Unlocking Organizational Success: The Power of Transformative Communication and Mentorship

00:03 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
Welcome to Voices in Leadership, where leaders who connect, inspire and grow come to share their stories. Live. I'm your host, dr Angela J Buckley. Join us as we explore authentic leadership, gratitude and the power of connection through powerful conversations with inspiring voices. Let's inspire, uplift and elevate leadership that truly makes a difference together. Hello Linda, welcome to a rainy Friday afternoon here in Central Ohio. How is the weather where you are?

00:41 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
So it's sunny where I am and I just want to pre-warn that they are doing construction outside on the street, so I don't think it gets through. I got a pretty good mic, but just want to let you know it's sunny enough for them to be doing road construction. Like it's a Chicago thing, like we have two seasons right Winter and construction, so we're in construction.

01:03 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
Well, my mom grew up in Chicago, so we spent all of our summers up there.

01:07
I am familiar with the construction season of Chicago.

01:12
So, linda, I am so excited to invite you today to talk to us about some of your experiences as a corporate communications advisor and how you've helped various business leaders and VCs manage, solve communication and culture challenges in the moments that matter.

01:33
And really talking about what is kind of hot to topic for me at the moment mergers and acquisitions, that reorganization and restructuring. We're seeing so much of that right now and you had so much experience with those leadership changes and the turnarounds that happen as a result of technology implementations and workforce reductions. I love to read about your passion for effective communications and how it's reflected in these powerful campaigns that solve problems, achieve strategic business objectives and deliver high-performance cultures. I see that you have over 30 years of leadership experience serving business leaders as a trusted advisor to design and build powerful corporate identities, high culture performances and effective integration and change management initiatives. It is so exciting for me to be talking to you about these culture changes and the communications that are associated with that. I'm always talking about culture from a different perspective, so it is helpful to hear your perspective, and so welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us.

02:50 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
Thank you. I'm happy to be here, and I'll be trying to resist asking you questions about what are your culture experiences too, so let's make it a dialogue. I'm looking forward to it.

03:02 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
Well, we're good with chats and we're good with having people join in, so we also are live on LinkedIn, so as people join in and ask questions and we can see that as well. So, linda, what led you to the path of communications? How did you get here? I'm always curious where people landed and how that journey looked for them.

03:26 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
Yeah. So it's interesting because I think my mom wanted me to be an attorney, so I was always good with words and I was good with writing. But I also was like a visual person and was always drawing and coloring and and my older sister encouraged me to pursue the art end and I kind of like found the middle in back in the advertising. I was like, oh you know, maybe I'll go in advertising where graphics meets words, and so I have a marketing background, a master's in integrated marketing communications, and as I was doing that work, which was really focused on brand, I started to. So first of all my employer was pulling me in on things that were clearly internal communications, because they needed a communication support for that kind of messaging, even though I thought I was this brand person. Then, over time I started to realize that the brand is really kind of a yin yang and it's got an internal component and an external component. Yes, and if you're not managing the internal piece, well then the external piece is going to suffer, because that's who touches the customer. And so really expanded my notion of what brand meant.

04:39
But nevertheless, I spent many years in that external facing, external branding space and kind of during an economic downturn, I had relocated, I had to come back to Illinois, and I come back to Illinois and I'm looking for my next role, and this internal comms role kept popping up and popping up and I was kicking and screaming going no, no, I'll just do freelance for you.

05:01
But I took the role and just fell in love with it. So I've been in the internal space ever since and what I love about this is I'm using those same skill sets the messaging, the understanding psychologically, how is messaging landing and how can you move people from here to there, and the call to action and all that. But you're doing it to do things like subtly build the culture like an onion layer at a time. Every message is adding to that sense of who our collective, we is and helping people accept change, helping people navigate through rough times and all that good stuff, and you're just having such a positive impact, whereas maybe marketing messaging isn't having that same impact on people. So, anyways, that's kind of my path.

05:46 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
So the power of words, power of the pen. Yeah, okay, nice. And as you entered in that communications and cultural space, was there specific training for change, change management, specific? Training for change, change management so much of what you write about is about change.

