Do you know how to communicate with intentionality? We communicate practically as a reflex because it's one of the first abilities we learn as babies, and it's fundamental to the human condition. But despite this, we take it for granted, as if knowing how to speak makes us great communicators. Dr. Joy Karavedas, leadership development expert and author of The Leadership TAP, joins Melinda Lee to challenge that assumption and reveal why intentional communication is the most overlooked lever for building autonomous, empowered teams.
In This Episode, You Will Learn:
The Equip, Empower, Engage Framework
Why building an autonomous team mirrors launching a confident young adult, and how moving through these three stages transforms dependency into true ownership.
Why Letting Go Is the CEO's Biggest Challenge
“It's really hard to let go. Anytime you're empowering others, that means you're giving them a little bit of your power.“
How to recognize when your identity as the “savior“ is keeping your leadership team stuck, and practical steps to loosen control without losing accountability.
Communicating Vision So It Actually Sticks
“If they're not understanding, you're not communicating.”
Why saying it once is never enough, and how repeating the why, celebrating small wins publicly, and tailoring your message to different audiences builds alignment over time.
The Implicit Messages You Don't Realize You're Sending
“A lot of implicit, unstated communication can communicate more loudly to some people than the words that you say.”
How office layouts, who gets a door, and even what you celebrate silently shape your culture, and why awareness is the first step to intentional leadership.
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Spreadsheets never made employees wonder if they still mattered.
AI does.
That is why communication in the AI era requires humility, not authority. Exploration, not instruction. Psychological safety, not compliance.
The old rules no longer apply.
Learn why communication in the era of AI needs different skills in our latest post, "Communication in the Era of AI."
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About the Guest:
Dr. Joy Karavedas is an accomplished educator, conference speaker, and leadership expert with over 20 years of executive-level experience in independent schools and nonprofits. She sits at the unique intersection of education, organizational leadership, and human behavior, helping CEOs, executives, and emerging leaders build teams that run with clarity, confidence, and ownership. A published author of From Striving to Thriving and The Leadership TAP: How Leaders Get Noticed and Help Others Shine, Dr. Karavedas is the founder of Karavedas Coaching and Consulting, where she provides customized coaching and consulting to help individuals and organizations strengthen leadership, communication, and culture.
🌍 Joy has traveled to 26 countries and 30 U.S. states… and she's just getting started.
👅 She is a super taster, which means her sense of taste is far more intense than the average person's.
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About Melinda:
Melinda Lee is a Presentation Skills Expert, Speaking Coach, and nationally renowned Motivational Speaker. She holds an M.A. in Organizational Psychology, is an Insights Practitioner, and is a Certified Professional in Talent Development as well as Certified in Conflict Resolution. For over a decade, Melinda has researched and studied the state of “flow” and used it as a proven technique to help corporate leaders and business owners amplify their voices, access flow, and present their mission in a more powerful way to achieve results.
She has been the TEDx Berkeley Speaker Coach and has worked with hundreds of executives and teams from Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Caltrans, Bay Area Rapid Transit System, and more. Currently, she lives in San Francisco, California, and is breaking the ancestral lineage of silence.
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Transcripts
Melinda Lee:
Welcome to the Speak and Flow podcast, where we help CEOs and leaders develop their teams so they run with more clarity, confidence, and purpose, because I believe that communication is not just a soft skill. It is how your leaders actually help you to grow and expand your business.
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Melinda Lee: Today's topic is all around exactly that. How do we build these teams so that they run more on their own, with less support with the CEO?
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Melinda Lee: So, this is so important to me because it's not just about strategy or hiring the smartest people. It's more about how do we empower them to actually lead through alignment and through communicating clearly, and so that the company can run and less dependent on the CEO.
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Melinda Lee: So today, joining me is an expert. She's a leadership development expert. She's an author. She has so much experience in executive coaching, over 20 years.
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Melinda Lee: Through her work in education, communication, strengthening, leadership development, she's helped organizations make huge impact. She's also has a book, and she… I mentioned that, we'll talk about that book later, but she guides leaders and executives to help them thrive and shine. Her name is Dr. Joy Caravides. Welcome, Joy.
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Joy Karavedas: Hi, thank you, thank you, I'm so happy to be here.
