SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Future Ventures Scaling with Clarity Podcast. Today we're talking about something that I'm really passionate about and something that almost every founder underestimates until it becomes a huge problem. What happens to communication and culture as the company scales. My guest is Linda Carlisle, founder of com.xd, and a certified change management professional with decades of experience helping organizations navigate growth, transformation, MA, and other high-stakes moments of change. Linda's work sits at the intersection of strategy, culture, and communication. So today we're going to explore how founders can keep people aligned, reserve trust, and pure culture that actually helps the business scale. Linda, welcome to the stage.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Hey, very excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

I am super excited about a conversation. I gotta face up. Three years ago, I got my ProSai change management designation. Not because I'm a change management professional, but because I lead a lot of transformation work. And so having that background is super important. By way of a background, I'm a CPA, but I find it like anything and everything that they do requires some form of change management.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Yep. Yep. I'm glad that you did it because I do think that in today's world, the pace of change is just relentless. And um, in fact, that's one of the things that I would say is that people I think they just are not always in touch with the sheer amount of overlapping change that people are going through. So big change, you're like, well, this is the only big change, but we are constantly putting people through you know layers of change. So it's good to have that awareness for sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

And and what I find is um change is hard. Um, different organizations have their own uh change velocity, so finding out what that change velocity and kind of adapting it is super, super important. Um, like I see continuously messages come out, and uh you can tell that people haven't bought it, building out a stakeholder assessment or changing packed assessments. Well, who do I need to communicate? How do we communicate? How do we tell it a message? So um it it is a super important area of capability within a company, but unfortunately, quite often it's it it hasn't given it hasn't been given the right level of credence and importance.

unknown 2:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

I think that the issue, I mean, I I've thought a lot about this because I often find with my even with my clients, I have to make them aware of how important communication is. And I think that it's because people think, oh, well, we all communicate, right? So why do we need a special communications piece? But what we don't all do is spend time understanding what stakeholders are undergoing and what those experiences are doing to those stakeholders, which then governs how they're receiving even your normal, I'm a leader, so of course I communicate message, right? So it's bigger than just we all communicate, it's okay. How do we break through what's already going on with people?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Agree. And and and as you know, uh in change management, we have a saying that you have to communicate the same message eight times in eight different ways before it gets received. So um it it is a really important. So I have a question for you. Sure. Um, now our audience is comprised primarily of founders. Uh, our guests are primarily comprised of either investors, founders, or uh professionals like you, subject matter experts. So as you think about the audience being founder audience, at what point does communication stop being really a founder skill? And at what point does it start to become kind of the organizational infrastructure, the foundation that you need to have in place?

SPEAKER_01 4:29

So that's a fabulous question. So let me tell you some things that I think about this issue. So, first of all, as a founder, you are always gonna be on point to deliver messaging, that never goes away for you. So I either that's great news for you or it's bad news for you. But at some point, you start becoming a vehicle, you start becoming a um a very deliberately doled out resource for the messaging. So, for example, I'll just say this, go down this rabbit hole really quick. Say you're going through a major ERP implementation, right? You as the founder, oh, I just lost you, you as the founder are not going to deliver every single message that every single person needs to hear throughout that implementation. But you need to be the champion, you need to be there as a resource for that project as the champion, explaining why, explaining how important it is, how strategic this project is to the future of the company. So you have a very specific use case where you are bringing the power of your role to bear and enabling that project to move forward. So you are always there as a comms person, but at some point, management by walking around stops being the way that messages can be delivered, and then you start thinking most leaders go through this stage. Well, I have leaders, so you know what? I can't reach everybody personally anymore, but I'll just cascade through my leaders. Let me tell you, cascade does not work, it can be a backup tool, it can be um a means by which a professional communications clean plan can be deployed so that targeted messaging get into a different function, right? We're in ops, we are obviously gonna be impacted by the CRP. I need ops targeted messaging that the ops leader delivers to that group, but a message from leadership cascaded down, uh, it's like the game of telephone, it's inevitable that every single team is gonna get a different message. Some are gonna be like, Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention this. We had a really busy meeting, so here's this important message compressed into two sentences. Others are not gonna get anything, and some are gonna get an expansive message, and as soon as you start having all the different people across the organization kind of having a different message, that dissonance affects trust, it affects credibility, and um, so it's when you start having the organization be too big or too complex for that leader to be doing management by walking around, that's the moment you should be thinking about Tom's planning. I will also say on the culture front, I am a huge advocate of culture by design, not default. And early on in a business, the power of that leader's persona kind of is the culture, but at about that same time that your touch points start to get stimulated and spread out, you lose that power, but you don't realize it. And at some point you wake up and there's some scratchiness going on in your culture, and you start to realize, you know, I've lost that. I am the culture, and that's a great moment for you to start saying, Look, culture is more than mission, vision, values, and purpose. Culture is when it comes right down to it, the behaviors that you exhibit and reward each and every day. And so that moment when you start to realize that I am no longer the culture might be a really great time to say, what are the behaviors we want to honor as we go forward as an organization? Let's codify them, let's launch them, make it a campaign, make it visible, communicate in this widespread way. And then you can kind of build your rewards and recognition around those behaviors. You can test, you do 360-degree feedback loops on leaders to see if they're what are what are the behaviors are they strong on, and where could they use a little work? And um, so, anyways, on the culture front, it's also true that there's a moment where the leaders' impact just by virtue of scale has started to diminish.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