06:15 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
Yeah. So I feel like a lot of times, especially as a business owner now, I feel like the catalyst for my clients finding me is usually change right. As much as I think you should be focusing proactively on your employee value proposition and your culture and how you message about, you know recruiting and attracting and retaining and you know all that internal stuff, I feel like the the the moment that matters for most of my clients, that impacts their employees, is when there's some kind of change coming on. So, but I do, I have trained for um change management certification, but I've never actually pulled the plug on the certification, which I really should do, but I have not Um. So there is, uh, just a methodology of just making sure that you have a disciplined approach to how you're um managing communications throughout a change Um. So yes, I've done that training, but I also feel like my entire career in the you know how do you move an audience from point A to point B in terms of marketing, comm is just as relevant as having that stepwise discipline for change management.

07:21 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
So it's very interesting to me because I honestly have never understood why communications owns the change management when the people that are on the floor who are? So I'll just preface that my background is continuous improvement. Which are projects to change for the purpose of improving? Which are projects to change for the purpose of improving, right? And we always had a change manager that sort of like buzzed around in the background but didn't actually know the changes, and so we always struggled to understand and define where the why an HR person was involved in what was happening on the shop floor.

08:09 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
So my perspective, my take on that is the training I've been through. The training I've been through very much assumes that there's a project manager who is different than the change manager and that the PMP is doing the work that you're talking about. The project manager is saying is this project making the moves that it needs to make, stepwise, in order to change the operation, in order to change the project flow or whatever it is you're changing? That project manager is managing that piece. The change manager is saying how is all this impacting our people? And so I think there there needs to be that partnership. And in fact, the change manager can't possibly manage the project Right and so it's a. It's a different discipline. So I don't know if that makes sense to you, but it does make sense.

09:04 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
I often just felt like they didn't have enough time, and I don't. I didn't feel that they knew how to manage the measurements of the change, like the effectiveness of what they were doing Got it. I knew how to manage the effectiveness of my projects, but if they were in charge of managing the effectiveness of the people, they didn't have any metrics in place. So they basically put up posters or did something, so felt like there was always something missing because, frankly, we ended up giving them the content that they put on the posters anyways giving them the content that they put on the posters anyways, right?

09:47
Well, I mean, it has to be a partnership.

09:49 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
It has to be a partnership, yeah, yeah, because you know, as a communicator, I mean even just in other types of you know, not project management type things, but even like a culture change.

10:01
I'll look at that, right, I like to listen to what do people think about the culture that we have today, and then I want to listen to what the leaders think about the culture we have today, and then what is the ideal culture of the of the future? And I can make some recommendations like, hey, you know, teams that care for each other and teams that are spending time building relationships so that they can trust each other, they're going to be higher performing teams. I can make those recommendations, but if those things are not central to what the leadership wants and what the staff will accept, then it doesn't matter, right? So I think you know you're, you're always dependent upon what is the strategy, where are we going, where do we want things to land? And I don't get to make that up, I'm the communicator, I communicate these things, but it's not like Linda's world. Linda makes all the things the way Linda wants them to be right. So there always is that dependency upon. You know, what is the ideal that we're trying to achieve so.

11:07 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
I feel like it's also different sizes of organizations.

11:11 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
Yeah.

11:11 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
Actually, like, some have a dedicated communications person and some don't.

11:17 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
Yeah, mid-size, mid-market type organizations that I work with typically do not. And what's happening is the reason I say I get brought in when there's like some kind of big disruptive change going on is that most leaders think, well, I can communicate, why would I need a communications person? We all communicate in this world, we all. That's what we do, that's how we engage, that's what makes us human. But in terms of how you strategically put that together, how you anticipate how things are going to land, especially when there's like big things going on, and then as a leader or even an HR leader, you're managing the big things that are going on and do you have the bandwidth to do the communications piece well and strategically and methodically? And I think that's why I say I get brought in when these big things go on, because all of a sudden, everybody's individual role is imploding.

12:12
And I would say the same thing, going back to your example with the project management piece right is that that project manager and the teams that they're helping to facilitate moving from point A to point B. It's usually a big change, right, it's not a small thing, it's a big change. And there's lots of new things that need to be mapped and redone and let's not lose any of the details. And you know the project management and the project team, they need to be focused on those things. And then the change management person is helping to say you know, ok, how is this impacting people in the real time and from a bandwidth standpoint, you need those to be separate things.