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Melinda Lee: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to dive into this conversation, because this actually has been on top of my mind, and I'm really thinking about the importance of this, especially in our AI era, where we really depend more on our leaders to do so much of the work, with less time and more effectiveness. But before we dive in.
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Melinda Lee: I want to start off with this first question.
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Melinda Lee: There's a busy leader that has stopped to listen to this episode.
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Melinda Lee: And so, after really taking to heart everything you're about to teach, everything we're about to talk about today, what do you hope would change in this leader's life?
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Joy Karavedas: I think, I could sum that up with one word, and that is intentionality. When I work with leaders today, yes, they're busy, just like you said. They're often running from meeting to meeting, putting out fires, going from place to place, all… also trying to run an organization, create vision, and bring teams together.
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Joy Karavedas: I think that it's helpful if we can have our leaders learn to be intentional, intentional with the way they lead, intentional in how they communicate. And this is what I often get to work with leaders to do, is to take
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Joy Karavedas: Have them take a step back, think a little bit.
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Joy Karavedas: And develop some tools and practices that help them be intentional with what they have to say.
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Joy Karavedas: So that they can guide their teams better, and that they can guide their organizations better.
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Melinda Lee: Oh, I love that. I think that's so true, because we're just, again, so busy, and we really don't have the intention, or sit back and think about the intention. And so I think that we're… that's what we're gonna dive into today, and the importance of that, and how that really cascades to the rest of the organization.
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Melinda Lee: And so, for the audience, can you share more about what you do? And what excites you?
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Joy Karavedas: Yeah, I love this question.
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Joy Karavedas: from what I do is I really have the opportunity to work with organizations and their leaders to support their teams, often working both with executive leadership and also in team-building capacities to help them build those teams.
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Joy Karavedas: I work often in education and with nonprofits, but other organizations as well. I think the… as we can, most of us know, if you… whether you're from
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Joy Karavedas: a parent or you're just watching the news, education's in the midst of disruption right now, and so they… yes, you mentioned AI, that is one thing that's hitting all organizations, and especially in the education field, but just really flexibility and looking at how people want to work and how people want to interact, and I think that's hitting across most organizations. I work, like I said, with a lot of schools and educational
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Joy Karavedas: districts and colleges and universities, but I think it's… the principles apply across the board.
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Joy Karavedas: We need to look at…
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Joy Karavedas: where are we putting ourselves as leaders, and how do we want to, develop those teams behind us that they can lead intentionally, as I just said? So, I get the pleasure, and it,
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Joy Karavedas: Just builds my… builds my joy, fills my cup to work with leaders and teams to…
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Joy Karavedas: Walk into those situations and feel prepared, whether it's leading change, whether it's,
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Joy Karavedas: restructuring, or just strategic planning for the next phase, to really get to see people come together and build with the, similar goals, similar strategies, and head forward. It's just really kind of… it really excites me. It's one of the things that really, like I said, fills my cup and brings me joy.
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Melinda Lee: I'm so excited to dive into this, because you know why? I love that you're in education, and you've done a lot of work in education, and earlier when you and I were preparing for this, we're in the middle of graduation season.
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Melinda Lee: And we were thinking about, okay, I'm just so joyful to, see my daughter launch off. She's just graduated high school, she's gonna go to college, and I'm joyful because I know that she's gonna make the right choices, she's already proven so, I have so much faith in her, so much trust in her, but that didn't come overnight, right? It took a lot of years of preparation and nurturing and, training.
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Melinda Lee: And so, I want to know, like, this topic today, how does that relate to when an organization is running on their own, and they're taking ownership, the leadership team is running the business on their own? Can you see the parallel? Can you describe, like, what that, you know, how the parallel, how it could be similar?
