In this week's episode, Anique Coffee is joined by E1B2 founder AJ Vaughan. Together they dive into what it takes for leaders to step into flexibility as a way to better understand and support the diverse needs of their team.

How do you balance different learning and working styles across an organization?

Where can we find opportunities to offer flexible solutions for our people?

Listen now to learn more about how to curate a human-centered employee experience with flexibility at its core. 

Learn more about Within People and the work we do here.

All right, let's go.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Reimagining Work From Within.

My name is Anique Coffee, a partner based in London, part of our UK and

Europe hub here at Within People.

And today I am joined by AJ and we're really excited to kind of dig into some

things that we've been talking about a lot lately around our employee experience.

Specifically about how we can bring flexibility to our culture.

But before we dive in, I wanna introduce aj.

He is an out-of-the-box radical hybrid who's obsessed with all things

entrepreneurship and employee experience.

A current three-time founder, startup advisor, hr, tech

advisor, executive, and proud son.

His rise within the world of HR and entrepreneurship is one that is definitely

not typical, but his focus and dedication to putting employees first drives him to

help forever change the world of work.

AJ's currently working on a brand that will hopefully

forever change the world of work.

E one B2 Collective, which is a collective of brands and practitioners

designed to make substantial employee experience within the

world of startups and small brands.

So welcome aj.

Thanks

for being here.

I appreciate it.

And I probably have to change that backend.

We're starting to get into some big enterprise companies

finally, so that's fun too.

But no, that was, it was, it was a great intro.

Thank you.

Exciting.

Great to have some, another growing company with us.

That's amazing.

Thanks for being here.

We've been having so many beautiful conversations behind the scenes.

And finally, we're here to.

take the conversation to the real world, and it's been really joyful

to kind of talk to you and that multihyphenate that came through

really strongly in your bio is very, very much how I would describe you.

You're an expert in lots and lots of different things, which is pretty cool.

But today we're gonna really be talking about flexibility and how to

bring flexibility to our culture, as we mentioned, and we're gonna kind

of think about that through a little bit of a unique way when we think.

Diversity and how we kind of respond to the needs on our team in a flexible way.

And so one of the questions we kind of asked you was, as a leader yourself, but

also the leaders you're surrounded with that are part of your collective, how

are you and how are they understanding the diversity of needs on their team?

and how they can respond.

So we kind of have a bit of a conversation here mapped that's

gonna be really fun to go through.

That kind of walks us through like what's needed to understand and

how can we respond as a leader.

Yeah.

Sound good?

That sounds amazing.

Amazing.

So I think one of the first things we talked about was getting really clear

on the foundation of really checking in.

Does your organization believe in diversity and difference?

does it actually, is that what actually drives growth?

So maybe you could help us understand that a little bit.

Like how would we know if that's a really core held belief that

we have, that it's difference in diversity that actually helps us grow

first and foremost?

I made a statement yesterday that I, it was, it was in the heat of the moment.

So I won't say it as bluntly as I said yesterday, but I want

to kind of paraphrase it a bit.

Don't know at a human level if globally everyone is ready to respect.

The elements of diversity that I think we are trying to push here, we,

we have to be very thoughtful about where individuals come from and their

backgrounds and how, how long they potentially have been ingrained in

certain elements of racial divide.

Certain elements of doing certain things one way, and,

and that's how they were taught.

That's how, where they were raised, that's what they did when they first got their,

their first internship, their first job, and as they progress in their career.

And I don't think human beings at a psychology level are res,

are respecting that enough.

I know.

I haven't, and I, and I'm starting to learn that, and I think anyone that's

focusing on de and I at an executive level, or anyone that's focusing on just

diversity broadly across the organization.

You have to realize and understand at at a human being level, and actually that

seeps into like your relationships, right?

With your partners, with your children.

You have to realize and understand where individuals come from,

how they're comfortable doing things, and that change management

process is a very difficult one.

That takes a lot of patience, that takes a lot of empathy,

that takes a lot of nuance.

You can't drive that initiative or that effort home aggressively, and I

think there's a significant uproar.

Companies, leaders, practitioners, blogs, PR people trying to push this diversity

issue to the forefront, which I love and I appreciate, but it's a difficult

one if, if you're not again, comfortable with that change already for that change.

