185 - The Most Innovative Approach to Decision-Making in Business with Tighties' Krystal Gillis

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started. Crystal Gillis, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the co-founder and CEO of a company called Tidies, which can be found at gotidies.com. Let's start off by telling us a little bit about your backstory and then a little bit about Tyese.

Yeah, I appreciate it, and thank you for having me on the show. I'm very excited to be here. Um, so my backstory is kind of a combination, all over the map. I have entrepreneur experience from literally— I think I, I was 23 when I started my first company— all the way through, and, uh, weaved in and out of corporate and product development and med device and then went back out into the small business world and consulting, and all of it has kind of led me to Tidies and where I am, which has been fantastic. It's, it's almost literally a combination of everything that I've worked on for the last 20 years, and I get to do it in the best way possible with Tidies.

And it looked to me in, in our Authority Magazine interview and also looking at the website, like Tidies has just launched Like a month ago?

Tidies is— the website is launched. The product is not launched yet. We are in the final stages of product development. We should be launching and we're going to announce it probably by the end of March, our official date, but it will be between April 15th and May 15th.

Wow. Tax day. Good for you.

Yeah. Thank you.

Tell me, tell me, the product looked really interesting as I looked at the website. It looked— it's designed for people. Active people, mm-hmm, uh, who are looking for clothing that will support them while they're working out or training or running or recovering. Yeah. Or something like that. Do I have that right?

You do. So Tidies is interesting because it is really activewear and we call it functional activewear. And the whole premise of it is to keep active people active. And I think one of the most misconceptions is that's just for athletes, but it's actually for anyone who's working on their activity levels at any stage of life. And so what we did was we took experts from all over the fields and combined them, primarily almost everyone with orthopedic experience. And we started with one product, which was to help in a non-medical way where you didn't have to work around reimbursement codes and different things like that to have an actual compression legging that gave them support, which we have, have built beautiful product. I literally cannot wait to show it to the world.

We're excited. I can tell.

Yeah, it, it really works from the top down and it opens up your hips, puts you in proper alignment, engages your muscle down your legs so you experience pain management. Stability, agility. So depending on if you're looking for the prevention side as well and really just longevity. And from that, then we ended up with these byproducts. So that was kind of the be-all end-all. And while we were doing that, I'm very busy. I have two small children and I were working with these bands within these compression leggings. And I thought, hmm, it would be pretty great if we could actually put resistance into leggings as well and give everybody a little more bang for their buck on their workouts. So that came our strength, which is an additional— it adds to your workouts where the other one helps you support and almost like alleviate during your workouts. And then we have a beautiful base compression, which is for endurance and almost what we would call an energizing factor to it, increased blood flow.

So I work out Pilates twice a week, which is kind of an amazing system of exercise. I'm relatively new at it. What would this do for me? If you were familiar with Pilates.

Yeah, so it really depends on what you were looking for. So if you wanted to, we have a strength product, and the official names are actually going to be announced in the next couple of weeks. The category is strength, and that would add. So if you're doing your Pilates and you wore it, it has a banding system in it, engageable by a BOA Fit dial. And when you do that, it adds resistance to everything you're already doing. Let's say on the flip side of that, you really wanted support, right? You're doing the same motions in Pilates. You want to make sure you're protecting your body. Maybe you've had an injury in your hip or your knee and you need some extra. And so we have a multi-strap system that works in our category of support. And you would wear that so that you can get a more, let's say, more functional workout.

Now you're getting me intrigued. So I'm a skier too. I'm a level 3 certified ski instructor. So if I were to wear Tidy skiing, what would that do for me?

Yeah, if I were to wear it skiing, I would 100% wear our sport legging because it's going to help protect, protect your hips, your knees, your quads. And there are— it's customizable per side and per strap. So we have a strap that comes up and around the back of the hips and each side has its own Boa Fit dial. So you can engage— like for me, my right hip is bad, but my left hip is doing better. So I have them at different levels. And then you have secondary straps that run down the leg to a boa dial at your calf. All very comfortable under ski clothing, but would definitely give you, especially on those side-to-side motions, a lot more support.

Interesting. So how did you get into this?