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Joy Karavedas: It was interesting when you were talking, you said, well, there are some similarities to parenting, aren't there, on both ends. It comes with great joy, but also a little bit of fear and trepidation when you're moving forward, but if you, as a parent, when you launch your child, and you can see that I know they're equipped, I know that they've… they will make… they've made good… they've proven they can do this and stand on their own, I'm still here backing them, but I know that I'm…
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Joy Karavedas: ready. I think in an organization, we have similar
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Joy Karavedas: skills that we need to develop in our, teams and those around us. I have a…
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Joy Karavedas: phrase I use, which it says, equip, empower, engage. And I think in that order, is that we have to be equipping our… our teams. We make sure that they have the, skills they need, that we're talking about vision, we're talking about communication, we,
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Joy Karavedas: are preparing them and developing them, not just for tasks and the hard skills, but also the soft skills. How do we handle conflict? How do we communicate well? How do we,
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Joy Karavedas: interact with as a team, and, you know, all of those things. Then when you clip, empower, then you have to let them go. And letting them go can be really, really hard for the CEO or the person, because
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Joy Karavedas: they may not do it the way you do it, and… but if you feel, just as a parent, you feel you've equipped them well, and they've proven a few things, you empower them to…
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Joy Karavedas: give it a go and a try, and then I see, if you do those two things well, the engagement becomes easy, because then they want to take ownership, they feel confident, that confidence is there, they feel ready, and they can move forward, and they want to engage in
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Joy Karavedas: The vision and the… the next steps.
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Melinda Lee: Oh my gosh. And also, in our AI era.
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Melinda Lee: I think it's even more important that we focus on these, not… not… we can't even see it as soft skills anymore. It is actually how we grow the company, because all these hard skills, the technical skills that we've spent so much time perfecting and owning, unfortunately, is gonna… a lot of AI is gonna support with that, and help us move faster. So, but all of these other skills, such as leadership, communication, negotiation, sales.
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Melinda Lee: Team building, all these other skills really…
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Melinda Lee: Like, those are gonna take precedence, and focus.
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Melinda Lee: Because those…
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Joy Karavedas: One thing AI can't do is be human.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah.
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Joy Karavedas: Yeah.
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Joy Karavedas: the… all the things you were just saying, those are the natural parts of what being human is, is how do we communicate? How do we, make decisions? How do we handle conflict with others? How do we create vision and bring people together to share that?
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Joy Karavedas: Those are the human aspects that we do. We need to work with, our teams and our others.
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Joy Karavedas: and help them. We need to put… set them up to be able to practice some of that, and put them in situations they can practice, an experiment safely, not to, you know, where they can…
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Joy Karavedas: if it doesn't work as well as they thought, that we can still correct it, we're not, you know, ruining the organization. But, how can we help them and put them in places where they can practice these skills and set them up so that when they do step in these higher-level executive leadership roles, they're ready, and we're confident, and they're confident.
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Melinda Lee: Right, I love it. And so what happens when, in leadership teams, when they follow the model that you just described, equip, empower, and…
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Joy Karavedas: Engage.
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Melinda Lee: Engage. What starts to transform? What do you see happening?
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Joy Karavedas: It's interesting you say that, but I've used that a lot at different times, and I think that,
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Joy Karavedas: especially early on, I think, as leaders, we're all… we're taught really well about equipping. We're taught about how do we transfer skills, whether they're, communication skills, what we would term… used to term soft skills, or hard skills and task-oriented. And we have been taught that.
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Joy Karavedas: But then when we start looking at how do we really empower them to… and engage… empower them to do… work within those skills and then engage them, I think that's a cultural element.
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Joy Karavedas: Which I think, as executives, that is one of your main roles, is to create culture. And to create a culture that is going to support
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Joy Karavedas: the…
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Joy Karavedas: leaders and those coming aboard. So I think when we look at what does that… it's a… you know, what does that mean? And it's gonna… it might look a little different in different organizations, depending on size, depending on product, depending on what you do.
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Joy Karavedas: But for the most part, I think that is when we talk… move from equipping into empower and engagement, I think it talks about adding this place where people feel free to.
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Joy Karavedas: experiment a little bit. We create a culture where people aren't afraid of making mistakes. There's a sense of psychological safety, that's a term that you'll hear
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Joy Karavedas: Quite a bit today.
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Joy Karavedas: Where, people's opinions are valued, your perspectives are valued, and you feel the freedom to share that. Even if it's not always the direction that you're gonna go, often the CEO or somebody else may have a… the final say. Somebody has to hold that… wear that hat.
