Who is David H. Paul?

The quality of any business relationship is only as high as the trust and respect between the two parties, so I will get the ball rolling by giving you a chance to see a little bit of who I am. One of the key elements in developing a successful performance consulting business is the aspect of building lasting and fruitful relationships with customers (cringe). I cringe, here because I would much rather develop a win-win business partnership where we get to really know each other and your business can experience massive growth as a result of what we do together.

My path to business performance consulting started in 1991 with my first professional job working as an entry level manager of a corporate adult foster home for people with developmental challenges in the human services industry. I had graduated from St. Cloud State University with a bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education, and I was all set to become a high school social studies teacher. Two very important things happened that steered me off course. First, I did substitute teaching in four difference schools over a two year period and found that my experiential teaching style did not fit well (at all) with the standard educational practices within public school systems. Second, my first boss and mentor, Nancy McCullough, planted a profound and lasting seed in my mind, “Dave, if you find a way to permanently reduce staff turnover in this company, you’d be set for life.” For the golfers out there, this was equivalent of learning a key swing thought that transformed my game, forever. These two life changing events were the starting point of my quest to find the solution to the staff turnover dilemma.

I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into, but, quite by accident, I stumbled upon two significant ideas that yielded amazing results when I put them into practice, which I will refer to as the two “must do” factors for retaining quality employees. Both factors are incredibly simple and even more obvious. So simple and obvious, in fact, that most business owners and business managers consistently overlook these factors when considering where and how to start addressing their own employee retention problems. They are the most basic of the basics. Without using these two key “must do” factors effectively within your business or organization, nothing else that you do will have much of a lasting impact on the endless stream of quality employees that are flowing out your doors for greener pastures. The sad thing for most of these former employees is that they soon will discover a harsh reality, “No matter where you go, there you are.” Essentially what this quote means is that people’s dissatisfaction with their employment situation will probably never change as long as the lenses they are using to view their world of employment don’t change. Another way of saying this is, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.” So, you job as a small business owner or manager within an organization will be to change the lenses for you employees. You absolutely must help them to see how different their perspective of your business or organization will be once you implement the two key “must do” factors for retaining quality employees that I am about to share with you.

I want to present my personal results from implementing these two simple, yet highly effective tools. In 1991 through 1994, I was a highly inexperience, green as grass, new entry level manager. However, just by simply implementing the two key “must do” factors for retaining quality employees, I was able to completely eliminate staff turnover for a three year period in a corporate adult foster home for developmentally challenged adults. That’s right, 0% staff turnover, and not just for one year, but for three years straight! If fact, we even added two new staff people to the mix over those three years. This is no small accomplishment when you consider the fact that the industry average staff turnover rate for direct care staff working this type of organization averages 45-48%! Now, consider further that if my foster home would have had a staff turnover rate equivalent to the industry average, our company would have spent an additional $6,000-7,500 in on boarding expenses over that three year period.

So, do you think I might have found a little something, here? Keep reading, because these two key “must do” factors for retaining quality employees are going to change your personal, professional and business life forever. But it will require that you now become willing to accept some responsibility and get ready to roll up your sleeves and go to work.