Do you have a sense?

SPEAKER_00 9:14

No, I love the answer. Uh do you have a sense in terms of scaling up organization at what point the founder, founding team's influence starts to get diluted if the culture started to take a shape on its own? And at what point do founders have to intentionally think about this culture building element?

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Yeah. I you know, my gut is I'm always going to come from a people perspective versus a dollar perspective. I know there are some metrics, different different organizations are like, this is the multiplier on headcount to say what your revenue is. So figure it out for your industry. But um, but at about 250, you start to notice 250 people, you start to notice that things are going a little wonky from a messaging standpoint. If you have complexity on top of that 250, like remote salespeople, remote workforce, multiple locations. That's why I say the 250. At 500, you are for sure having some challenges at in the multi-locations. You had change on top of that, you'd better have a comms person. And uh, and frankly, by the time people are at 2,000, 2500 people, they've they've realized they need help and they hire a comms person. So my sweet spot is sort of that in-between before they realize they need a on-staff person, or they just don't, they're not big enough for the on-staff person. But my sweet spot where I work with customers is usually in that in-between zone where they need some help. The it may come up and down, like during periods of change, you want like almost a fractional on board to help you through the change, and then you know, you can you can back off to be just a intermittent resource. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

So just following up on this, um what uh in your mind is uh the difference between community communicating the strategy and actually creating the story employees can see themselves inside.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Yes, and it's both, right? So there is value in having that umbrella strategy, and again, this is a great uh use case for the founder being the voice of that strategy. Why are we doing it? Why is it important right now? How long is the runway? What's going on in the marketplace that leads us to decide that this is the way we want to go? All those, like you're really the inspiration as a leader. You are the person who has the most power to excite people and get them on board with that strategy. You wanted them to not only see their role in that strategy, which may happen at the functional level, yeah, but you want them to see their future in that strategy, that that strategy means growth, and that strategy means opportunity, and you know, I have the ability to affect that outcome in a way that actually builds my career, right? So, um, so from a leadership standpoint, you want to be that inspirational voice and getting those people jazzed about where that strategy's going. But then again, I don't want as a communications leader, I don't want you in the weeds in each function. I don't want you in front of your customer care team talking about it. Like, no, that's not the right use of the leader of the company. Um but functionally, every single team should understand their own role within implementing that strategy, and they should understand the handoffs, how their actions impact others. And in reality, sometimes when you're doing a strategy shift or a process shift or a major technology implementation, but let's just stick with strategy. When you're doing a major strategy shift, that may mean that some pet projects go away, and you owe it to those folks to know to let them know what the prioritization is, because otherwise, again, they'll start to feel stretched thin, right? Burnout is a reality, change is part of that burnout, but so is not knowing should I look left or right, should I do this or this, right? Like, and if you choose the wrong thing because your leader didn't give you clarity around that, then there's an implication for the handoff for the next team, and you'll never strategy, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:59

100%, and that's why a lot of organizations are standing up standing up enterprise OCM function or enterprise PMO functions to to to manage change, manage fatigue. Um, now you you talked about employees and understanding the strategy. So um how do you like how do you ensure um that the strategy that's in the vision is head, in the founder's head, gets translated all the way down to an individual employee and and and and that to your point that they know how their efforts attribute to the broader strategy?