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Joy Karavedas: But you feel the…
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Joy Karavedas: power and the ability to be able to share those perspectives, and creating a space where those
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Joy Karavedas: You're then allowed to try, and you're allowed to, you put your ideas into action in maybe small steps and see how that goes.
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Joy Karavedas: that's what creates that ownership we talk about, that engage, that ownership, that I feel valued, I feel my… I have… I'm contributing.
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Joy Karavedas: And that's what's gonna make people want to stay, quite frankly.
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Melinda Lee: Got it, got it. So the empower stage is still the area where you really want to build up the psychological safety.
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Melinda Lee: there is where they're gonna start to build their seed legs. There, they might make some decisions that might not be what you choose, but at least you're there to support them if, you know, things don't work out, what are the lessons learned, and you're just empowering them to be that owner. And then engage is when they're fully… they're taking ownership, they know the strength that they have, and they're driving the results.
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Melinda Lee: Faster, because they've had this confidence.
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Joy Karavedas: Exactly. Empower is where… empowering is where they gain that confidence. Too often, I've seen organizations where somebody was very good in sales, made great decisions there, and so they move them into a different role, a different department, a higher… and they're going, why… why is he falling apart? Well, you know, he or she can't really work with these other teams. Well, they haven't had a chance to develop those set of skills, or to work differently.
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Joy Karavedas: And I think, we want to just throw them into the deep end of the water and hope they learned how to swim somewhere.
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Joy Karavedas: But now, I think if we really… you're still coming alongside, they're still having… we've created a culture
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Joy Karavedas: Not a formal mentorship, but where it's understood that we have the ability to ask questions, to get assistance, and that we collaborate well.
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Joy Karavedas: that you're building those skills, you're building the confidence more than skills, honestly, about how do I do this? And then…
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Joy Karavedas: I would say even when we see them engage, and you might give them ownership of a project, or they… now they're in a department, a different level of their department, or they're… maybe they've moved into the C-suite.
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Joy Karavedas: But that doesn't mean they don't have that system in place of somebody else that they still can
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Joy Karavedas: not looking over their shoulder, but they still have the ability to say, you know, now I've run into something I'm not sure about. Can you… can you assist me? Let me run this by you. Having those people that you can know aren't going to judge you, or… or…
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Joy Karavedas: take over by… if you just said, I just need to have somebody to kind of talk this through with. I think that's the culture most organizations will thrive in.
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Melinda Lee: Right. Yeah, because they feel the sense of ownership, they feel the sense of safety, the support, and… so that they can thrive.
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Joy Karavedas: When people own their responsibilities, and that means being held accountable too, but when people have ownership and they know this is on me, they tend to take it a lot more seriously, because their name's attached to it, and so they want to take it seriously, and usually that produces better results, quite often.
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Melinda Lee: Right. And this is so fascinating, and what do you think is the key challenge that people, leaders have, CEOs, C-suites have that prevent them of building this type of culture?
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Joy Karavedas: it's really hard to let go. It's really hard to let go.
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Joy Karavedas: even, you know, we were talking parenting, similar, and I think, especially,
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Joy Karavedas: especially in smaller organizations, where it's been your vision, or if you've been in that role for a long time, and this is your vision, and you've seen… you have your own ideas as the CEO of where this is going, and you're excited for it, and…
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Joy Karavedas: Anytime that you're empowering others, that means you're giving them a little bit of your power.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah, she's.
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Joy Karavedas: A little bit of your control.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah.
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Joy Karavedas: And that means they may not do it exactly the way you would do it.
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Melinda Lee: Right.
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Joy Karavedas: They might still get great results, but it might not have been just your way, and that's really hard,
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Joy Karavedas: we often go into organizations, especially as leaders, where this is our baby, this is what we… this is our… our vision, I see it happening, and then you… to launch that and give somebody else some of that, it can be just really difficult.
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Joy Karavedas: difficult, I see CEOs too often when they say, well, no, I have empowered this person, but
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Joy Karavedas: Or this department. Well, they empowered them, but told them exactly how to do it, when to do it, where, what it should look like, instead of really giving them any kind of control over the results, control over the process, and…
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Joy Karavedas: just giving that up. It's just hard to do. It takes practice. It takes practice. It takes a building of trust, and that you have to…
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Joy Karavedas: Both trust your team, but they have to trust you in that you're not going to stand over their shoulder at every time, but that way they can come to you and ask for those questions and ask for your input.