So that's kind of just an overall setting of the, of the tone, if you will.

But to a little bit deeper beyond that, I wanna kind of highlight on

how companies need to realize the true business impact from diversity.

Um, I think diversity blends into workflows.

I think diversity can blend into marketing and product.

I think diversity obviously can blend into how you recruit and, and organize and

align your teams and obviously can blend into diversity of thought perspective.

It can blend into many, many factors.

I mean, we could rattle off again prior to this official

recording we were talking about it.

There's many categories and so I think I'll start and then I'll

pause here to see if you have any feedback on this, but I think.

We have to start there and reposition the conversation around diversity and

focus on the business outcomes first, and look at some of those pillars

that I just listed off and many more because that's, that's the point of view

that everyone can get behind, right?

Everyone can get behind how diversity can impact business.

Everyone can get behind how diversity can impact being more productive.

Everyone can get behind how diversity can impact driving

a more effective bottom line.

Not everyone can get behind.

The color, the gender, the, the other elements of diversity.

And, and it's not that I, I don't want to talk about that.

And I know this isn't technically the, the, the, the conversation of today.

But just broadly, again, I think if we can just reposition or repackage that

focus and, and start there and understand that, then I think we, we can, we can

have a really thoughtful conversation.

So I'll pause there cause I have a lot more to say about that.

. Anique Coffee: Yeah, I think that's

and frame it like, there's obviously all the intersectionality and the

difference that we all bring and there's ways to categorize that in

intelligent and not so intelligent ways.

But I think what we're kind of talking about here is around like diversity and

difference from the perspective of, of intersectionality at a bigger scale, like

a higher context level, but also like.

Diversity of thought difference in like creativity.

All of that difference is that is kind of more of what we're talking

about rather than like the race and gender and sexual orientation today.

So that's a really helpful frame and I think.

. It's funny cuz you said everyone can get behind that, but I'm not,

I'm not sure that's totally true.

Like, sometimes we experience clients who we never, we're not in the business

of convincing people that difference in diversity is what drives growth.

Well, I, we, we won't convince anyone of that.

If you don't already believe it, then that's where, we'll, we'll

start if you already believe it.

Yes.

But I think the question that I'm always holding there is, Who

will fly this flag and own that.

Like it can't just be the responsibility of A D E I leader.

Like all leaders need to get behind this and believe that difference in

diversity is what is gonna help us grow.

So what, can you say more about that?

Yeah.

And like what, how you've come across that before.

Yeah.

So the, I've actually run up against that a lot with my own companies and

the companies that we've supported.

We're, again, kind of going back to the original.

A lot of these leaders and practitioners grow up doing

certain things a certain way.

So for instance, maybe there's a leader in marketing or in sales or BD business

development where when they've got their first internship, They were led

by a leader that was a one-way type of individual, this is how we do things.

This is, you know, a, a top-down approach and this is how we

wanna go about these initiatives.

New ideas, don't want to hear them.

Like, you know, so diversity of thought was not something they were accustomed to.

So again, kind of going back to the original theme, and I'll move

on past that, but I do wanna like, kind of lock in on that, that we,

we do have to have empathy around where individuals come from and.

Starting there can begin the change management process.

But I do agree with you that on the client side, and frankly on the, the people

that I hire and that I partner with, I don't really have any energy to do

the change management process at times.

I'm in the middle though.

I, I've realized that there is value there, but to get a little

bit more directly focused and.

Assuming someone is open to hearing about the importance of diversity of thought

and how that can impact the business, I think I get into like, for example,

workflows, like, let, let's go down that, like I think what I've realized in my

career is everyone has a different way of getting things done, and I appreciate and

love the leaders that are more focused on the outcomes, not necessarily the

road of how you got to that outcome.

And, and, and that is something that I've worked a lot with my own leaders and a

lot of leaders that I support and that I, I appreciate where we need to look

at how someone wants to do something.

Have a 90 minute conversation, 30 minute conversation, and just open up

the books and say, look, here's how I would probably appreciate you doing it.

but I wanna learn a little bit more about how you've done it in your past

role or how you're open to doing it and, and looking at the, the difference

there and trying to find a nice blend between how the org and how the

department wants to structure things, but how that individual may wanna

make different tweaks and adjustments.