12:52 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
Interesting Bandwidth, that's true Bandwidth and focus Right. So a little bit of separation of church and state. Yeah, to kind of get that circular feedback state. Yeah, to kind of get that circular feedback Interesting.

13:10 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
So you say mid market.

13:11
Is that the target that you have now, or it is? It is the target I have now Because I. So there's several things about me as a professional. First of all, I've learned along the way that I really like to build things and I maybe I'm less excited when I'm in maintenance mode over the long haul, right, like I really love reinventing and creating new, new campaigns and things like that. And then it's the same old, same old, same old year eight, year 10, that I was less appealing to me and so A that's why I decided to flip my head over to the consulting side of the house.

13:45
But and many companies don't have that repeat, repeat, repeat thing they really do use their communicators in a way that is, you know, always forward looking and that's for the best. But in the mid-market space in particular, they don't usually have the comms people. So you're really part of the team helping to solve. You know, how are we communicating whatever's going on to the people in the organization to get them on board, get them engaged, get them excited about the future and what this change means for us and what this change means for you as an individual and how you fit in and and um, you really need a person filling that role. But most mid-market firms haven't discovered that yet.

14:27
So when I talk mid-market I'm usually saying over 250 employees, because below that you can kind of get away with just management by walking around like an eo system or something. But you get larger than that and that starts to break down a little bit and then up to a thousand, because by by a thousand most of the time the light bulbs gone on and they've said let's bring in a comms person and there's somebody in house and that'd be somebody who's, you know, deeply experienced, but there's someone at least reaching out and doing the, the employee communications or newsletters or you know, there there's, there's a need, that's an ongoing, that's more maintenance, right at a thousand.

15:08 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
I see the maintenance type communications that you're referencing. Yeah, technician level, yes, exactly to manage it, and then it still falls back on the pms for the larger things yes, and you still need someone with that message.

15:24 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
strategy piece.

15:25 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
So yes, yep, yep, okay. And so you've talked about culture. When you come in, when you, when you're brought in for a change, right, some of these bigger events, what are you looking for and how are you managing that? Not just the strategy, but the actual communications as well.

15:47 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
Yeah, so really, what you're trying to do is understand what is it that prompted them to bring me in in the first place, right, right, so I'll pick on mergers and acquisitions, because it's a thing that I really focus a lot on, and there are some very predictable things that an organization is going to go through when there's an acquisition and you're trying to integrate the two organizations, and the first thing is right out of the gate are you making it be something that the acquired firm is excited about or are you making it something that is dreadful?

16:25
I once went through a merger that I was not the comms lead on, but I was experiencing as a employee, and we literally were made to sit for weeks on end and not do any work, right, and so most people started polishing up their resumes. I wrote a business plan because I was like my out is, I'm going to start a business. This was years ago, not this this time but we literally sat around doing nothing for weeks because they said we're going to I was in marketing back then that we're going to freeze the marketing budget, so just hang on, hang loose for weeks. And so I mean, I think that those kinds of situations where you're not thinking at all about the audience, then how it's impacting them is really what I'm here to help make, not be the experience, right.

17:18 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
So on day one.

17:19 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
You want it to be exciting and something people are jazzed about. They see their future, they see that there was a smart move for the companies to come together and that there's a there there for you on the other side of this, and, and so day one can be a huge, impactful thing in terms of engagement and American engagement. Employee engagement is very, very low, so chances are good that the company's employees already are at that normie 70% are disengaged standpoint. So you're going to. You want whatever you layer on top of that to be a positive experience that creates hope and excitement, and you know potential and what could happen because of this, and and you have that first impression opportunity only once. And so I'm a big proponent of let's plan a great day one that explains why we did this, what we saw in you. Make sure that you understand that you know your benefits and your pay are going to be solid. Don't be worrying about that at all. You're taken care of. And then and then also letting them see who the leaders are as people and let them talk a little bit about why they are personally excited about the company they're a part of and the and and the like. So just like helping them feel welcomed and excited. And so day one, that's a big part of it. But then, almost immediately behind that, you've got this two leaders in sales and two leaders in IT, and two you know. So there's this, there's this.