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Yeah. So for me, it's a lot when I'm in that role of helping with the communications plan, I am looking at stakeholders, right? So I'm going at what level? So for instance, maybe you've got someone in the plant who's in charge of inbound shipping and getting the you know, get getting shipments in. Does that individual need a deep dive strategy assessment of his role or her role as she's taking shipments in? Maybe not, right? So you kind of got to go who are the stakeholders and how deep into each of these functional areas does an individual assessment of impact need to go. And there are certain functions where it's not all the way down to ground, right? But in many functions, well, in all functions, you kind of want everyone to know there's a new strategy because you want that excitement. Why wouldn't you do that, right? You get you want people to ask. So during your all hands meeting, you're gonna cover the strategy at a high level, but then you know, you do uh stakeholder analysis and assess each group and how far down and how different each function is. And I get to that by talking to the leaders, right? So I'm gonna talk deeply with the CEO or the owner or the founder, and I'm then I'm gonna go okay. I'm gonna talk to each function, and we're gonna talk the workflow, right? And the initiatives that are gonna take place to make that strategy whole and what's the timing. And then I am also always aware of the different learning modalities that different people have. Some people are visual, and a PowerPoint's fabulous, and you could show a you know, or you could do some kind of an infographic, and that's gonna be really powerful. Some people, maybe the infographic is a big table chart, and you walk people through a new process and way of doing things because they're almost like yes, visual, but almost like walk the process, talk it through with someone. Other people can read about it because they're readers and that's how they process information. And other people are more, I want to talk, I want to have a dialogue. So you want to be aware of the different types of learning modalities that you're building with your cons plan as well. And I try and put a little bit of something for everyone. I'm also a big fan of as initiatives are unrolling to support that strategy, making sure the different leaders, maybe you're doing a video blog or a video podcast where you're, you know, like this, where you're bringing in the different leaders and having them talk about key initiatives that are unfolding and you know where you've seen success and where you're still trying to evolve the organization. So everyone can celebrate all the wins, but also see how the functioning across across groups is impacting the you know the go forward. So um the storytelling piece of that is really powerful if you have good storytellers.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

So how how does CEO or become a good storyteller? What if they're not naturally inspirational? Like if like how do they get the the team jazzed up about um the vision, the strategy?