I see this happen in sales teams all the time where sales leaders may be

comfortable doing cold calls, may be comfortable doing email reach outs,

cold, but maybe there's a younger demographic and some newer individuals

in the sales force and they're like, I'm not doing a cold call.

It's 2023.

I'm not doing a cold email.

I'm really great at Instagram.

I'm really great at Twitter.

I'm really great at LinkedIn.

I'm really great at finding some online communities and being

a part of the community and having organic conversations.

So the workflow of how they got to having the sales meeting and closing the deal

may be very different than their leader.

But that leader from the advice that I'm giving needs to be open to, to

looking at those differences, looking at those changes, and be able to

make that adjustment and not, and not have ego tied into that adjustment.

Right?

So, so that's more of a tangible example of how I think that shows up in.

Yeah,

that's a really cool way to bring it back to flexibility,

like connecting it to the outcomes.

So if leaders are really good at showing us where we want to go, showing

us the outcome they wanna see how can they exercise flexibility with

their team and letting them take the route that they need to take based on

their difference and their diversity and their intersectionality to get

to the outcome that we wanna see.

So that patience and flexibility is what leaders can really bring

to deeply understand diversity on

their.

And I'll, and I'll give one more point about it too, leaders listening.

You want your team members to be comfortable in the work that they're

doing to be able to get the outcome that you want at a business level.

I think too many leaders are trying to hire everyone that looks

and feels and works like them.

And when you find a way to start to hire different types of individuals

that have a different workflow, it makes no sense to try to force them into the

workflow that you are accustomed to cause you're gonna be uncomfortable

and they're not gonna be productive, they're not gonna be efficient.

They're not gonna be engaged, they're not gonna believe in, in the best

practices, in the, in the inner workings of how to get the job done.

And so it makes a lot of sense to have those 30 minute, 60 minute, 90 minute

conversations and just hear them mouth around how they want to go about things

and, and obviously hold them accountable.

Make sure that the plan and the roadmap is, is competent,

as thoughtful as is detailed.

But as long as they check all those box.

Give them a chance, give them that, give them that, that rope, if you will, to, to,

to understand how they're gonna inevitably get things done and 90 days out.

If it doesn't work out, if the way that they've decided to try to put

things in place didn't go well, then obviously you ha you have some tweaks

and adjustments to do, but at least give them that grace to make those changes.

Hmm.

I like that we're talking a lot on like the individual level

and how to kind of like lead and manage at an individual level.

. I wonder if we can bring it back to maybe like a bit more of the organizational

level a bit, and think about it in like a bigger context way around our culture.

We understand what we mean by diversity in the frame of this conversation, but

how can someone actually understand what diversity means in their culture?

Because everyone's gonna have different levels of difference in diversity, right?

So what are some ways we can kind of get that clarity about

what diversity means to us?

Well, let me throw back to you, since we're talking

at the organizational level.

Um, Let's like more directly define that.

Cause I could give you multiple answers.

So from from the organizational standpoint, are you saying what diversity

means as a stamp of the company?

Are you saying how diversity can be blended into individual teams

or what the posse is gonna be like?

What?

Like what are your thoughts there?

Or how or which, which direction would you like me to go?

Cause there's a lot of different elements you could go.

I think if we're thinking about where we can bring

flexibility into our culture, yeah.

We can only be really flexible with the unique individuals that are on our

team if we understand who they are and what difference they're made up of.

So I wonder, as a leader, if we were, and you are, if you think about some

of the teams that you have, have you ever kind of done an exercise to get

clarity on like what is the difference in diversity in our culture so that

we know how to respond to the needs?

within our team.

Yeah.

So, and, and I hate to bring it back to the individual, but that,

but that is a little bit more of my personal approach, right?

So I, I'll give you more of a grand example, right?

So if I'm a c e O of a company, And I have 15, 20 different teams that are led

by those, those leaders of those teams, direct level, you know, vp, C-suite level.

I'm taking those managers, frankly, I'm mandating those, those managers and those

directors to go to those teams of five, six, and seven and, and really honestly

have those one-on-one conversations.