Yeah, so I was working. I had been doing consulting and a couple of different company launches from 2017 after I left my corporate job. And I was working on an orthopedic bracing company in San Diego. And one of the engineers there and I worked really well together. And he had kind of said like, hey, I've got this idea of almost like a brace that, that isn't a brace, right? And I said, okay, let's take a look at it. And from there it kind of just became this beautiful development of what started as one simple, almost concept has now grown into 3 functional products that are getting ready to launch and a whole pipeline of products that are going to— they're going to follow suit.

Wow. Is it all— is your, is your business model all going to be B2C off website, direct order, or are you going to be looking for distribution through retailers?

Yeah. So I think that's a little bit to be determined. Our big focus is to really be a partner and a community for our users. And so our, our best way to do that is to go direct to consumer, engage them in our community, reach out to them in theirs. And then if that leads to the right partnerships, we're obviously not going to say no. But we really do, we want it to be about our users and not, not about anything else.

Interesting. So, so you have had many different jobs in your career, as you said, from being working corporate to being a founder to being entrepreneur and now a mother of small children. What is it that gets you up in the morning and gets you really motivated and excited?

Yeah, that's interesting. I actually was asked this recently and something else I was doing and For me, it's no, it's a no question. And, um, it's my daughters. Every—

I—

it's transitioned over life. When I started my first company, it was not my daughters. They weren't around yet. They weren't even on the map or the mind. But every day now, it's, it's them. I have very strong passions, and I have, I have very— as you know from our Authority interview, I have very strong feelings on the capabilities and the future of females and particularly female founders. And the best way to do that is to get out there and do it and then show what can be done and be as helpful as I have experienced on my journey. And so every morning when I see two little beautiful faces looking at me, that's it.

So role model for your girls, showing them that they can be anything that they want to be.

Yeah, if they just put their heads to it and really showing them and building the right type of community so that hopefully whenever they figure out what they're gonna do in life, the world has evolved and it is already. But if I can be a part of that, that's what I'm after.

So I know you've got, I'm just assuming that you've got a fairly small team at this point and stage, you're a pre-revenue startup. Is this a remote hybrid or in-person team?

Yeah, so I would call it remote, but it's a little of everything.

All right.

We've been fortunate enough that all of our team happens to be primarily based in San Diego. So I work remote, but my manufacturer is in San Diego. We are an American-made product. Our engineer team is in Carlsbad, which is just a stint up the road. And then our medical team, outside of one who's in Arizona, they are all also located in the San Diego area. So we get the, uh, I would say we get the benefit of being able to meet face to face. And really, that has helped us develop this product faster than most people would if we were trying to go back and forth in different areas. But really, we get our development meetings together, and it is a combination of a million brilliant minds in a room all from different angles of what can be done and how it can be done. And I think that's what has made this project so special is because everyone is really putting forth their best effort and everyone has the exact same goal in mind, and it's to make products that really impact our users.

Are there any competitors that produce products like what you guys have?

Yeah, so there's a lot of competitors all across the board. And we're really interesting because we're almost following two suits, really almost like dynamic bracing. So then you end up with knee sleeves and actual braces and, and companies that will tout that. And then there's this whole other slew of competitors that are kind of getting into the sculpting and the toning aspect with some 3D knit and different things like that. I think where Tidies really stands out is there was a lot of time, energy, and effort around utilizing actual orthopedic experience and the design and the biomechanical function of the body. We have a physical therapist out of La Jolla who specializes in body function and how the muscles connect and really what matters and how they can operate at their best efficiency. And he has really been vital along with our doctors. It's just been, it's been awesome.

Wow. So you've got all this different experience. What is it, do you think, that's unique that you're bringing to the table that makes all this successful?

Yeah, the people involved, I think, are one of it. And I would say that the adaptability of the product itself is exceptional. So we are partnered with BOA, which is a tensioning dial that most people are used to in snowboarding boots, actually they've just gone into ski boots.

Ski boots, I saw that this year.

Yes. Yeah, a lot of hiking shoes, cycling shoes. Their system is really known as a, as a class act within being able to give adaptability to products. And we've been fortunate enough to be working on soft goods with them. And in all of our products, the adaptability is what matters because it needs to be able to be comfortable to put on. Easy to put on and then really actually give you a benefit. And you can't do that if you— if it's not made as something that's a regular standard performance compression and then the strapping systems go into place. And they do that currently with the BOA Fit dial.