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Joy Karavedas: And they know you'll hold them accountable. I don't want to say… it sounds a little bit like we're saying, oh, just… it's not a free-for-all, just go. There is an accountability piece, and there is still… this is the goal, and this is where we're trying to head strategically, and…
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Joy Karavedas: Each… the person has to be responsible for that.
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Joy Karavedas: But… The process might be a little bit more flexible in how we're gonna let them get there.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah, because it is so hard for these, you know, the CEOs, again, like you said, to really let go, because they see the challenges, or they see the problems, or they may have even
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Melinda Lee: tried to let go, and then the person did fail, or did, you know, lose a client, and… and then so it becomes, like, a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it's like, I've done it, and it didn't work, and then so you keep on going back there, but then… and then the identity of yourself as the problem solver, the person that can fix things to save the day, it's, you know, tied to that. I mean, you know, just like in parenting sometimes.
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Melinda Lee: where we identify ourselves as the parent, and… I mean, there's, I guess, a lot of different parenting styles and a lot of different CEO styles. So, like, I guess understanding ourselves as a CEO, where we fall in this area, are we truly stepping in when we really need to, or is there a certain identity that we're tied to, being that person of the Savior?
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Melinda Lee: Like, I think coming back to learning about ourselves.
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Joy Karavedas: Oh, that's a great, that's a great, great perspective, great, change in that. But I think that you're right, I think it's how do we view ourselves and our role?
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Joy Karavedas: when I work with, CEOs or executives, we talk a lot about this, because I think often, especially if they've come up through the ranks, they're used to working in the weeds, and doing… and they're used to that, and so that's comfortable, and they know how to do that, but when they're…
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Joy Karavedas: if this other… you're like, you need to be looking at 30,000 foot level. You need to be looking at strategy, and vision, and where are we headed, and to do that, you don't have time to be down in the weeds. So, if we're able to work with others.
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Joy Karavedas: It allowed them… that empowered them to be able to do that. It gives CEOs that time to be able to say.
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Joy Karavedas: communicate that vision. Not…
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Joy Karavedas: not that we've forgotten it, not that the goals and the strategy isn't there, but your job then is to communicate it, and communicate it often. Build that trust, make sure everybody understands where we're headed, that they understand the culture, our values in our organization, and what we're going to do to get there.
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Joy Karavedas: And that's the role of the CEO, is to be able to really be setting that examples and setting that level of direction.
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Melinda Lee: for the.
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Joy Karavedas: organization as a whole.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah. So for a leader that's still struggling with this, you're saying that
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Melinda Lee: You're suggesting that it's their job and importance to stay focused on the strategy, the long-term vision, communicating the vision into short-term actions. And then, so, could you give some tips on how we could build a culture where people are autonomous? They take ownership, but then there's still accountability for the results?
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Joy Karavedas: Yeah, I think that it's… it's…
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Joy Karavedas: as I said, it's hard on both ends. It's to give over, to empower people and give over, but also to suddenly have a huge project. I think you start small. You take some small steps, I think, in both directions. I think we start with really empowering our next-level leadership team.
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Joy Karavedas: My, gosh, long ago, doctoral research was all about middle management, and how do we really empower them and start giving them the, leadership time and experiences that will help them move into those executive roles.
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Joy Karavedas: And so, it's about starting small, starting at those areas, giving people
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Joy Karavedas: Communicating vision regularly, communicating how and why that's important. And not just a thing on the wall, but really communicating why this is where we're going.
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Joy Karavedas: understanding your people so you're communicating that differently to different groups. It may not… you may need to say it different. You know all about communication, and knowing your audience is extremely important.
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Joy Karavedas: So then, give… stepping into small… small spaces, empowering your VPs to be able to…
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Joy Karavedas: take on certain roles and manage certain areas, and empowering them that they can give the people below them. Small steps. I mean, it might be that somebody's working their first project, or you assign a big client to another one of the VPs, not without
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Joy Karavedas: Not completely pulling away, but giving them the ability to manage those relationships and those people and those situations, from their own authentic leadership style.