So a lot of my style and, and capabilities are what some would say, not scalable.

But I believe scaling the unscalable is actually the way to do things, right?

So that's what I would personally do, and that's what I've done.

I've, I've told my leaders like, you need to go to the team of seven individuals

that you lead, and you need to have 15 to 20 minute conversations with each.

But then look at the trends.

Look at the themes because each individual's gonna say similar things

and wanna, or gonna have a similar point of view around diversity

and what diversity means for them.

Because for that individual, there's diversity in how

they want to get work done.

There's diversity of communication.

, there's diversity of just overall thinking or perspective.

There's a diversity of how they wanna bring and generate new ideas.

There's a diversity of where they all wanna go with their careers.

And so I believe I want all of my managers to know the unique individual

diverse themes for every single person and, and document that information.

So use your H R I systems.

You as a a Google doc, do whatever you gotta do.

I mean, there's, we don't have to get into the, the technology of it,

but you should know as a manager across an entire organization.

So every single manager, every single director, every single vp, every

single C-suite, should have a really deep, comprehensive understanding of

what diversity means for every single individual across multiple themes.

And they should be able to open up their computer at any given point,

be able to look at that data, understand that data, and hold their

leaders accountable to that data.

Um, So that's kind of what I've done to try to, to try to scale it out,

but also keep it very individual.

Yeah,

I like that.

Like what I'm hearing you say is there's a listening exercise that needs to

happen at an individual level that is the responsibility of our leaders,

and it's because they're in service of their people, and that's part of their

leadership responsibility is to get to know them on an individual level.

and take like a really full audit.

Like what are the different needs of our people and how can we use that?

And I think when we originally talked, we talked a little bit about some

of the cultural rituals to support this and kind of keep it alive.

Like the manual of me or the guide to working with me.

Like this stuff doesn't have to just live on that Google spreadsheet

like you're talking about.

Right?

Like these can be part of like the cultural connections that.

keep alive and keep the door open on, and that keep us connected.

Do you have any other kind of rituals that you could recommend to leaders so that

they, once they understand the diversity on their team, how they can keep bringing

that back in and really honoring the difference that we have on our team?

Yeah,

so once they do the original deep dive to understand,

I'm a big fan of checking in every 90 days, every four months to see if

there's any tweaks to those categories.

So are there any tweaks to how you want to go about decision making?

You're influencing your desire, your input around decision making, any tweaks to

the workflow, any tweaks to your career desires, any tweaks to communication?

I mean, there's a bunch of different categories that we can touch on,

but are there any tweaks to them?

Right.

Let's have a conversation.

Again, every four months, every three months.

Let's see if there's any tweaks.

Let's see if there's any adjustments that need to be made.

I also like to, as, as the leader of the company, I wanna go to all the employees.

that can be done in surveys.

That can be done in one-on-one conversations.

Again, that can be done in a fireside chat where I want the employees

to be honest and to be vulnerable, and to be real about, Hey, my

manager's not living up to supporting and respecting my diverse needs.

My leader, you know, we've done the deep dive, we've done

the 90 minute conversation.

They know my desires.

They know where I stand as it pertains to diversity For me.

But I don't feel like we're living up to that.

And then as a leader of a company, I need to look at that data and I

need to make thoughtful decisions.

On whether this leader needs to remain a leader, if we need to do some leadership

training, if I need to have a, a very thorough, sometimes intense conversation

with that leader to understand what the differences are and why they're

in, why they're not, kind of diving into that contextual theme and nuance.

So to make it simple again, Every 90 days I like to check in, put on both sides.

So I wanna check in from the leader, I wanna check in on the employee

and I wanna make sure what we agreed to is actually being carried out.

And if it's not being carried out, what are the reasons why?

And what are the themes and how can we make adjustments and tweaks.

I really like that cuz we talk a lot when we

think about employee experience of it being like a bidirectional.

relationship, like we're making promises to each other.

It's not the power dynamic and the workplace culture has really shifted

it's people and employees are also empowered, not just the leaders.

Yeah.

And bringing that agreement, that shared agreement of we're in this

together, even into these conversations around flexibility and difference

and diversity feels really right.