18:48
Some of the leaders are probably going to leave as a result of the merger, and so, or the two companies coming together, the integration, and so when that happens, some of those people are losing a leader. That was the person who hired them, was the person that inspired them, and maybe that person had told them what their future would look like. So now, all of a sudden, their future is like wait, wait, why is my path going to be the same? And so all these questions come up. And so, and then you're going to merge those two organizations, because you can't take somebody's leader out and then not put them into an organization with leaders. So now there's a they've experienced a reorg, and then there might be duplication further down the organization, so there might be a layoff or a reduction workforce. Duplication further down the organization, so there might be a layoff or a reduction workforce hopefully not too big, but all of that's very unsettling.

19:39
So how are you helping people understand what's going on, understand why it's happening, making sure that they know that the people who are exiting are being well cared for, because you're a company that cares about them and cares about people. And then you know you get to the other side of that and you maybe want to do a little bit of listening, like how about some focus groups just to get a sense of you know how are people handling all this change? And you know, is there anything you should be doing or saying differently to help them? You know, understand and that's a great opportunity when you're out there talking to people to understand their culture, what they like about it, what they don't like about it, your culture, what you personally, as a leader, as a leadership team, like about it, don't like about it, and start to chew on what do these two organizations look like coming together? Could you potentially merge the cultures and take the best of both worlds and maybe retire or sunset some behaviors that maybe aren't the best of both worlds? And I think if you're a mid-market firm that hasn't been around for centuries, you have that opportunity to have that flexibility in your culture. You know, if you're a much longer well-established company, it's harder to say hey, we're going to start to work. You still can work the culture, but you know you may not do it with every acquisition that you make. But in the mid-market space there's this opportunity to like take that moment to make the culture what you want it to be in order to succeed as you go forward, and like build in more innovation or build in more engagement or whatever the case may be.

21:06
So, anyways, all of that stuff, did I answer the question? Cause I feel like I got on a riff and I was like, hey, I'm talking about all the how comms fits into this. So you're kind of looking I guess you're looking at the problem and then you're assessing I think I need to close it out. You're assessing what are the things that need to happen as you move through these phases and then how does communication fit into that? And then you determine, well, what are the vehicles that we need to utilize in order to communicate.

21:35
Some of the time it's a script, right, and it's creating a frequently asked questions document to arm leaders, because some of the messaging needs to be heard very close to the individual and their team. But I also will say that you know they say it takes seven or eight times hearing something for it to. You know get through to people. So you know layering your messaging so you have that all hands meeting, and then you have the email, and then you have, and so you're layering it so that they're getting that repeated message, and so it's all of the tools at your disposal, not just one of the tools at your disposal.

22:24 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
True, right, I have often been appreciative of scripts and then we also had kind of dedicated Q&A so that the speaking points, sometimes we could anticipate the questions based on past. But then we also at the end of the day would meet again as supervisors, managers, leaders and review the questions that came up so that we were getting consistent answers. There's a lot of time and dedication associated to trying to be consistent and I mean I've worked in facilities that had up to 4,000 people so it's hard to be consistent across 4,000 people. Even the guy in the back of the room does not hear the same message as the guy in the front of the room when you do the town halls, yeah.

23:16 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
Well, because they're not. They're not meeting the eye, they're not, they're not feeling that same. I'm in on the joke because the leader's making eye contact and joking with people in front. I will say that you, you raise a really great point there because always when I'm, when I'm handing out scripts, so first of all I'm like this is your script, read it 50 times, Read it 100 times, read it, read it, read it.

23:39 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
I don't have time for that.