So that's what makes Titeeze unique. Now, what is— what makes Crystal unique?

That's a great question. If you ask my husband, he'd say there's a lot of quirks about me that probably make me unique. I think that one of the things that is a consistent message from me, my kids, anyone around me, I'm persistent. I will not stop until the job is done. I'm not afraid to ask questions. I'm not afraid to ask hard questions, not afraid to ask for help because I will keep going.

So just persistence, dogged persistence to get the job done.

Yeah.

When you see that the goal that you're striving for is worth, worth the effort.

Absolutely.

And I would— that suggests to me that kind of like me, that there are a lot of things that a lot of people do that you don't have an interest in. You're only going to pursue those things that you really have an interest in, and then you're going to go 1,000% after it.

Yes.

Would that be right?

Absolutely. Yeah. I think that when you find something you are passionate about, you're lucky and you gotta put everything you have into it.

Right. Wow. So I'm just imagining these, all these planning meetings and product development meetings with all of these different stakeholders and specialists and experts, and they all have different language. Right. And they all have different jargon. Yeah. They all have a different way of looking at the world and they all have different ways of solving problems of movement in particular. How did you, as the CEO, manage all of these diverse stakeholders and inputs? And this, we're getting into listening now. How do you manage that?

Yeah, I wouldn't say it's just me. I think that there are a lot of people that are part of this who are good at listening, um, so it's really a collective group effort. I think that what I bring to the table is helping everybody be able to say what they, what they see fit and know that we're going to at least listen to it. We're going to try different things. Part of what is going to make us successful and why our product is so good is we were really opening to trying multiple paths to get to the same outcome. So if we're sitting at a table and there's, you know, 4 to 7 people there who have thoughts on how we can solve a problem we're trying to solve, we're going to collectively decide multiple ways we're going to try to solve that and test it. To make sure that we get the best outcome. And I think that relaying the key message that we're all looking for one final goal, and that's quality products that are based around function and function first, it helped everybody feel like if they had an idea that helped drive towards that, that we were going to try it.

How did— how do you deal with people who come up with ideas that are like in a different universe?

It depends on who they are because, because if, if my engineer comes up with an idea that's not something we've thought of, he's probably 18 steps in front of us. And so we're going to, we're going to hear it and we're, we're going to try to process it. Fortunately, he's also really good at just showing you what that looks like very quickly. I think that one of the things that I— is a blessing and a curse. I'm pretty direct. So if I've got questions around something that might be in left field, I'm not going to be afraid to ask those questions to try to understand more and then deem what steps need to be done next.

Why do I think you got fired from your corporate job because of that?

I did not get fired from my corporate job. I did work myself basically into a mental abyss. But that, that was— I, I don't think I was, um, gonna get voted Employee of the Year, I'll tell you that.

Well, so you're not afraid to step up, ask hard questions, and help people focus their thinking. Yeah, to give answers that make sense and challenge them.

I think the other thing that our team would say is that I'm If, if they tell me the timeline is here, I ask how we can move it to here. If they tell me we can only do this, I ask if there's a way to find it here. I think that what TIDES is trying to do is challenge the status quo, and in order to do that, we have to think more outside the box.

I've never asked this question before. I can't believe this. I've been doing this for more than a year. And I teach this at Pepperdine. I don't know why I've never asked this question before. So I have this vision of you in product development with all of your colleagues of all these different disciplines, and you're the one that has to sit there and make decisions. Do we go to path A, path B, path C? Which way do we go? What's your decision-making process? How do you, how do you Yeah, I'll leave it at that. What's your decision process?

So in product development specifically, I have taken the time and had the ability to bring in what I deem as experts from technical design to design to engineering to the medical side. I ask them and I lean on them and I say, okay, what, what do you think about this? How does it impact that? Ultimately I make the decision, but I really want to hear and I want to listen to what their opinion is because I trust them. When it comes to outside product development, as you know, and as I'm sure your listeners know as well, you make a lot of decisions every day and you have to be efficient, cautious but efficient, right? So when it comes to outside of product development, I have worked really hard as well to build a network of people to bounce ideas off of and to trust. And I take everything with a grain of salt because it's, it's, there's no one way and you have to be confident in your way. Sometimes you make a decision that maybe you wouldn't have made again, but you learned from it. And other times you are ready to rock and roll.