SPEAKER_01 17:50

So um lately I'm on this kick where I'm all about authenticity, you know, which that might sound interesting to you because at the same time I'm going, I give people talking points, and then at the same time I'm like, oh, about authenticity. Um, so talking points are there to keep everyone aligned and make sure that the story that is told is the story that is the reality, right? So that we don't have people flying off from the seat of their pants because they don't know the full story or whatever. Like, if you can give somebody talking points so they understand this is the project, this is the flow, that's all good. I tell people as leaders, you need to read this like a hundred times until you got it cold. And then on the hundredth and first reading, I want you to highlight like a word from each paragraph that's gonna remind you, oh yeah, then I wanted to talk about this, and then I wanted to talk about this so that if you lose track of your train of thought, which I do obviously, I sometimes like, oh, here's a sidebar. But if you do that, you lose your train of thought, you know exactly where you're coming back into your, you know, to your key points. Um, and then I want you to just like talk from your heart from there, right? Now, to your point, not everybody's a great storyteller, and I don't think that I don't think that everyone has to be a great storyteller, but you have to know what the key points are on a strategy, for example, you're doing this for a reason, you're excited about it as a leader, share that with people, right? Um, because I feel like you know, and this has really become very obvious in our um at least our political discourse in America. You can tell when there's someone who's like just repeating the talking points, and then you've got other people who are like, I get the talking points, but I'm gonna speak to them in a way that you see how excited I am about where we are going. And you know, when I find one of those speak speakers, I'm like, oh god, that's so awesome. But I think that you can you can you don't you don't you're always gonna become every single person's an identical kind of speaker, but showing who you are and what you care about that comes through.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Yeah, so Linda, um I couldn't agree more with you on the importance of authenticity. Um how like to this point, what are the things that the leaders have to be mindful about that would erode trust that would would that would take away from that authenticity, where the leaders' message would start to get discredited.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Um, for me, there are several things. First of all, I mean it it comes down to human nature, right? Um, if you had a friend who always told you he was gonna do something and then he didn't, over time you would see an erosion and how you felt about what your friend was saying. Now, maybe you'd still feel he was a really fun guy to go have a a beer with or go bowling, but you are at some point gonna be like, yeah, he's so whatever, right? Yeah, we're we're taking a little bit of a doubt here. And people are gonna do the same thing with a leader, right? So do what you say, say what you do, right? Like that's one. Two is that you really, you know, I I there's a lot said about whether or not inclusion is a good thing, but inclusion and transparency, that's how you win people's hearts and minds, that's how you win their trust, right? So tell them, tell them what's really going on, be transparent, tell them what's going on, tell them why you've chosen the strategy. If you had to make some regrettable decisions like downsizing, tell them what the reasons are behind the business. Don't just like have things change and not tell people why, because that's frightening, right? Yeah, um, there's a lot of talk about psychological safety these days, but I am a huge fan of people being mindful of the impact of the change. On the people in the organization, because if you are telling me we're going to do this and this and this and this and this in the organization, and we're not going to use this technology anymore, and we're you know, and you you make these changes, and my whole career is set up around that technology or that practice or whatever. I suddenly start to hear a hum. You're going, you're talking, and I'm hearing Charlie's Brown's teacher because you know, Mama, Mama, Mama, that person, because all I can think of in the back of my head is I'm gonna lose my job, right? We always go, we're are we're hardwired to go, what's in it for me? We're hardwired. It's not selfishness. Every single human being is hardwired to be like, Am I at risk? And so if if you know, if you're not mindful of that and including them in the story, and oh, by the way, we realize a lot of you folks are you know highly involved with the current process. We're gonna retrain you, we're gonna give you lots of opportunities to, you know, so give them the things to get out of that you know psychological safety trap where they're freaking out a little bit, and then you know, I think if you just remember that these are people, these are human beings, that's that's it, that's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

So with uh with with remembering that that these are human beings showing the empathy, empathy, uh being authentic, how do you transparent? Yeah, uh how do you drive transparency and and and how do you deliver I I mean good news are obviously very easy to deliver um because there's something to celebrate, but what about the hard moments? Because particularly in entrepreneurship, it's not just a field of gold and roses, it's just there's it's it's a yo-yo cycle. There's some really, really highs and some really really lows.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Yep. I have done more than my share of workforce reduction reduction communications in my career, and I can tell you that the ones where the leaders in the plant or at corporate, it's a case may be number one. Do everything that you can within your budget to help the people who are leaving before, right? Yeah, like I've seen a plant closing where, as part of the plant closing, they knew there was a new manufacturer down the street who was trying to fill third shift, and they brought that manufacturer into the plant and did a job fare on site, right? It does not have to be that didn't cost anything, right? Yeah, um, a lot of times your benefits package has some kind of resume writing, some kind of training for that sense of loss that you go through so you can get through the the um curve. Anything you can do to help those people be successful and navigate the fear, the uncertainty, the everything they're gonna be going through as people who are being released, anything you can do helps solidify for those who remain that you you do care about people, you weren't just saying that, right? Because it's about authenticity, right? And those people talk. So if you treat the people who are leaving like get out of here, and then you know, you say something else and you're messaging the people who are staying, they're gonna talk that night, so you know, don't don't think that there's not a comparison of the two storylines. So, so number one, treat people with dignity and as much support as you can as they need, and then they don't have a lot of appetite for understanding why it's happening because again, wah wah wah wah wah, the minute they hear they're losing their job, they're not hearing anything else, right? But but you want to make sure that those messages are in parallel, and then tell the people who are staying why you needed to do what you needed to do, that it was no fault of the people who need you know you needed to reduce, it was not them, it was not their performance, there was nothing, right? And that you did everything you could to support them. And if some of those people are gonna be staying through some kind of transition period, ask, say, and we want you to be aware that this is really hard for those people. So there's a few people who are gonna be, you know, staying with us for a few weeks, and we really ask you to do everything you can to be kind to them, be sensitive to what they're going through. So now you're conveying care through your messaging, right? Because it's hard for you to right decisions, so people will accept. Look, they are employees of your firm, they do not want you to be operating at an operating cost that is not sustainable because then their job is at risk, right? So they understand that you sometimes need to write size to keep everybody's jobs and the the whole thing, but what they don't want is you going, oh, I care about you so much, and boom, don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out, right? And then, like something there's not one of these things does not go with the other. So, um, anyways, did that answer your question?