23:41 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
No one ever gives me that much time, highlight the words that are going to become a touchstone for you and then say it in your own words. And you can refer back to your touchstone, highlighted words and say, okay, this is where I left off and I kind of went down a rabbit hole. But, like, here's where I'm going to pick it back up and you know, you're able to use your own words, but stay to the topic. And then, with respect to the FAQs, my approach with FAQs is to say what is the really freaked out person going to ask and what is the really excited person going to ask. And you know, what is the fearful person going to ask and what is the angry person going to ask? Right, because if, like, there's literally some cheese being moved, maybe there's an angry person in the room, right, and so you're going to ask all those questions and you're going to provide those answers. But because of that, you don't hand those FAQs out, you don't post them on a wall, because why would you, if somebody is happy about the change, why would you even remotely give them a sense of why they might look at it as an angry person, right? No, so those stay in your hip pocket. And then, finally, and you treat those the same way. You read them and read them and read them, and then you say the thing in your own words. So it's authentic and natural, but it's aligned across the organization.

24:55
And then the opener for the FAQs, but also for the larger script, is If you get questions that aren't on this sheet, that haven't been addressed here, don't wing it, because if everyone in the organization is winging it and answering as though how they think about it is the way it's actually going to go, that's where you end up with the water cooler chats where people are like well, I heard this and I heard this. Well, now the credibility has gone down the drain, right, so you don't wing it, say you know, that's a really great question and I'm going to go get an answer and I'll get back to you. Okay, and people can accept that, that you aren't omniscient and you don't know all the things, and so you know, take that caution, precautionary note, because it's your own credibility that's going to be on the line if you answer the wrong way and it doesn't go that way. So better to err on the side of caution.

25:51 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
So we were talking about moments of matter and what was interesting to me, specifically in the mid-market right now, is the number of mergers and acquisitions and the number of organizations, specifically family-owned, generational handover or third gen selling out right Like we are facing one of the largest transitions of family owned businesses in history.

26:24 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
They're not mergers, they're like wholesale sales mostly right it's like a long time family business that's sold to a new person person.

26:32 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
So, and how do you come in as a communications expert in a situation like that?

26:39 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
Yeah, so so usually there's some kind of an agreement where the previous owner if it's a, if it's a one to one sale, where it's a previous longtime owner who's now sold their business to another, who's now sold their business to another, you know. So usually there's some kind of earn off kind of a situation where that the previous owner stays with the organization. So that helps with the transition. But it's really about getting in there and understanding. You know what is the buyer's point of view and what is the buyer like about this business. What are they excited? It's really the same things. What are they excited about? Why did they buy this business, what you know, what they intend to do with it, and then you know how does. How is that similar or dissimilar from the previous owner? And how can you merge those two message streams so people can be more accepting of the new leader? And then really leaning into that previous owner to help make sure that their messaging is supportive of the new buyer and prepping people for what's ahead.

27:40
Like maybe that new buyer bought the business just to run it as it is, because they're really excited about what, how it was and how it performed, or maybe they're like this is just the beginning.

27:50
I'm getting lots of funding and I'm going to grow this thing, and you know. And so prepping people for the fact that we're going to grow and this is an exciting time, but it also could be, look, you know what. The previous owner allowed these four subsets of our business to cooperate and took money out of thriving business A and threw it into not so thriving business D, and you know we're going to get rid of business D, and so there's going to be some prepping people for what that's going to look like as well, and helping people navigate through that. That could result in a layoff or it could be a repurposing of your role, and it could be that your project goes away. And so how do we, you know, how do we retain the people we want to retain through that process? And so that's really about understanding the strategy, and I'm there to support the strategy through communications that bring people along and make things as palatable as possible for the employees if they're on a less than exciting path for where things are going.

28:58 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
So Right, okay, so do you have any other further points relative to your organization or your business that I haven't asked you about?

29:11 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
I think you've been giving me a lot of runway and I did like go off on a riff about M&A. So you know, I guess. The other thing I guess I would say is that you know, when I talk about moments that matter, it's everything that touches the employee all the way around their entire life cycle, right? So from how they first saw you on the internet and on your website and in the job description, how they first experienced their sense of who you are, it could be how you show up on Glassdoor. So are you managing proactively your Glassdoor presence? And, by the way, glassdoor, that's where those people that you didn't do a good job exiting are going to show up. So when I say, hey, let's exit people with empathy and make them whole and do the best we can by them, it's not only because they're going to talk to your existing employees that same evening right, there's going to be phone calls but then they're also going to show up on Glassdoor, and so you know the best you can do to make it clear that you're trying to be a caring, a caring leader about what's going to happen to them.