Like ask the right question.

Leave the door open for processing and keep the door open.

But what I'm hearing you say is like you have to actually take action.

Just leaving, like having the conversation once is not enough.

Like, we need to keep bringing this back, keep the door open, and, and

there's psychological safety that needs to get created with that, right?

Yep, yep.

You know, it has to be documented.

It has to be tracked, it has to be data that you can, that you can refer to.

But then also, and you made a good point on the psychological safety element.

In order to even get the most out of those 90 minute conversations, that

employee has to feel psychologically safe with that leader, that leader, and

that employee has to feel psychologically safe with me as the entire leader of

the, of the company or the department, whatever the case is gonna be.

And so to be able to get to psychological safety most times, more often than

not, an individual showing an interest in someone's diverse set of needs.

It's going to create that psychological safety typically, right?

Because most professionals have never had that, ever, like most professionals

have never had a leader go to them and say, here are 15 different categories

of how to get work done here.

Tell me how you want to do and, and live and experience each and every one of

these categories, and let's just have a 90 minute, 60 minute conversation.

Most professionals are gonna sit back and they're gonna be in, in

kind of that weird, like, up moment.

Like, I've had that happen.

They're like, they don't even know how to respond initially.

You know, I, I had a moment with my wife where I did that with her cause

she was unhappy with her, with her manager at work and the first 20

minutes of the conversation she was getting some nervous smiles and looking

around and didn't know how to respond.

She's never in her life had a leader ask her, what do you want?

How do these little tiny micro elements of getting the work done.

What tweaks would you like to make to make you feel more

comfortable, but also productive?

So that in itself should take the, the edge off and should create

some of their psychological safety.

But here's what a lot of companies mess up.

They do that, they create that, that, that humanistic feel.

But to your point, then they actually don't change.

They're not holding their leaders and managers accountable to that work.

They're not, they're not readjusting the leaders and managers.

They're not training the leaders and managers, and they're not going

back to those employees and say, how are things going based off of

what we decided to put in place?

Do you feel like we've respected your diversity?

Do you, do we feel like you, we have done our part to make the adjustments

in the weeks that are needed?

More often than not, it's the one conversation, and then that's

it for the next 6, 7, 8, 9, 12.

That's where employees get pissed off, and that's where psychologically

safety takes a reverse effect.

That's where they start to get very insecure, upset, and feel

like they don't wanna say anything.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Okay.

So we're speaking a lot about how important these conversations

are with leaders and how we create the psychological safety.

I really like your call out on the 90 day cadence, cuz that feels quite actionable

and there's some accountability there.

But how else can we kind of keep these conversations going and what's

the importance of continuing to have these conversations with your

leaders and your team?

Yeah, so the, the importance of continuing to have the conversations

because unfortunately leaders also get very busy, right?

And so they may forget, they may not have the right systems in place.

Another, another actually thing that just popped in my brain, real, the honest, real

reason why I like to consistently have these conversations because we have to

remember that leaders are employees too.

I often make the mistake where I put so much pressure on the leaders around

this employee first methodology that I often forget that the leaders in

the companies that I'm running or that I'm a part of are employees as well.

So there are times where.

The employees are not always correct or right, like, like for example, parenting.

There are times where the kid messes up and the kid triggers us.

, and it's not our fault as a parent, it's not our fault as

the authoritative figures here.

It's the same situation I believe, as managers and leaders.

And so what I try to do is if I'm noticing that there's not a consistent

change happening, even though we're having the 90 day conversations on the

managers side, I wanna lean into the manager and say, , is there something

that the other executives on this team that can support you are not doing?

Is there something where the employees are doing that we need to

be thoughtful of and, and, and respect that are, that's making your, your

job harder to respect that diversity?

So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, but, but I think

we need to remember that leaders are employees as well, , and there

are times when their direct reports are making their job to respect

diversity potentially harder than it

should or could be.

I think that's a really good point, and you kind of mentioned this a little bit

earlier, but like it's the organization's responsibility to prepare our leaders

through leadership development and other kinds of trainings, to be in these

situations, to have these conversations.

And some of that is like building self-awareness.