SPEAKER_00 27:40

Like it does, it it it does. I mean, actions matter more than words. Uh, so you you you you described one moment that matter uh in terms of workforce reduction. What are the other moments that matter? Because I know you talk about uh about those moments that a founder need to pay extraordinary amount of attention to ensure that carpedium they seize that moment that they that even if it's uh even if it's a bad moment that that they turn into a positive.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Yes, or or don't sugarcoat it, but like you know, call it like it is, but be a human being, have the same feelings, right, about this transition. I mean, I've heard some horror stories about leaders just being just as cold as can be about how they're handling some of the biggest decisions for their people, right? And that's just it's just not okay. Um, other moments that matter when there's a leadership transition, when there's a strategy, when there's a new technology coming in that is gonna fundamentally change how we do things, right? Um, your EVP, you should understand your employee value proposition, and you should use it in your recruiting materials and on your website, and then in your culture, right? So EVP is why do people come to work for you and why do they decide to stay, right? And so understanding that's really important and building that into your culture and all your culture communications, your culture is purposeful, right? So that's a piece of moments that matter for me, and then also as you're onboarding people, that's a moment that matters, right? I have a piece I wrote about about like this one time I started a company, my boss wasn't there, I had no chair, I was escorted into an office that was like filthy and gross, and there was an office supply catalog on the desk, and so I went, Oh, they must mean for me to order my own chair and stuff. So I spent time like putting together what I needed to make this office whole, and I take it up to the front desk, and they're like, Oh, we don't even use that office supply company, like like that was like the worst onboarding ever, right? So, how you onboard people is really important, and that you're conveying what's your culture and what do you expect of people and what does it take to succeed? And are you taking them to lunch on day one? Because guess what? Leaders should be there for their people when they hire them on the day one. That's really important, and are we getting the team together to introduce everyone so they all are having each other back? Um, so all these things onboarding is a piece of a moment that matters in that person's decision to stay at the company, right? And then I will say the MA cycle has a number of moments that matter within it, that individually often stand alone, but they're tied together in a moment in a MA. Um for right out of the gate on day one, when you acquire a company, you need to make day one a party, right? Not only is it a party, it's the first time they're seeing your leadership team, you and the leader as the leader, as the founder, you and the leadership team. First time they're meeting you. So you need to be transparent and likable and share who you are and be open. And then it's a party. We're so excited. We're buying you for a reason. You're gonna help us grow. We you are essential, making people feel really excited, giving a little swag with all the money, right? It seems like an investment. There's you know, 500 people, whatever. That is an investment that's gonna pay dividends because you made it a party, right? Have a meal together, break some bread, and then um, and then after day one, people start leaving right now. That's some scary stuff because the guy who hired me who told me what my career was gonna look like originally when I came to this company, he just left. And now I'm getting shot into this other team. I don't know what's happening in my pet project. I don't know if what I what I know best in the world that was gonna take my career forward is even important at this company, right? So, so how are you navigating the reorganization that happens after a merger or during a merger? And then how are you handling any layoffs? You know, the layoff story we talked about earlier, there might be layoffs as part of an attempt, and then I'm a big fan of listening, like let's build some deliberate listening into the cycle. How are people navigating this change? Let's get some feedback. I'm not a fan of surveys for this, right? Because if they are psychologically uncertain because of everything they've been seeing, they just won't answer the survey, right? So like a huge non-response rate, and that right there is a response rate. So on the other side of that, what can you do to respond to what you heard through that listening exercise? And then as part of listening, have these two cultures coming together, right? So, what do people say are the strengths of culture A, strengths of culture B? What are the weaknesses of the two cultures? And then, as the leadership team, like I was talking earlier, what are the behaviors we need going forward? See it as a company, and so you can shape a culture that's like the best of the best, get rid of those bad behaviors, let's build in some new ones that are like hydroformic culture type things, and then there you go, have a have a culture campaign that everybody feels better ownership for. So that can be part of your MA package.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