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Melinda Lee: Cool.
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Joy Karavedas: And I think we start small, we celebrate those wins, I think we celebrate publicly anything that's a win, small or big, because then everybody goes, oh, this is what we're looking for, this is what it looks like, this is the direction we're trying to head.
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Melinda Lee: Right.
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Joy Karavedas: That people know what is… what we're trying to do. Right. I think that's where the CEO can be most valuable.
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Melinda Lee: Well, and then that also empowers them, too. That gives them a sense of, okay, this is the direction, because we're celebrating, and then everybody's celebrating together, and then so… then it helps them to, yeah, feel more motivated, because, you know, who doesn't want to be seen and acknowledged?
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Joy Karavedas: Right, I often say that we do,
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Joy Karavedas: I hate to use the word reprimand, but we… discipline, discipline privately, but celebrate publicly. And so, any of those people, you know, that… yes, it makes the person go, oh, that was my team, and oh, we did great, but it also lets the other teams go, oh, this is what we're looking for, and oh, I would… I'd like to be the next one who's in that chair getting public, you know.
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Joy Karavedas: publicly celebrated, or things of that nature. So it helps everybody else, like you say, get motivated and want to step up and,
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Joy Karavedas: Really kind of move forward.
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Melinda Lee: Right, right. Yeah, no, I think it's so true. I mean, again, it goes back to communication, right? Communicating in the right ways, to the right audience, at the right time, right? Celebrating the wins and communicating them to… to be visible, to be known, to make… to show progress, too, so that everybody feels, aligned, that we're in the same direction, yeah.
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Joy Karavedas: I agree, the progress is important, because the, you can have this vision that might seem daunting or unattainable.
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Melinda Lee: Yes, yes, yes.
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Joy Karavedas: And so, if you can talk about the small steps along the way, it does help people stay motivated.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah, and I think people often think, oh, we're celebrating, we're just talking about our wins, or we're talking… maybe we're being boastful, but it's actually… again, if I think we reframe it to the progress, like, we're making a step toward our vision and achieving our vision, it's not boastful, it's actually progress.
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Joy Karavedas: Right. Yeah.
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Melinda Lee: Or maybe they don't want to take the time to do it, because we have other work to do.
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Joy Karavedas: I'm working in a… with an organization right now who's, restructuring.
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Joy Karavedas: And we've been doing this for almost a year, and it's not even… and we're not… we're probably coming up on completion, maybe? But it takes time, and it takes time to kind of help people understand
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Joy Karavedas: what… where the vision is, how that impacts them, why is that… what are we doing next? What are next steps? What are these steps?
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Joy Karavedas: settling in at each one of those to kind of help them settle in and say, okay, now I understand, and keep moving forward. But I think we can't rush vision, we can't rush change, we can't rush into everything and expect everybody to be
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Joy Karavedas: on board all at the same time, and so I…
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Melinda Lee: I haven't…
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Joy Karavedas: time.
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Melinda Lee: And how have you helped the organization navigate? I mean, I hear you saying when you say, not rush, I think that's a form of communication, right? You're listening, you're paying attention to what's happening as you're developing the change and, you know, unfolding the change. So, yeah, what else? Could you share more about how you've been communicating?
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Joy Karavedas: One of the things I've learned most in this particular situation, because I will say from the start, it wasn't
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Joy Karavedas: not everybody was on board, and so then you're navigating some different types of feelings and responses. But I think the communication aspect, it's…
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Joy Karavedas: Being willing to communicate
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Joy Karavedas: often. And I think sometimes we can think, oh, didn't I already say this? But if it wasn't heard, or there's still questions, then it wasn't understood. And I think it means we have to keep the overarching
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Joy Karavedas: vision, the why, the reason, whatever you want to say in front of everyone, as this is where we're headed, and this is why we need to do this, and this is why we need to do it now. The why and the why now.
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Joy Karavedas: And not to get tired of saying that and saying it again, and if it's not heard the first time.
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Joy Karavedas: try to say it differently. I,
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Joy Karavedas: Or asking of those people who are still hesitant,
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Joy Karavedas: what is… what is that hesitancy? Bringing in perspective, I think we can sometimes think, well, I said this, I've said it four times, why do they not understand?