Hmm. Um, interesting. So do you have a specific decision-making process that you follow, or is it just something more intuitive that you just go with, you developed over the years and you don't really don't think about the process?

Yeah, I don't know if I spend a lot of time thinking about the process. If I have decisions to make, there's no checklist that I go through. It's more like the experts around me that I talk to about it. And I would say that's the one consistent process. Who do I know that's a professional in the thing I'm thinking about? And what are their thoughts? If it's marketing, I literally have probably 5 contacts that are close that I can call and say, I'm thinking about doing this. What are your thoughts? I will listen to what they say, evaluate it, make a decision. Same thing on finance, same thing on product development, all across the board.

So one of the things that you're doing, which I applaud, is you're gathering as much information as you can from as many different sources as you can before you make the decision.

Yeah. No, no one built a pyramid by themselves.

No, that's a critical, that's a critical piece of decision-making process that a lot of people overlook. Yeah. And it sounds like you've developed a pretty broad network of people that you can call on and they're happy to talk to you.

Absolutely.

And you can bounce ideas. I got this problem, this is what I'm facing from your perspective, what do you think? And the other, the other thing you said that I, I think bears repeating is it's not just one expert in one domain. I think you said in marketing you might have 5 people in marketing you can talk to, and you might get 5, 5 different ideas or 5 different takes. And then you'll take all that information and say, all right, what makes the most sense based on what I've what I've, what I've gathered here.

Yeah.

Is that— would that be assessment?

Yeah, that is. That's what it takes to really be able to shape your own path forward. You can't listen to one person. You can't— I can't even listen to just my input, right? I've, I've got to understand the full picture. And in order to do that, you need different perspectives, right?

That's called the Delphi technique. So it's a technique that, um, where you ask 3 or 4 or 5 different experts for their opinions on a particular problem. And, and from the information you get back, you, you can see, you, you learn a lot. You see what you've missed. You can see where the experts are, are disagreeing a little bit, or they have different perspectives. And that alerts you to things that you need to look into more, more closely. Think about. Yeah. Um, all right, so I'd like to talk a little bit, a little bit more about listening. What do you do when you run into people who don't know— are not particularly good listeners? All they want to do is talk.

I run into that a fair amount, actually.

I'm not surprised.

Um, sometimes it's important to let them talk. Because something that they're going to say along the way might be beneficial. It might add to that salt bucket you're looking to fill. And then sometimes you need to move along, and you need to kind of reshape the question or reshape the conversation or exit the conversation.

There you go. One of the reasons that people like to hear themselves talk— there are a lot of reasons, but one of the dominant reasons is anxiety. Where people are anxious, and so they're, they're talking to soothe their own anxiety. And, uh, that's when listening becomes really important, because if you can soothe their anxiety, they'll stop talking.

And what's a good way to do that?

Just call it out. You're really anxious. Um, just call out whatever it is. You're frustrated. You're anxious. You don't feel heard right now. You don't feel respected. You're feeling a little unappreciated. You call out their emotion. And the, the— won't go into this in great detail, but there's some great brain scanning studies that show what happens in the brain when you are— your— the emotional experience is labeled. The emotional centers are inhibited. The prefrontal cortex comes back online. People calm down. They stop talking. And they start listening. Really powerful. Um, so have you encountered many people like that?

You know, I— it's interesting, I was actually reading from your site before this, and I was, I was reading a little bit about that and already picking up some tools that I'm going to be implementing into our team. And, um, yeah, I, I think that I have been fortunate enough with the people that I currently work with where they seem to be very comfortable in the room we've created.

Good.

But as we're coming across into more networks and more people, um, and more involvement, that's where I'm really starting to see it. Yeah. And I think that recognizing why people are doing what they're doing is a very special thing to have.

It, it is. It, it's, it's the found— it's what I consider to be the foundational skill of life. And you, as you grow your organization, which you will, you know, right now you can touch everything.

Yeah.