So agreed. Do you did do you actually see a lot of companies um actually have a MA playbook? And the MA playbook has um a robust stream around Coucher. I I know that that on the team side, the team is never ignored, but from a culture communication perspective, uh, that this is well incorporated as part of MA.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

It is often overlooked, it is statistically overlooked, and it is often cited in like you know, 48% of cases where there's been a failure to hit the targets, energy.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

It's cultural, yeah. So it's unfortunate that it's overlooked.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

So interesting. What um what are the most common traps or failures? Like why is it overlooked?

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Um, I think that there is a lot of pressure, not only within like a private equity firm, but also within the executive team. There is a lot of pressure to perform, there's a tremendous amount of work to be done, right? All of the every single system, you know, is is getting merged with something else, right? There's just a tremendous amount of work that is on top of keeping the lights on, and there's all this pressure to hit certain numbers, right? And I think that again, everyone communicates, right? We don't need a special communication, whatever, for this. And it's only when scratchiness starts to happen, right? One team is very collaborative, and the other team has been taught knowledge is power. And when I say that, I don't mean knowledge is power, let me make you powerful. I mean knowledge is power, I'm keeping it to myself, right? And so when you've got those two kinds of dynamics, you're gonna have some scratchiness, and and once that's been going for a while, and that's just one example. Um, some people, some firms are gonna be uh, hey, we want you to take some, you know, obviously we want to put guardrails around this, but we want you to take some risks because we know that without risk, we can't innovate, versus other organizations that are like, you make a mistake, you're gonna get a whack on the back of the hand with a ruler, and you do that a second time, and we're gonna show you the door, right? And so, how do you innovate when you've got these two cultures coming together? And some of that is identified up front during due diligence. I don't I don't want to say it's not looked at, it's just that it's very rare for there to be a structured approach to how you're gonna navigate that. Usually what they do is just shore up the riskiest people that they can't do without. That's what they do.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

That's their cultural I understand. Um just to continue down a path of like MA, uh, what should a CEO communicate in the first 24 hours after an acquisition, and then the next 72, the next week, kind of like how do they how do they drive this culture integration or simulation of the two cultures? Because I have been part of six or seven um MA transactions, and uh invariably you have the aquari uh the acquire culture and the acquiry culture. And at first the acquire culture dominates, and then weirdly, um the acquiry quite often uh becomes the the dominant culture, at least that that has been my empirical observation.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

Well, you what you are empirically recognizing is that there will always be seepage, it's probably both ways, right? Um I that I have been um involved with an organization that had a very old and beloved culture, and then there's a strong case to be made for that culture, which is so successful, and why, if it is the core reason, the EVP, the employee value proposition, why people come and why they say it, if the culture is the reason, you kind of want to hold on to that. But that aside, I don't think that's the rule, I think that's the exception. Um, there's a lot to be said for going in, and instead of going by default, we're gonna let these two cultures mix it up, and you know, whoever wins on whatever point, that's what we're gonna have as a culture. It makes so much more sense to go, what do we love about these cultures? And you can ask the people that, but you also then can ask the leadership team that, and you can come up with and you can tell people, you ask what's you know, what are we telling? Tell people we have a process around culture, right? And that process is we want the best of both worlds from both cultures. We'd like to take this opportunity to retire any behaviors that we think are really crappy, yeah. And and then we've got some new things that we want to introduce because we're looking at the future and we know the future is innovation, and so there are some new behaviors. I think to be better innovators we need to add to the mix. And you tell them, so what we're gonna be doing is a little bit of research at front first, then we're gonna you know tell you what we've found and what we're thinking, we're gonna get your feedback, and then we're gonna start rolling this out, right? And so that's what culture building is gonna look like. We hope you'll lean in and be a part of that because we need your voices as part of it, and you know, make them part of everything should be about making people part of, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:10