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Joy Karavedas: If they're not understanding, you're not communicating.
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Melinda Lee: Right.
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Joy Karavedas: And so, ask them, what is it that still makes you hesitant? What do you need… what have you not heard from me that you need to know to make you feel better? What do you need to… and it might not be. There may be sometimes you say, this is what we're going… what we're doing. How can I make this difficult transition good for you?
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Melinda Lee: Yeah.
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Joy Karavedas: It doesn't mean you're… everything… we're giving everybody exactly what they want, especially when you're looking at organizational change.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah.
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Joy Karavedas: But you do want people to still feel the safety and the culture of, belonging, and that they matter, and they are valued.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah, and so when the restructure happened, it was a year ago, and so now has it come to, people are no… people are more on board after a year?
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Joy Karavedas: Right. They're getting there. They're getting there. Most people, I will say.
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Joy Karavedas: people, so there are always going to be those that are still saying, I'm not sure.
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Melinda Lee: Right, right. Prove it to me.
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Joy Karavedas: Kind of a thing.
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Melinda Lee: Right, right, right, right.
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Joy Karavedas: So…
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Melinda Lee: But that's it, like you said, going back to what, you know, the initial essence, I think, of communicating with intention, communicating often.
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Melinda Lee: And then being patient, like, allowing people to, yeah, express their concerns, and listening, and then continuing to repeat again, why is that… where are we going? Because I think sometimes when we talk about vision, and where are we going, it sounds nebulous, but I don't… I think… I remember when I was working in corporate, and people would say that to me, I was like, I don't understand that. I don't understand… it just… because I am not as connected, maybe I'm just so in my zone.
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Melinda Lee: and in my expert, so I couldn't really tie how and what I did impacts the vision.
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Joy Karavedas: Bye.
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Melinda Lee: I think when we help people to connect that, you know, the more we can remind them and, like, as you said, ask questions and dig deep into what are their concerns, and then help them, again, tie… your role is really critical to this vision.
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Joy Karavedas: Yeah, it is, and I think that we have to be, you know, sometimes leaders, especially those in executive leadership roles, we're used to visioning and seeing… looking at the next… where are we heading next? Right, right. And we have to remember that for some people, they're just looking at, what am I doing tomorrow?
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Melinda Lee: tomorrow. I just have this long task list of things to do. Yeah.
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Joy Karavedas: And so, being aware of that, a lot of it is just an awareness, it's, intentionality. I'll go back to that original first word. It's just being intentionally…
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Joy Karavedas: be aware of what… who the people are, and what they might be going through, and how things… different ideas may impact them. Even think… we've had, you know, office changes. Office changes that have been hugely.
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Joy Karavedas: Upsetting, because you're… we were asking to restructure, and different roles have put together, and now they're moving from an office they've had for
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Joy Karavedas: six, seven years into a different space, that's a… that's a big change for some people. And so, like, you're… you know, so try… just even things that you might think, this is not that big a deal, really can be.
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Joy Karavedas: And you gotta put yourself into their shoes that have that empathy and understanding for what they may be going through.
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Melinda Lee: Right, right. Oh, this is so good. And so, I'm… I've been learning so much, and there's… we covered so much, and I'd like to end with this last question. So, when organizations are thinking about communication.
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Melinda Lee: And they have standards around it, like, being intentional. They are purposeful in their communication. They have standards around how they share their… the way they communicate, how they…
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Melinda Lee: repeat it, how they act on the communication. They have all these standards around just communication, not just a soft skill. Right. Just saying, just to say. What can happen in organizations when they have this type of standard around communication?
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Joy Karavedas: I think what I see most is, I think.
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Joy Karavedas: number one, organizations who really have good, solid standards and are practicing them with communication are usually steps ahead of those who don't. And I think we, we put a lot of value in that, and I think that they…
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Joy Karavedas: set a culture that believes in transparency, and believes in communicating well, and communicating why, and that can… we can see organizations really thrive there. I think the one area I would say we need to ensure that we don't overlook
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Joy Karavedas: is the communication we don't see, the implicit communication. How are we communicating culture and values that are not always stated in what we're saying, but what does that look like, even from…
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Joy Karavedas: the way we dress, or the way we bring, where offices are set. I usually just use that example. What is that… that way of communicating also? Because a lot of those implicit, unstated, unspoken…
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Joy Karavedas: Communication can communicate, more loudly to some people than the words that you say.