30:16
Going forward is really important. So all of those touch points, all the things. That is the sum total of your employment brand, because a brand is a promise. The brand externally is a promise, the brand internally is a promise. And are you living up to who you say you are, promise, and are you living up to who you say you are? And um, so all those touchstones, touch points kind of add up to the onion that is your internal brand.

30:43 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
so I think that's it well, well, thank you. Thank you for highlighting the moments that matter and how they fit in together for the employee journey through those sometimes positive changes and for a few people sometimes it doesn't feel like it's so positive, right, exactly? I mean, we all know that when a door closes, a window opens, but sometimes it just doesn't feel breezy enough yet, you know, and it doesn't feel like that and like how the door is opened and how are you escorted out?

31:13 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
Are you kicked out? You know? Is any effort made to shine a light through that door, to make your transition to the new location better? I mean, those things all matter, right, they do all matter.

31:27 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
Yes, yeah. So then, that brings us to the gratitude portion of our session. Okay, and I had asked you for a name of a person who had helped you along your leadership journey, entrepreneurial journey, and we are going to co-create an acknowledgement statement using the spirit of acknowledgement method.

31:55 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
Okay.

31:56 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
Okay, so are you ready.

31:58 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
I am ready.

31:59 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
Okay, okay. First of all, who are you choosing to acknowledge today?

32:04 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
So, I'm choosing to acknowledge a woman that I used to work with many years ago in the branding half of my career, and her name is Susan Snowden, and she was assigned to me as a mentor and leader for a period of time when I had just joined a particular organization, and she's a very large personality, very friendly person, very thoughtful, and she taught me many things that have stuck with me throughout my career in terms of just how to navigate the professional world. So is there a model, or should I?

32:43 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
just talk about that. If you give me succinct answers, it'll be easier for me to ask you. I'm going to pull out a few, Okay. So my first question is specifically what did she do for you? What were those actions? You said mentoring, but specifically how did she put you on that?

33:05 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
path. So I would say there are three things that I learned from her. So one is dressing the part for the environment and the and the circumstances you find your end yourself in. So earlier in my career, before going to that company, I had been in kind of headquarters, at manufacturing environment kind of a thing. So business casual was very much, you know, the, the norm, if even that it could have even just been casual, casual. And so stepping into an organization where the plants and the headquarters were very separated required a different kind of address code and I didn't understand that I didn't, I just didn't have that awareness and I didn't understand that I didn't, I just didn't have that awareness. So she helped me with that, like become aware of what is the, what is the dressing, the part that is appropriate for this environment, this moment, this circumstance, even like today I'm doing a lot of networking, what, how should I be dressing for networking and things like that? So that's one, be dressing for networking and things like that. Um, so that's one. Two, um, she.

34:19
One of the first things she did was have me put, put me through a little model for a development plan. So, um, and she talked about development and that you should always be like, regardless of where you are in your life and your career, even if you're on the retirement end of the spectrum. What, what? How do you want to learn and grow and continue to thrive and have new experiences and have new learnings. And so the value of having a development plan for yourself, regardless of where you are, so that the things you're learning are helping you get to where you want to be. Just how important that was, and so I really love and respect that philosophy and embrace it fully. And then three is the value of listening, right, the value of asking questions, getting information and then just really like listening and probing and trying, striving to understand, and just how important that is as a communicator, obviously, but I think for anyone, just how important that is in your career trajectory.

35:26 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
OK. So dress. Development and listening, yes, correct, ok, yes. And listening, yes, correct, okay, yes. What did so? The next in spirit, the next one is P and it stands for personal. And so what did it cost her? What was the objectives Like? What would have been an obstacle or effort, that extra effort that she would have had to put in in order to be your mentor in order to do these things.

36:01 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
I think she very my perspective very much enjoyed having that role. She was the kind of person who liked to invest and see people thrive. I think she turned down those kinds of opportunities when she didn't feel like the recipient was going to be receptive and and open to growing and trying and learning new things and and seeing what was on the other side. But I think when she had people that were eager to learn and eager to um, have have new experiences and um, because she's such a caring person, I think that it fed her the person that she was to do this work and so um, so I don't know. I think it was almost like what did it give her? Did it feed something in her?

