113 | The Feedback Loop to Success | Jay Williams

Welcome to the Building Better Cultures podcast, where I talk to leaders about how internal communications, engagement, and leadership all play a key role in creating amazing and successful cultures.

If there was an answer to your question about a piece that foundationally would serve you well and that you could build upon, it would be feedback. How to get it and how to give it, in that order. And what it would do for the culture and have this universal applicability is it build an open, honest, on-time communication.

Hello there, everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Building Better Cultures podcast with me, Scott McInnes. Um, as usual, a couple of little things. Firstly, that ask which I do always forget, so I won't forget, so I'll ask you now. Um, if you are listening on Apple, please give us a little thumbs up, a 5-star review, a comment. It really does help to get the podcast out there and shared more and more widely. The second one, of course, is the usual thank you to our friend and sponsor Workvivo. It was interesting, I was at an event yesterday and we were talking about internal comms and how the rise of podcasting as an internal comms channel is becoming, is becoming more and more prevalent. And out of the box, I know from, from having seen Workvivo as a platform, it supports podcasting alongside lots of other things like discussions and conversations and groups and values and all that stuff. So if you want to learn more about what they do and how they can help you, have a look at workvivo.com and you will hear a little bit more from them later on. So, Building Better Cultures, all about culture and leadership and communications. Today, I'm delighted to be joined by a US-based leadership expert. He is an author. He is a comms, collaboration, and conflict coach who supports CEOs and senior execs. And his name is Jay Williams. Jay, hello.

Good morning. Good morning. It's good to be here. Well, wherever I'm at, it's good to be together.

It is good to be together. And it's obviously earlier in your day than it is in mine. You're based in the US on the East Coast, right?

Yeah, I'm really right outside Philadelphia. So if somebody looked, I'm just about 2 hours south of New York. Brill.

Oh man, I love New York. Can't wait to get back. Can't wait to get back. Haven't been since the pandemic finished, but I can't wait to get back over. Listen, come here. Why don't we start with what we always start with and maybe you give it a bit of an introduction to yourself, where you've come from, your experience and, and what you do today.

Yeah, um, I don't know how early you want me to— do you want me to start at the womb or a little bit later in the story?

Maybe a little, maybe a little later, maybe a little later. You've got about 60 seconds, so it depends how quick you can, you can summarize.

Okay, really, let me just start with how I transitioned. So my experience was in leadership, and, um, for those people who are listening, you know, I've gone the gamut of having, you know, from 4 to 400 people that reported to me. And I got to a point in my career where I was no longer— I didn't have the same level of enjoyment. And so when I was looking at what I was doing, I just thought, well, what part do I enjoy doing? And I really enjoy talking about communication and collaboration and really diffusing conflicts and confrontation. And I enjoy sharing with other people the thinking behind that and how to do it. What I didn't enjoy, and you may cut the interview short after this, is leading people. I just— that component, I didn't derive the same level of satisfaction. And so just about, it's just about, I guess, going on 20 years this year, I took a step away from being a leader as it related to people and really focusing on being a thought leader. And so just to bring you up to where I am today is that introduced me into the space of speaking. And maybe some of the people listening can relate to this. They say, well, how'd you get into speaking? How do you do that? Here's how it happened. Someone heard me speak in the company and they said, hey, will you come and speak at our company? I said, sure. And they said, well, how much do you charge? In my head I thought, oh, you'll pay me for this? And that's how it started. Yes. So I don't know how well I answered the question, but that's how I got there. Very well.

And you know what? I love the idea that you took the decision. And actually, the fact that you don't like leading people, didn't like leading people, is I think a hugely positive step to realize that and then do something about it. Because we know, and we may talk a little bit about this later, listeners will know that I always say we'll talk about this later about 10 times, and then we never get back to the things that we need to get back to. But look, we'll get to most of them. You know, for me, lots of people end up in those leadership roles, not because they're really good people leaders, but because they're very, very good subject matter experts or thought leaders in your case. And they don't actually say, put their hand up and say, you know what? I don't enjoy this bit of my job. I'm not very good at it. And if they're not very good at it, the people in the team are not gonna be having a great experience either. So I think actually in fairness, the fact that you put your hand up and said, I don't want to do this anymore, I'm going to do something different, is very, very commendable. More leaders should perhaps be doing it.