Part of the journey, okay. Um now if you talked about authenticity, and I I and I can't and I I can't help myself but think about the importance of AI and its impact on authenticity. I mean, in the current environment, you can use whatever um AI tool you prefer and come out with a really polished message almost instantly. Does that take away the authenticity that a leader can communicate? And from your perspective, what is it? What is preferred? A message that's truly authentic to see it's it's it's got flaws and imperfection, or a message that's really, really polished.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

So I think you know what I'm gonna say to this, right? Like I use AI all the time, so I'm not anti-AI. AI has been a force multiplier on how fast I can get things done, and I'm an entrepreneur, so I need to get things done quickly, right? So I will say that you know, AI's got its place, but I'm never gonna let it replace my voice, right? My voice is who I am, and it's the same thing with leaders, and I think that people see through the really, really polished messaging. That's what I was saying earlier. Like someone who's reading from talking points and it's not their soul coming through, you can tell. I mean, have you ever watch podcasts where there's someone on there who you just know they're BSing and you're like, whoa, right? Like, not credible. So, you know, you your message as a leader is your credibility, and can you put in the prompts in a way that totally reflects who you are authentically? I suppose you can, but I'm really gonna say I doubt that leaders are doing that if they're using AI to create their messaging. So, um, what what you lose is that authenticity and authenticity authenticity equals trust, right? And you cannot high performance teams must have trust as a foundation.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

I agree, I agree. Um do you have a point of view around um if the is there's something that founders have been taught about culture or employee communication that that you think is is simply wrong?

SPEAKER_01 41:39

Yeah, I don't know that it's all leaders, right? Um, but I came up through a period of time where leadership was very command and control, and it was like, well, because I said so, right? It's how men used to parent, right? Because I said so. And that moved away for a while for a long period of time, and I'm seeing a little bit of it come back into the into the mix a little bit, this sort of bam bam, top down, because I said so. I had I was on a uh Sherm um HR team of one call, and the woman who runs that committee said that um she was trying to speak to her leader about the impact of the words and the impact of the message they were about to convey. And that leader said, you know what? If that person doesn't like it here and they don't like who we are, they can leave. We can always replace them. Like that's not healthy, and you know what, you can replace them, but there is a tremendous cost in replacing people now, not just the cost of recruiting, but that slippage and performance while you're between people. I mean, you should never come from that point of view. Unless the person had a performance issue, you know, not good. So yeah, I'm seeing that slip back into the mix a little bit, and I just don't think it's uh I don't think it's effective.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Well, there's uh there's a book that they really like. Um, I'm sure that you're familiar with Kim Scott's work around radical candor. Yeah, I I just can't celebrate his work enough. Um, a lot of leaders, uh think you said like sugarcoat, or they don't come out and then maybe not the authentic self, or they're afraid to be uh vulnerable. And then people are incredibly intuitive. They they see through a message whether it's authentic and uh filled with veracity, or if it's something that it they're reading off a script.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

Yeah. I think the only risk like people who misread, like if you're gonna use that phrase, read the book. Right. Because radical candor does not mean using swear words because I like to swear. Right. It does not mean like being a jerk because I don't want to bother to filter my, you know, my attitude. So, but it is what it is is transparency, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:19

Okay. Okay. Okay. Um, so back to our audience, founders. So if I'm a founder listening to um to the podcast, and I have let's assume 50, 100, 150 employees. What are the top five questions I should ask to determine what a communication coach are helping us scale or are holding us back?

SPEAKER_01 44:45

That's a great question. I think two-way communication is radically underestimated, right? You should, if you're gonna do management by walking around at that stage, you still probably are doing quite a bit of that. Do more listening than you do talking, right? Ask people how it's going. Find out what projects they've been working on, find out what the work-life balance is, and I don't mean that in the air fairy work life balance standpoint. I mean work-life balance as in I am answering emails at two in the morning on Saturday because it's the only time I can find time to get back to my email, right? I have been I have been deployed on four projects over the last year that were within my department but also outside my department, all while I'm still trying to keep the lights on, right? So asking people how it's going, how it's impacting them, what their thoughts are, how are they feeling about the company, right? Anything they'd like to see change? How do you feel about the culture? What's good about the culture, what's bad about the culture? Every once in a while, as a leader, why don't you bring a random group of employees out to lunch and have a dialogue about one of these topics, right? You know, I really want to hear you kind of a way. So yeah, I I I think that's one of the greatest things you can do as a leader is listen.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