In 2 years from now, you're going to be 4 levels above.

Yeah.

Kind of orchestrating a, a much larger organization. You won't be touching everybody. And yet how you set the culture today is what's gonna determine what exists, you know, in a year from now or 2 years from now or 3 years from now. And so understanding stuff like this is a really useful tool in, in, in thinking about how, what kind of a culture do I want to have in this business when I've got 200 employees or I've got 300 employees and they're spread out, some are in San Diego, some are elsewhere. What do we— how do we manage that? How do I manage the culture to make it whatever it is you want to have? That's part of why I think listening is so important, is because it's a powerful way to set the culture. I'll say one other thing I'm picking up on, uh, that you seem to have a gift for. I don't know whether you know this or not. You— I'm, I'm gonna guess that when you're— whether you're on Zoom or you're in an in-person meeting, that you've got a certain calmness about you. An intensity about you, but you're creating safety for people. Does that resonate?

I think it does resonate.

Yeah, people are not afraid in your presence. They're not afraid to make mistakes. They're not afraid to say things that might be stupid or look stupid, um, because you hold a space that allows them the freedom to be who they are. Does that— that's the sense I'm picking up from you.

Yes. And I think it's probably because it's something that's quite important to me. I think that the world is better when people are allowed to be authentic. And the more that I've developed, the more I've embraced my authentic self, the good and the bad. And I really think it's important for other people to be able to have the same grace to do so. That's when the best things are done.

That's right. Google did a massive study a couple of years ago trying to understand why the, the top 10 of 1% of their teams were performing beyond the standards of anybody else in the company. And it came down to one thing: the leaders were creating emotional safety. That's what about— and once, once you learn how to create emotional safety on a team, everything changes. And How do you create emotional safety? Listen. Yeah, it's that simple.

Listening is enabling, and enabling is strength, right?

Exactly. So where do you see the company going? You're gonna— you're pre-product right now. You're going to release your product the next 30 to 90 days. How do you see the next year unfolding for you and for the company? Heidi, Heidi?

Yeah, I think that the next year is going to be a wild ride, and I'm very excited about it. Um, I am— I'm very optimistic about what Tidies is bringing to the table and what value people are going to see in our products. So I anticipate that we are going to spend the next year really honing in on that and growing our community and diving into their needs and seeing what's working, what's not working, and what's next. Those are kind of the main questions. And as I mentioned earlier, we have a lot of different products that are kind of lined up, ready to go. And I think that time will tell over the next year what direction that looks like and how we can best serve the community we're building.

Wow. So yeah, so the whole, the whole idea of the product is to build a community around the product of people who will grow the community themselves because they will be fervent supporters and advocates. And also because people will have a lot of shared experience in using, in wearing and using this clothing line.

Yeah. Yeah. I think this, I mean, speaking of authenticity, but this real, real idea of having needs and expecting more from, from your activewear and expecting more from what you can do. We're all focused on wellness. We're all focused on longevity of activity and movement for our body. And to really have a company like Titees with people who are also focused on that with no restrictions. I come from an orthopedic med device space where everything was reimbursement codes and, and guidelines. I would say this is, this is very real and this is made for a purpose and That's why I think it's been so fun to work on, and I'm so passionate about it because I've been— I mean, we're a couple of years in already, and it's just going to be a great ride.

Good for you. One more question. I'll let you go. And if you listen to my podcast, you know what it is. What's one thing about yourself, Crystal, that we would never know unless you revealed it to us?

I am from a town of 410 people. Whoa. Yeah, uh, I'm, I'm from the middle of nowhere in northern Minnesota.

Wow.

And, uh, I think that impacts a lot about who I am. Doesn't come up in everyday conversation, but it's a big deal. And, um, it's really, in my opinion, something where you came from is, is one of the paramounts to where you're going. And for me, it's a big deal. Wow.

I bet there's a story there. The middle of Minnesota to San Diego. I couldn't imagine.

Yeah, there was a 12, a 12-year stop in Phoenix. And what happened was I went for warmth first, but then, you know, eventually had to bring back in some water.

Well, great. Well, Crystal, thank you so much for taking out, uh, some time today to chat with me and my audience. We really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for the opportunity.

You're welcome. Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.