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Melinda Lee: Interesting. I agree. So the, the, what, our attire. And you gave an example of the office environment. So tell me more about that?
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Joy Karavedas: Well, it's interesting. I'm going to give you an example of a organization I worked with once. This was a university setting, and this is actually… the way their office layout was actually very, a standard university setting.
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Melinda Lee: Oh, okay.
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Joy Karavedas: It was in the suite. You had all of the…
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Joy Karavedas: offices that came on the outside of the suite, and depending on level, you got a window or didn't get a window, very noisy.
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Melinda Lee: Got it. Yeah.
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Joy Karavedas: And then anybody who were just lower-level employees.
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Melinda Lee: Like…
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Joy Karavedas: You were in the middle, and you had the cubicles.
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Joy Karavedas: And then we had either… which offices actually had a door that could be closed, and which ones did not. And so it's all of these things communicated different messages to the people within them.
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Joy Karavedas: When we,
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Joy Karavedas: were expanding. They had actually were just moving into this suite, and this was when we were setting this up, and looking at, what do we want to say, and how do we want to demonstrate this? Because you're setting a hierarchy. This was, like I said, at a university, and universities are very hierarchical, but you're setting this up, and are we okay with that? And you may be, that might be part of the culture, and that's fine.
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Joy Karavedas: Right. But we just need to understand that. I think it doesn't mean you have to change everything, it just means you have to understand the messages so that if you are asking somebody.
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Joy Karavedas: into your office, or you're putting somebody over there, they need to… we need to understand that they're going to be viewed, how they're going to be viewed, and then by other people.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah.
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Joy Karavedas: Good.
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Joy Karavedas: A lot of this doesn't mean you have to change everything, or you're doing it wrong, or whatever. It just… it's an awareness.
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Melinda Lee: Right.
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Joy Karavedas: Where are the messages that you are sending.
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Melinda Lee: Right, right. I love that. I love that perspective. Yeah, it's so true, right? Being aware and being intentional, so when we're setting up office space, even.
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Melinda Lee: What are we… what mu… what message are we conveying?
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Melinda Lee: I love that. That was so true. It's like our body language, all these things.
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Joy Karavedas: All of those things.
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Melinda Lee: What are we trying to communicate?
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Melinda Lee: Exactly.
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Melinda Lee: Oh, thank you so much, Dr. Joy. This is so fun, and I'm so glad to have you on the podcast again. We had so much fun the first time, and now the second time, and just as much fun. I really appreciate your time and your insight. And so, if there's an executive, or a leader, or a CEO with a team that would like to have more of your support, how can they reach you?
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Joy Karavedas: Certainly. I… you can find me at my website, DrCaravitas.com, and Caravitas is exactly like it sounds, with a K, I'm sure you'll have it in show notes, but DrCaravitas.com, that does have how you can get ahold of me if you, are looking for some planning, or team building, or just some executive coaching.
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Joy Karavedas: I do also, I want to take this time to plug, I have a new book out, on Amazon called The Leadership TAP. TAP is an acronym for Trust, Authenticity, and Performance, and it,
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Joy Karavedas: really speaks into what leaders should be looking for, and those leaders that are coming up behind them, and how we can build those three things into our leadership teams that we work with. And then also, if you're wanting to be… move into that executive suite, what are the things you need to be looking to do, and how do you build yourself? So it's a little two-fold, but
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Joy Karavedas: That's on… available on Amazon, so… Anyways, that's where I am.
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Melinda Lee: It's a great book. It's a great book, lots of, really nice, like, insightful tips and insightful strategies, but also practical, too.
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Melinda Lee: So, thank you, Joy.
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Joy Karavedas: It's been my pleasure to be here.
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Melinda Lee: Okay, take care, and thank you so much for joining, and remember, organizations don't just need to work harder, you need to work smarter, communicate, communicate what matters, communicate what matters often, so your teams work together. Take care.