Okay, okay. I've been part of an organization where the manager wants removed, we'll go walk the halls and take out somebody for lunch. But I've seen even at the board level, um, I and this is a sizeable organization. I I think they were about four billion dollars in in enterprise value. The board chair literally would walk the halls and like, hey, let's go grab lunch. Um at first that this was very, very uncomfortable because he's like, hey, this like uh an in-camera conversation, like what do I say? Like, I don't obviously don't want to surprise my my boss. Um and then he was like, Oh, this is just the the way the coucher is like I can be fairly open with uh with a chair.

SPEAKER_01 46:51

And I and I and I would say that you you diminish some of the risk of what you just said for everyone, that that feeling of whoa, should I be doing this, right? Like that by making it a group lunch, right? Bring five or six people, right? Now we're talking.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

So yeah, makes sense. Now I I know we're coming to um to the end of the interview, Linda, but if you could give a founder entry in the next stage of growth, one piece of advice for scaling with great greater clarity, what would that piece of advice be?

SPEAKER_01 47:32

Um I think that uh again, I and I kinda maybe I'm coming full circle on this. I think that it's about helping your people make the journey with you, right? Because they're the ones you have the vision, but they're the ones that are gonna get things done. And so you want them, you know. I I realize that, you know, maybe using words like inspiration might seem like a heavy lift for some people, but you it's your vision that is gonna take them where they need to go, and you need to get their buy-in. You want to get their buy-in because, you know, I'll say this one more thing. Sometime in the 1980s, we did some terrible things to workforces, right? We kind of signaled to them, you're on your own, we're gonna take away your pensions and put in 401ks, we're gonna take away middle management so you don't have a ladder. We may or may not be training you, we're gonna hire from outside instead of putting people, promoting people. We did some things that had a long-term impact on employee engagement. How you correct for that, and what should probably be part of your EVP, is that you're gonna train people to help them succeed within your company, right? And so part of conveying that message is sharing the future and a sense that you are part of that future, right? There are exciting times ahead, and you are part of it, and I want you to be on this journey with us, right? And there, am I an inspirational leader? But I think what I just said is pretty inspirational, right? So, so I think that if you convey to people this is where we're going, we're about to take off, I'm really excited about this, and you are part of that. I think that that's what you know that that's the recipe.

SPEAKER_00 49:21

Agreed, wonderful. Um, great, great point to close at, Linda. Um, any parting thoughts? Um, um and and I also like to close the conversations with a bit a choice of a question. What's the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you, or or what's the best piece of advice you have ever received?

SPEAKER_01 49:44

Oh, that's great. So um, you know, I'm gonna use a workplace, a workplace example. And um, you know, I had a person assigned to me as a mentor when I was at I was at a pretty large organization, and I never had a mentor before. And this person taught me to think about where I wanted to go, what I wanted my career to look like, and and just like sat me down, gave me it was just a PowerPoint slide. It could have looked like anything, it was just some questions, and you know, here's here's a kind of a roadmap kind of thing, and where you think you're going, and and then she actually talked me through that and said, Well, if you're gonna do this, maybe you want to have these experiences, and if you're gonna do this, maybe you want to have these experiences, and just having somebody take me under their wing and talk to me about this new environment that I just joined, and um, so that that was really great, but I think the the takeaway was number one, for me be thoughtful about where I want my life to go and what my road should look like, and you know, be in control of your own destiny. Um, if I'm gonna have a 401k, I might as well be in charge of my own destiny, and um, and then two, how do you do that for other people? Make sure you're doing that for other people.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

Agreed, agreed. Well, I mean, statistically, the person that gives gets more out of the person that receives, so it feels good to be given.

SPEAKER_01 51:18

It does, it does, it's amazing. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:22

Linda, you have been wonderful. Uh, lots of wonderful insights. Thank you so much for coming on the pod.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

Yeah, you are a fun host to talk with. So thank you. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 51:35

Absolute pleasure.