36:56 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
almost like what did it give her, did it feed something in her? So it reflected on her character of caring and developing Definitely, definitely, okay, okay, and how did that impact your career?

37:07 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
So, in that environment in particular, it helped me to navigate, you know, a much more formal environment than I had been in previously and it taught me to, I think, in the longer term, taught me to be more aware, situationally aware, of what was going on and what the norms were, and and how to thrive, and it it taught me to listen, obviously, and to be a more you know, just, communication is not just outbound, it's inbound, and you can't do this work if you're not taking that data in.

37:48
And I think that a lot of leaders overlook that and they don't listen to their teams and they don't realize the rich amount of information about how the organization's going, by listening to the team, by listening to all the stakeholders, by listening to your stakeholders, writ large, right, so, um. So it was a big lesson that the power of listening as part of the two way street of communication, um and then um. And then, just like the fact that I think I've treated my life and my career as a learning journey, and I think that I became much more conscious having gone through that exercise with her, and just the way that she talked about learning and development, and like it was a big epiphany for me, so it was very forming in your path.

38:43 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
Yes, okayi are, and so the organization that you were on at at the time did that. Did her actions relate back to any of the organizational values for that company?

39:09 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
organizational values for that company. You know it's interesting that you say that. So I would say yes, within my division for sure, that's right. My division was a high growth Um. They had brought me in to facilitate that growth and to be part of that growth and solving what they were doing. And um, I think her coming in was a way to get me up and running and functional and and supporting that growth right out of the gate and um, and and bringing a different kind of value. I think.

39:46
You know, in reality I think they had wanted her to stay in the division but she was brought into the division just for this period of time while there were several of us that were new and um, she got us up and running and rocking and then and then she went back to the parent company. Um, do did they reflect the larger organization? I have questions about that, because that's the organization that later on in my tenure there merged with another organization and all things went crazy and both of us ended up leaving the organization as a result of the, of the disruption that occurred. So hard to say, you know, hard to say at the Uber level.

40:32 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
But the high growth at the moment was important.

40:34 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
Yes, absolutely that, that she got not just me but several others up and running and vocal and you know, and adding value.

40:45 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
Yeah, adding value so yeah, that's a great way to phrase it. Okay, so when we talk about the spirit of acknowledgement, we talk about specifically identifying what the person did for you. We identify either their personal characteristics that they're displaying, practicing or any obstacles that they would have had to overcome to be supportive of that specific action. And then we talk about the impact and often I try to really drive what are metrics like? If you're inside a company and you're acknowledging an activity, really, how did that activity impact company metrics? Ideally, we have a company that has stated visions and values and your actions are aligning to that, because your metrics should also be aligning to that. And we would highlight the difference between metrics and relevance by talking about the impact. That's the I and the R A little bit of the how.

41:51 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
I will say that I came on board. During that period of time the company the larger company had acquired a business and that business was, let's call it, 250, 300 million in size as a division and after my tenure, during my tenure, we grew to a billion. So like that's a significant growth, and so I would say there definitely were metrics that were reflective of right, all the right decisions being made to allow that to happen.

42:30 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
Right, and this is more of a reflective acknowledgement, whereas you can really use this on your day to day, week to week project management and you're really tying this in. So this is a little bit of a twist on that, because the next two are inclusive and timely and, again, when you see positive activities taking place in the workplace, you really want to acknowledge them as soon as possible and you want them to be inclusive, as in public, so that everybody is seeing what you're acknowledging, because that becomes a roadmap for them also for their behaviors and their actions. So okay, so remind me of your mentor's name, susan, susan. So can I try to summarize what you told me? Sure, absolutely. Okay, let's see.

43:27
Susan, thank you for the time that you spent with Linda early in her career. You came in during a critical growth period for the organization. That coincided with a time where she needed your guidance in navigating dress codes and context and navigating development, understanding that lifelong development is something that will carry her career forward, and understanding the importance and the power of listening and that communications is truly powerful. Communications for leaders is truly a two-way street, internal and external. By pouring into Linda during this critical time period in her growth in her career you laid the foundation for many of the topics that she has carried forward in her entrepreneurial experience as well. That has made her a successful communications expert. You can see her development and her growth, but also, during that very specific time, a significant growth within that organization and managing the flux and the change. So it shows your dedication to planning and development. Yeah, definitely so. Yeah, sometimes it's hard. It takes us 15 minutes to get down to a two or three minute sentence.