So when they are triggered in these conversations and they become really hard.

How do they respond rather than react?

What can they do to like be in service of their people in this case, but also

where is the additional support for them?

Because this is a really challenging, difficult situation.

And even to bring it back to your first point, at the very beginning, everyone's

an individual including our leaders, just like their employees, their individuals

who bring their own intersectionality.

And what we find a lot of when we do leadership

development work especially, is.

, not everyone's had the privilege of having an amazing leader

around them as a role model.

So we bring a lot of our, our old stuff to our jobs and we just act out what we think

leadership looks and feels like without getting clarity on like what it really is.

Yeah.

And so I like that idea and I wonder if you could speak a bit about that

around like knowing we have difference in diversity in our culture and

it's gonna be what helps us grow.

What are some of the kind of ways we can prepare and develop our leaders?

To sit in these leadership roles amongst difference in diversity.

This is what I'll say.

We need to start by being thoughtful around if the leaders that we have in

place should actually be people leaders.

And I think we touched on this the last time we talked a little bit, so

I'll double click into this piece.

I've been pushing very aggressively for this.

We're inside of departments.

I believe there should be two leaders.

There should be a project management, skill-based subject matter.

Expert, that that is there to hold the team accountable.

That's there to project manage, that's there for employees to go

to and ask questions to get that, that subject matter expertise.

And then I believe there should be a, a humanistic leader that

has the same title, same decision making bandwidth, the same pay.

The same authority, but that individual focuses on having career mapping

conversations, having one-on-one conversations, understanding and having

the diversity conversations, having the therapeutic conversation with their

listening and getting feedback, and then looking at that feedback across all

the different one-on-ones and bringing it back to their project manager,

co-leader of that department, and being thoughtful about that data and, and

making some, some nuanced recommendations of decisions that need to change and

be adjusted based off of that data.

I've been pushing for this very aggressively.

I've had a couple companies take me up on it and I, and I've done

a little bit of, uh, individual behind the scenes consulting work

to help them put that in place.

I'll, I'll just jump, jump to the punchline here.

It's expensive.

I will admit that it's expensive to have two leaders at the top of a

department that have the same title.

Cause they're sharing titles.

So it'll be, you know, a co cmo, like, it's the same pace,

same titles and structure.

So it's expensive.

I'll admit that.

, but it's really, really worth it because I've talked to the employees

six months after, three months after they put that in place.

And the employees feel so much more comfortable going to Sarah for instance,

that's the project management based subject matter leader based expert.

They feel so much they, they know what to go to her for.

They don't go to her for anything else.

And they feel so much more comfortable and the rapport and the relationship is there.

And Sarah, on the other, an element too.

She, she's amazing.

Cause she's like, . I actually don't wanna be a humanistic based leader.

That's not my comfort zone.

I really don't like people, and I don't wanna say that I really don't like people.

I love what I'm doing here.

And, and so it's a win-win.

And then on the other side, right?

So I, I, I think.

And I'll pause there, but I, but I think that's what I personally would

start if I was, if I was, if you dropped me down in the CEO of a company today

and you said, Hey, our leadership is horrible, like we need to fix this.

It's causing significant attrition.

It's causing turnover.

It's causing dysfunction.

That's the first place I would go.

I would have a conversation with each director, each vp, each head of the

department, each manager, and I would say, do you want to be a people based leader?

And they're like, well, what do you mean?

And then I would define that and say, here are the responsibilities of a

people-based leader and here's, from what I'm hearing from you, here's what I

think you probably more likely are, which is on the other side of the leadership.

That doesn't mean you're not a great leader.

That doesn't mean you don't deserve to be a leader in this company.

But maybe we need to re readjust and and shuffle up your role a bit.

So I'll pause there.

I dunno if you have any thoughts on that, but

yeah, I mean, I think that's super interesting.

We have found a lot in the last year that.

companies are promoting people from within because they're asking for it or thinking

that that's what's great for retention.

But ultimately they're not necessarily set up or developed

or want to be a people leader.

And it's a totally different skillset, and I kind of like how your anecdote

is bringing it back to flexibility.

Again, for us, it's being flexible around the roles and responsibilities

in our organization too.

