A sense say umGod above wire fence oh that dog just ain't going.

[15:48] Now you got that bitch and get this goddamn cartoon on the moveyes sir.

[15:59] So okay so we're going to kick into the next step here which is the next C that we're going to cover is care and what you saw heard for this next round is Captain soil got to the fence he's like totally can't read a map okay by the way he's not a very good leader so he gets his people into trouble and they're they're in this scene the context of this is that they're all doing some of these war games in preparation for what's coming right and. You you can tell from this scene that his people don't like these are his troops they don't care about them right and they're making this huge practical joke like 1 Guy can speak like the major Horton and he's doing this voice thing and so as we talked about this um there's like evidence in any organization whether or not your people care, right if you care about them they will care about you. Um obviously there's a little bit more going on here there's not trust they don't trust these good leader um but ultimately like the first scenes we played. Earlier and is this idea that he just doesn't care about him as people like him are revoking your past I'm going to try to make myself look better at your expense.

[17:16] What do they say what's the big adage like well people don't care about what you know unless they they know that you care right and this idea that we are human beings.

[17:28] You know I'm I am. I'm excited I love working with people like I get excited working with people but I'm not so excited in working with just being honest with the AI right technology because there's a human element and I think over the last 30 years of my career to 1 of the things I I've enjoyed so much is working directly with people. And the the way I like to communicate with people just in general is um I like I like either phone calls or you know in-person meetings or virtual meetings where we can actually see each other and talk because I think that there's a there is something.

[18:07] Just I guess about the human relationship that make that makes this all more and more I don't know significant and. It feels like overall the year of technology that we're kind of walking away from that and it's like becoming more and more about just getting the job done as less and less and less about um the interaction of human beings so, now care is also kind of routed into our our thinking like we can as human beings we can just kind of feel like we're not cared for and if that's the case I mean I think it's kind of an obvious thing that we're going to just reject, um even quietly we become um in a lot of the a lot of the studies um you know 15 20 years ago or about how engaged people are in the company right or are you actively engaged are you actively disengaged uh we use words like toxic let's talk this person is toxic um under e EOS we're kind of measuring people in terms of how they fit within the company's core values and um do they get it when it have it all of those things around this idea that are are we building a a company of. Of robots or building a company of human beingsand.

[19:18] Partly we want people that resonate in our culture and have the same quality so as we start thinking about, employee Centric types of cultures and again I'm going to use this synonymous synonymously as we go I've kind of built off this concept of an an employee owned company right. Because an employee on company what we're doing is we're we're we're using this uh combin this this idea this concept of hey we're part you're part of this company you are now an owner of this company right. So those fit really well together as we talk about them but as we build this this community of people and which our human beings we have to Foster.

[20:04] From leadership the idea that we actually are are wanting to help 1 another and that that can be on the scale of super authentic very real to. Just so what's the word uh superficial. Not authentic not genuine all of those things as we as we look at that now and people. Um I believe just have a human radar system that can tell you yep they do or yep they don't right um. The other thing about this is is how does that affect like your hiring plan how does this how does this affect the way you promote within within right so if you put in um a high-level leader in your company.

[20:48] In your culture is 1 of hey we really do care for people, uh we practice the golden rule we are that's how we do things we are a team based environment we help promote 1 another we encourage 1 another and that the personality of those people like soil is so. Um so much the antithesis of that then you're going to have a problem and you're going to lose a part of what your company's culture should be. To promote youas first lieutenant you'll serve as my executive officer. Congratulationsthank you sir and as a testof your organizational skills and command potential.

[21:32] I am designating you Mass officer for 14 days.

[21:38] Supports and the mesh kitchen at 0515 hours company breakfast to be served at 0600. Here here's a great example ofhere we're promoted and we're not going to do it in front of anybody we're going to do it in private which is, not a good idea so this whole public praise um private humiliation he's the opposite and then hey by the way we're going to celebrate this by, be having you in charge of the mess um food you know you're going to have to you know go in to become a cook right now that you're my um, executive whatever so here's here's the thing with with Captain soil and I love picking on him and I guess it's just kind of fun anyways but he's just going to be creating a terrible terrible culture and it keeps coming back at him and the the next SEA that I wanted to cover is this idea of Celebration and. 1 of the things about me that I know like I know this about myself and I can tell you um it's really important to be aware I. Am a driven person I like to get stuff done andonce I get something done I also start to feel like oh I got to do something else so that's just kind of how I am wired right and for me to be, aware of myself.

[23:01] I need to be like aware that that people working with me um I I'm just going to the next thing the next thing next thing I have have had to discipline myself, to stop and celebrate things that have happened where we've successfully done this we've successfully done that taking time to celebrate with your people and this is kind of the opposite this scene is of course he's just giving him his promotion um here's some great news you get to go to the mess tent and make me some breakfast I mean what the heck so um what are some clever ways and if we think about this from an employee Centric an employee owned idea what are some clever ways that your organization can celebrate the success, of the achievement of not only organization but also of other people so like you might have within your company you might have certain people having to uh get to a certain level maybe they have to get a certification maybe they have um. Some some conferences and tests that they got to go do and and finally they went they they achieved that or maybe they achieve a different level um within the organization they've been promoted um maybe they have um.