45:10 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, no, that makes sense, because you know you're kind of. I mean, for me. I'm pulling off of a memory that was like a very rich memory, right, but it's in a capsule, you know so a capsule.

45:31 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
you know so and it's. It's helpful, right, like having this again, for, as an experienced communicator, you probably know all those things, but as a person, when they're learning an emerging leader, they often don't know how to say much more than thank you, and they probably truly mean it, but that doesn't necessarily land and it's not forming people and it's not telling them why, other than it was a good day, it felt good, right. It's not specific enough to understand love language, to understand the corporate language, and when you start pulling on the specific KPIs and the specific KAIs, you help build that story. And so many managers do not know how to tell the story between action and metric and this can help them do that in a positive way, where other people begin to start seeing how things are tied together.

46:30 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
Yeah, I think taking the time to do that is part of it as well, right, because you're living in the moment and the pace of change today is just I mean, it's like a fire hose. That's almost an understatement, right? So how often do you take the time to say I'm going to look at this period of time and this series of activities, and with this individual, and reflect on?

46:52 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
that, but being intentional, even if you did one per week and the, as with all things, with practice right, practice your scales on the piano, whatever, with reps, you get better and you get faster and it's so valuable to really put in the effort at first and there's a little bit of vulnerability. The first couple of times I did this I didn't feel comfortable. But you get better at understanding what people see and need and feel and you have to know them well enough to know what those obstacles were, what they were overcoming. You know, Joe had to sit at three trains to get to work this morning and he still made it on time. How is that even possible? Probably because he leaves 20 minutes early every other day, right, or every day, and then to accommodate but I don't even think people like know that half the time right like.

47:52
But but take a hot second to get to know the people who work for you. Yeah, oh, because those obstacles agree. Yeah, those obstacles make a difference. Right, I understand that we're measuring metrics and output, but we can acknowledge the effort that's associated with the input, and that's when a person starts to feel seen. That's brilliant yeah nice, I didn't mean to be brilliant, I just want people to care, right? No, it's important.

48:26 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
It really is it drives productivity.

48:28 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
It is incredible when we look at the numbers comparing organizations that have a positive gratitude system versus those who don't. It's 9% to 10% difference year over year.

48:40 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
Well, it's that really knowing someone too, and what's going on in their home lives, right?

48:46 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
Yes.

48:47 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
Is someone sick in their family, Are they caring for someone that's taking something out of them or whatever. So I mean those things matter and, to your point, helping them feel seen out and beyond the metrics, I think.

49:03 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
Yes, right, yeah, yep, acknowledge what goes in. I think yes, right, yeah, yep, acknowledge what goes in, measure what comes out. Yeah, it's a nice way of thinking about it as well. Right, your communications are in and out, internal and external.

49:17 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
Yeah.

49:20 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
So, linda, thank you very much for your time today. I have greatly enjoyed this conversation. This has been fun. I know Like really introspect. Much for your time today. I have greatly enjoyed this conversation. This has been fun.

49:28 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
I know like really introspective for me too.

49:31 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
We could talk culture quite a few times in the future. I feel like we probably have a few things in common as far as that goes. It's a big topic and it's not always a popular topic, so it should be more popular.

49:48 - Linda Carlisle (Guest)
It's very powerful, so happy to come back anytime. This was really fun, Thank you.

49:53 - Dr. Angela J. Buckley (Host)
Thank you very much, so we will keep in touch and I look forward to talking to you again in the future. Thanks, Angela. Thank you for joining us on Voices in Leadership, where leaders who connect, inspire and grow share their stories. I look forward to welcoming you back to our next conversation. In the meantime, visit wwwvoicesinleadershiplive to access show notes, links and to subscribe and stay connected. And, in the spirit of gratitude, let's remember to thank one person near you Until next time. This is Dr Angela J Buckley signing off.