Like not everyone wants to be a people leader.

Sometimes people wanna.

Manage and be subject matter experts in a different way, and their skills

are really the project management and the moving things along and creating

momentum and all of those things.

So I think that's quite interesting too.

It's like how can we understand the diverse needs of our leaders and

how they want to grow and develop.

and where they wanna grow and develop.

It might not be in the humanity space of work, it might be in

different, different areas.

So that's kind of interesting.

But I guess what we're both saying is it's super important to prepare your leaders

to deal with difference in diversity rather than just throwing them in, right?

Like there needs to be some really thoughtful, some thoughtfulness that

goes into getting our leaders ready to, to deal with difference endeavor.

And I'll

say one last thing too.

If here's something else you can do.

So let's say you do that.

Another thing you can do is you can be more thoughtful

about how you promote leaders.

So you go and have that conversation prior to them being a leader.

They're saying No.

I, I think, yeah, I think I am a humanistic based leader.

I like the definitions and the categories of that leadership responsibility, but

maybe they've never done that before.

It comes somewhat emotionally natural to them.

They're attracted to it, but they've actually never done it.

Don't just rush to put them in leadership.

Put them in trainings, build an internal training internally, partner them

with, with a mentor or a buddy that is, that is a great leader from that

humanistic point of view, like groom leadership into that, into that role.

I think it's a lot harder to groom a people-based leader than it is a project

management base and a task-based leader.

I genuinely do.

I really, really do.

Yeah, the, the project management, the administrative part of

leadership is very difficult too.

No, the emotional part, the career mapping part, the, the skill development part,

that's, that's very, very difficult.

Cause you're dealing with, you're dealing with so many different emotions and so

many different needs and so, and, and that diverse set of, of desires, um, yeah.

That's hard.

Yeah.

I'm just, yeah.

I'm objectively standing on that.

That's really hard.

Yeah, it's

really, I, I spoke to you with some leaders this week

actually about this, and I think this is something interesting and then

we can kind of start to wrap it up.

But the, We move through our career progression, starting off as doers.

We don't start off as leaders.

We start off as doers and we build up identity and you know, value and being

someone who does and completes projects and ticks things off lists, and then all

of a sudden we're moved into a leadership role where now our job is to be in

service of our people a lot more of like a B space, a sit back, a hold space, be

there for our people instead of doing.

We're still employees and we still have to manage up.

And so there is still this element of having to do things.

Everyone has to maybe, except for our really big C-suite folks.

Um, and it's, that's really hard to manage.

You're constantly flipping contexts and what is my role in this

conversation and now I need to go back to doing and how do I do that?

And it's a lot of maturity and a lot of need that needs to be developed in

order to be a really successful leader who's in service of other people and can

kind of keep the doing and control and.

Manage their own energy really, I guess.

Yeah.

And the, and the

consultants out there.

The firms, the companies, the one that you're a part of, the universities

out here, the training programs.

We need to maybe open back up the books a little bit and say, are our

programs right now really geared towards both type of leaders?

And do we need to redo the, the manual if you will?

Do we need to restructure the training?

Do we need to be more thoughtful?

What is what we have right now really geared towards a 2023 and beyond

base leader and, and is it split into two different directions and

can we be thoughtful about that?

The last thing I'll say too, on this C-Suite, leaders need to respect the

diversity of needs and thoughts of their, of their managers and directors as it

pertains to if the leader and manager raises their hand and say, Hey, I need

an adjustment of workflow here, right?

You know, you hired me to be a people-based leader.

I know I still have some core deliverables on my plate, but I'm not, I'm not able

to serve my people in the, in the, in the human part of my role because I'm two

tasks with, with other initiatives here.

I believe C-Suite executives need to be able to give their directors and

their managers that leeway to make that adjustment, to make that tweak to

their workflow, to make that adjustment to their, to their bandwidth and, and

be more open and nuanced about that.

So, That's another little advice.

If there's any CEOs or any, any high level C-suite executives listening.

Yeah, how they can actually bring flexibility

to it for other people too.

, I love it.

Great.

Well thank you so much.

This conversation about bringing flexibility to our employee experience

and our culture, I feel, feel like we got quite a lot of amazing gems of wisdom.