[24:09] The they have worked on as a team to go out and and get a certain piece of business or you know all those different examples there's always something to celebrate. If you look at you look at the organization and you have some level of. Um awareness to how important it is and and maybe it's not again your skill set but it might be somebody else's skill set. And I I think sometimes people are afraid of business owners and and leaders might be afraid of of making a big deal out of things. Because they're worried that as soon as they do. Um what's going to happen is somebody's going to knock on the door and say hey I need more money look at we just celebrated how great I did I'm not making enough money for whatever reason so be careful to allow fear to push this really important element of ofcreating a very solid employee Centric culture um if they do feel that way my goodness great come on in let's talk about it because we want people to feel that they are being um if that's an issue that they've been thinking about we want them to come to us anyways right um and it may not be always everything people want their job to be but the point is is that if you do take time to build a culture that celebrates victories that's going to encourage people and they're going to want to be part of that organization that other people that see celebration for PE maybe individual employees achievements are going to also want to achieve.

[25:37] And this can be from a business perspective but I think also depending on where you draw the line from a personal level you can also celebrate things that are just absolute personal Milestones hey somebody got married somebody got engaged somebody had a baby in the organization um somebody maybe had um trained really hard all summer and they went and did a an Iron Man all of those things can be part of it right and I think. Um the beauty of an employee owned company that I think is is part of why we're doing all this is to create cultures where people really liked working there, and I think the more you celebrate those types of things the more people are going to want to be part of that not just I got a great retirement plan because it's the Employee Stock ownership plan um I was building value because the company's doing so well but it's like I love being at work. Because of this this and this and I think celebration is going to be 1 of those C's that are really going to drive that point home.

[26:43] Your orders to me would inspect the latrines at 1000 hoursfrom 0930 to 0955 I was censoring the enlistments mail by order of Colonel stra. At 1000 hours I followed your orders to the minute I changed the time to 0945 No 1 told me sir my telephone, I'm courted with a family that has no telephone and sent a brother. No Runner family Captain irregardless we're giving a task to perform like a ranking officer you should have delegated your task of the train inspection to another officer. You failed to do so. Well that's such a failure of Duty by my own EXO go unpunished what kind of message is that to the men I performed my duty as I was ordered sir and I disagreeso. Your options are quite simple Lieutenant punishment for your offenses will be denial of a 48 hour pass for 60 days staying before me.

[27:39] This guy's crazyor you may initiate a letter of appeal and request a trial by Court Marshal so guess what all right so.

[27:49] Captain soil root strikes again and he is Court marshaling his uh very highly effective uh Lieutenant winners over a 15-minute difference in lacking the communication to tell him, um through the means of like hey I want you to do this in 15 minutes earlier right so so he's getting he's going to court Marshal this guy but the point of this scene is that he's. Just absolutely terrible at communication and this is the next SEA that we're going to cover is communication and how important it is that we communicate effectively throughout our organization. Um and it kind of goes without saying I mean we we talk about communication. Everybody talks about it all the time right how do we communicate um effectively and you know that. Just generally speaking in relationships the better the communication the better the relationship I mean that's just I think probably pretty just a known thing for people as we deal with 1 another in an organization it's it's absolutely. Paramount that that communication good communication exists. And I think that that as we've observed or we observe different organizations we can see that there sometimes when there's a breakdown in communication there's definitely a gonna be a breakdown in culture. If our goal is to.

[29:17] Improve and build sustained good cultures employee Centric cultures employee owned cultures. Then we need to figure out how do we communicate better and and where are our breakdown in communication is and so 1 thing I learned a long time ago in. Leadership is that what first off what doesn't get communicated if if people know that there's things that are happening in the organization and and there's literally no communication at allunfortunately the the, negatives start to come out in the organization and people willjust automatically assume the worst situation and. I'm just going to tell you that that is a real thing I've seen it over and over and over again so it's always better to to. Communicate in over communicate and communicate accurately and and frequently. Instead of like let's just figure this out and and then everybody kind of figure it out on their own that is not a good that's not a good plan.

[30:16] And so how you assess Communication in your organization I think is an important element like how do you assess the um. The effectiveness of your communication and 1 1 thing I would say along all of these different C's that we've talked about and we come back to the just the overall culture is trying to like assess where everything stands is is. Going through more like a um an engagement survey or some types of sometimes of surveys that are even Anonymous that help really Bridge the gaps on what you think, the effectiveness of your say your communication is or even any of these C's is coming back on that engagement survey and really analyzing what what that saying because I think that's the first step is really assessing where we are and if we think it's great then then and you haven't really looked at it and assess it then hopefully it is great now what are some keys to good communication in general for any organization and I think that it starts with um.

[31:18] The idea that people are going to go from you know what, they know or don't know based on the but what's happening so when we're communicating first off like the idea of what is the expectation of an individual's job and individual's role I know that there's some ways to do that which is hey here's your job description like sometimes it's just a written job description um I always look at when we look at a company and they're we're walking through some of these things to to present that company to the trustee and the valuation firm. I always look at things like how do you onboard somebody into your organization and.

[31:59] Going through an onboarding process really is just like getting somebody brand new out of the company into the company and up to speed to be not just I would say not just functional and their role and responsibility. But more than that like how do they become a real member of of the team and so the on-boarding process itself is a way to really, dive into the the communication side of saying hey what what does that look like for somebody to go from very beginning brand new um some onboardingcommunication strategies are centered around.

[32:36] Um a buddy system where you're you're helping them kind of get to all the things that they need to know to get to become a of course a functional part of the team as far as communication strategies things that are I think are high level but important would be establishing a corporate communication plan really understanding like what the company's about and going forward what they're going to do and be able to communicate that read readily to the appropriate people so if it's a strategy plan a strategic plan or if it's a um a a change of of marketing plan or whatever the plan is the corporate communication plan would be kind of the way to make sure that there's an organizational process to laying out what's happening in the future.

[33:20] Using appropriate channels I think that's is this is a a major thing with a lot of companies is what what's the balance between emails newsletters if you're doing that if you're using things like social media um how big your organization is obviously makes a big difference um staff meetings or or employee meetings shareholder or or uh meetings with the the people that are really um part of the whole process of making sure that they're um either Retreats um that are happening um on an ongoing basis or is it um just the updates like this is just something we want to update on everybody so pulling everybody together I think the biggest thing in the last, 10 5 to 10 years has been this the usage of virtual meetings um being able to kind of do a teams meeting and those kind of things so what sort of channels that you should use to make sure everybody knows, I think the idea behind a good strategy is ALS be very clear and concise get to the point. Um move people through the process of communication don't get stuck in that.

[34:24] Um being a good communicator also is being a good listener so helping to make sure your culture incorporates those types of things and and as you come across, more authentic and more transparent I think that's going to encourage a very strong communication. Um and an employee Centric environment and an employee own environment that people feel like they are heard and that people do as we go back to the care part that you care about them.

[34:51] Um I think communication is something too that you can't just automatically assume you're good at so I think um sometimes just being very um on top of training communication and is really just helping people get those skill sets if they don't have them and so you may need to bring outside support in or send people out for for training I think also just being in you know part of the culture too and if it's if it's appropriate using humor and making communication fun, um making it adaptable to your organization is all important so these are all things that I would say are important to your communication strategy as well as the things that we mentioned. No I'm straight I did it well let's try to figure out the procedures for his court wash and make some better find a loophole to get him out and if you don't. Winner scrambled eggs well the rest of us make the big jump with so. It's all gone through with this rightI've got it for someyeahall right.

[35:59] Without them to be clear the consequences I don't care about the consequenceswe could be lined up against a wall and shot.

[36:10] Telling me to face thatand everyone of us is better be to.

[36:21] I will not follow that man into combat.

[36:28] Neitherlet's do it. All right so here's here is in the completion of the podcast today we're going to talk about the community and this is a great example of community the non-commissioned officers as we've picked on soil all.

[36:53] The time the entire time of this podcast it culminates to this place where the non-commission officers write a letter to Major Horton to say we are not, we're going to resign our our non-commission officer status um and because we're not going to follow this guy into combat and, what I what I like about this first off is is as we go to the final C is for an employee Centric.

[37:21] Culture is this idea of what community really is a community is that wewe are working together and there's a.

[37:30] It's almost like the the output or the or what happens when you do all these things that your company your organization becomes a community of people that will bind band together and that's why the Band of Brothers is such a good. Um in my opinion a good um.

[37:48] Episode or show to or movie to show what this really looks like from an employee Center culture because there this is the uh people saying like we'll we'll go ahead and risk Our Lives to to basically get rid of Captain soil in this case right so. Um there there this is a whole obviously a dramatic. Um part of the whole idea of being in the military and going to World War II but the point is is that if your organization's Community is sat strong then there's nothing you can't accomplish so it's kind of what we want to say today is like. Um Building a community within your organization is the is really the idea behind continuation or sustainability of an employee owned company, um in part of being an ESOP is thinking about like how does that go forward in the future because that's um that's what's sustainable.

[38:41] So thinking about how you build your community comes down to what sort of things that your people are doing together and so what sort of things are doing together in terms of not just the in the company but also, beyond the workplace so there might be things like volunteering in the community um helping Charities doing things together, family types of gatherings um building a um a personal relationships with people and the business outside of that. Um helping each other drive you know if if there was um a need for um you know, a family for medical purposes or whatever helping peopleyou know do fundraisers those kind of things so so there it's the above and beyond that I would say as we finish this um that people really do.

[39:30] Um Respond well to to that and and they want to be part of something that's bigger than themselves so your goal is building an employ Centric culture and employee owned culture is really to kind of take all of the things we we talked about and then more and and that would resonate as you build a community that will last in the future through whatever happens and so that's and that's really what I would say is why we finished with that is because it's really the goal so. Um I hope you enjoyed the the podcast today as we think about the future of going becoming an ESOP company or you're already an ESOP company I think. Building an employee Centric culture is really going to be an important part of your step in this journey to an ESOP.