So thank you so much AJ for today.

It's been lovely to have this conversation with you.

We're really grateful to have you on the pod and we always like to wrap up our

episodes with our rapid fire questions.

So are you ready to go through some rapid fire questions?

. Okay, cool.

What three words would you use to describe the workplace

culture that you'd like to lead?

Uh, empathetic, patient, and decisive.

Love that.

What three words would you use to define the future of

work?

Hmm.

HR tech.

That's a two, two words, but HR tech, and I can explain if you want diversity.

And then, ooh, ooh, this is our rapid fire, um, empathy again.

I love it.

Okay, great.

Okay.

From our eight essential human leadership qualities, which one quality is your

superpower or your strength and why?

One.

Yep.

Which one is your superpower?

Probably empath.

Probably empathy.

Okay.

Say a little more about that.

Yeah, probably empathy, because very similar to the conversation today.

Every single one of my leaders that I, that report to me or that I work with,

every single employee, every partner, they'll, they'll tell you personally,

the reason why I think we've had a lot of success is because I'm very empathetic

to the way they wanna get things done.

I'm very flexible with, with how they, how they execute.

I'm very empathetic to their ideas and their thoughts and, and I test things out.

before I judge them.

There's many factors of empathy that I think can connect to like pure business.

So empathy.

Okay,

great.

Which of those eight qualities, which one is your development area or your stretch?

Mm Ooh.

This is hard cause I'm great at all these.

Uh, , no.

Um, I would probably say patience with a lot of projects going on at one

time and a lot of high expectations for everyone and everything.

Patience is tough for.

Yeah, that's my

stretch as well.

So I'm with you, . Okay, great.

What is your most treasured spot outside of work?

Hmm.

On the, yeah.

Probably just on the couch watching Netflix with the wife, besides people.

Love it.

Great.

Is there a person or a brand that you'd like to shine a light on today?

Oh, I'll give from a company per, I'll give from a

employee experience type element.

I'll give an example and I'll give from like just something I'm impressed by.

So I'll do the latter.

Yeah, do the latter first.

So on the company side, just something I'm impressed by, there's

a, there's a, the CEO o by the name of Ronnie, Ronnie Fig, he runs Kth.

Are you familiar with that at all?

Uh, no.

Really high level, um, streetwear brand.

Um, he does a lot of collaborations with.

every big brand you can think of.

Every major athlete you can think of, really, really

high level tasteful clothing.

I just love the way he goes about his collaborations.

Obviously with my collective, I do a ton of partnerships, so a lot of the themes

and how I, I frame and structure my partnership deals honestly are driven from

Ronnie Kiss framework, um, uh, with Keith.

So, so that's interesting.

Rodney Fig's framework with Keith, I said Rodney Kit.

Then on the, on the people of more employee experience side.

Um, I talk about this all the time, very underrated.

Gary Vaynerchuk with Vayner X is incredibly, incredibly underrated.

A lot of people don't do like a deep dive into like his business acumen

and his people leadership acumen.

He put, he put a, a Chief Heart Officer, Claude Silver.

That was literally the guiding point of a lot of the work that I also do now.

Her role, I actually.

That was a framework when I was the head of people in for like five years,

I kind of utilized that as well.

Cause she did not have a traditional HR background whatsoever, so, so

that probably is my answer there.

They're doing a, they're doing a lot of great work on the people side.

Interesting.

Okay.

Thank you.

I might do a deep dive on that a little bit now.

All right, last question.

Arguably the hardest, if you had to pick one song that represented who

you are as a leader, what would it.

Ooh, that is hard.

I'm horrible.

Like the titles of songs, you can

sing it for us if you want.

You can

sing.

No.

Um, Vila.

Yeah.

Vila Vida.

There.

It's, that's an amazing song.

I don't know if it really defines or categorizes my leadership styles

or, or, but, but it's a great song.

Cool.

Yeah.

Okay,

cool.

Thank you so much AJ for the rapid fire and for the conversation.

It's been lovely to have you here today, and thank you everyone that listened.

Thanks for being here for another episode of Re-Imagining Work From Within.

You can find us wherever you listen to podcasts every other week,