I think, you know, to your point, if you don't mind me adding on to that, is that I think we've all experienced what you just articulated, is that the super worker becomes a supervisor. So your top engineer now moves into a manager leadership, or your top chemist, and, uh, now all of a sudden there's a different job description and you've, you've lost your best engineer or chemist or whoever this technical person is. And now, uh, at worst you have an HR nightmare, you know, at a minimum you have a dynamically mediocre manager. And we've developed an infrastructure, an organizational chart. And, and I don't minimize that, by the way, for anybody who, who has that, whoever devised that, and I don't know off the top of my head who that was, there's some thinking that that was a motivator to them. And as I work with, I specialize with people have a high technical skill. So it might be a doctor, it might be a chemist, it might be a scientist, it might be an engineer, it could be a hairstylist. I mean, somebody who's very technical, yet they don't have some of the emotional intelligence that goes along with that. And so quite often I see these people fall into this role. And so you're Right. Because of the way the structure, somehow that's a reward. It's an acknowledgement. It's being reinforced. They feel so I need to move up in management and leadership. But what I really find is they want a more complex project. They're not looking to move up in the organization. And it was validating to me. I appreciate you acknowledging. And for this, I began to do this work. I thought, was this, is this true anywhere else? And I was an example of that, by the way, as a super worker who became the supervisor. Right. And for those people who have a sales organization, top salesperson, right? What do you do? You promote them, right? And there's no correlation in the skill set, in the enjoyment that derived out of the previous job. I didn't derive out the new job. And so I, I appreciate you even expanding on that conversation because I, I think there is, uh, a conversation to be had with your people about how they define success and how they define moving up in their organization. Because to your point, there's a direct correlation between how happy they will be. And listen, oversimplifying it, but a happy employee equals a more productive employee.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think probably the big challenge for organizations is that many don't have that idea of dual career path where a people leader is recognized as being also a technical expert as much as the, you know, the very senior IT person, the very senior lawyer, the very senior HR person. And that of course then is a challenge. So if I just want to be a people leader, What does that mean? And I think lots of organizations don't have the answer to that question, which makes it tough. Interesting. Right. Where do we want to start? I want to start somewhere. And we obviously had a conversation a couple of weeks ago. And the same event actually that I mentioned about the podcasting earlier on last night, it was an internal comms event. And we talked about the fact that organizations need to get better at aligning their people because engagement's not enough. And in fact, they had taken the word engagement as a member services organization. They had taken the word engagement out of their purpose because they felt it was too old school. They felt it was kind of done. They felt it was something of yesteryear. And I think actually it's gotten a bit of a bad name, the whole idea of engagement. Now, I still fundamentally believe in how leaders should be leading in a more engaging fashion. I wonder from your perspective, when we think about alignment versus engagement, engagement. How do you define them, and are they both as important as each other? Where do you stand on that?

I thought you're going to start off with the easy questions and lead into the harder, but I see you, you've reversed it. It's opposite day. I think what's important when you talk about engagement is to have a common definition, because I think even as you and I began to chat and what you experienced last night is that people may have different either synonyms or definitions for them. And I think when you look at engagement, you can have someone's mental, physical, and financial engagement and not have their emotional engagement. And that emotional engagement is the ultimate trigger for this discretionary performance that we need. And so I think for an organization, when you talk about engagement, first is to determine, because you said now they took it out of the mission statement, they've revisited it. The question is, is do we take it out or do we refine, redefine it? Do we rebrand it? It's no less important. And so there's a lot going on in my head, Scott, so guide me in. So let me just hit pause for a second and give you an example of an industry that rebranded the exact same concept. I think it has universal applicability is when you look at the used car industry. So, you know, going back, you're not quite there yet, Scott, but 30 years ago, Scott, they used to have this term called a used car, right? Right. And they had used car salesmen and there was a stigma and there were movies and spoofs on this. And, and what they realized is that we still need to sell these used cars. That does, that hasn't changed. We just need to rebrand it. And so now we have, and, and I think it's, it's globally, they used the term previously, owned, right? And so when you look at commitment or engagement, and, and I, I write about this in, in my second book because this is something that I encountered, is differentiating in an organization. We talk about engagement is whether you have commitment or you have compliance. And, and simply compliance doing because you have to, commitment doing it because you want to. And so if we just pause there, because I wanna, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it as well. That's where I think we could start the conversation with engagement. I think alignment is a byproduct of that engagement and alignment. The, the next question, if you feel as though they're separate, is in the alignment, do I have people's commitment or compliance? And people say, well, how do I determine? You can ask someone. I could say to you, Scott McInnes, listen, I'm trying to get everybody basically on the same page, or at least in the same book or the same library on our initiative to have your commitment or to have your compliance. And you could come back and go, "Jay, I just strategically, I don't understand the why here. So I'll do it. I'll do it because you want me to do it. I don't know that directionally if roles were reversed, this is where I'd go." That would be an example of compliance. And what happens with compliance, the downside is as soon as there's a speed bump or a bump in the road or some level of pushback, where no one's monitoring it anymore, they stop. With commitment, you have this discretionary performance. But again, I go back, the commitment or engagement has to be on that mental, physical, financial, and crossover to the emotional engagement. Yeah. How well did I answer that, Scott?

You, you know what, you totally did. And I think the answer is it's both. Um, I think, I think organizations need to have both. I don't think, you know, and, and, you know, people throw around that Gallup stat all the time of I can't remember the giant number, 60 or 70% of people are actually actively disengaged in work globally. I don't think people come to work to be actively disengaged. I think they want to come to work and make a difference and do something that's interesting to them and actually want to go the extra mile. And they want to be the one that, you know, 1 minute past 5 picks up the ringing phone on the desk they're walking past rather than walking past it because they're like, "Eh, I finished 60 seconds ago." So I think you need that discretionary effort, you need that engagement. But I think that's driven in many ways by that alignment piece, to your point there about understanding, well, I don't really know why we're doing this. Well, actually, we do need to help you to understand why, because that alignment piece is really, really important, not just for you personally, but actually the analogy I often use is like a boat race in the Olympics, where you've got 8, 10 boats all lined up with 8 or 10 people in each boat. If they've all got different types of paddles and different types of equipment and one's in a bathtub and one's in a rowing boat and one's in something else and there's no lane markers and no finish line and the gun goes, what happens? We have a great big boat crash and nobody gets anywhere. So, for me, from an organizational perspective, that alignment means you're getting stuff done, you're getting through the water far more easily using less effort to get to the endpoint that you used to get to. So, I think the answer is probably both. I also think that when you think about organizations now, And I've said this in the past couple of episodes, I hate that term VUCA world. I don't know why. I've just never liked it. But I think the bottom line is that the world is changing all the time. And that change is happening quicker and quicker and quicker than it ever has done before. So, I think that alignment piece is critically important during change. And I wonder from the work that you've been doing, What is the role of leaders in driving that alignment as teams and organizations go through change? What have you seen there?

I think there's two dynamics. There's driving the alignment and there's measuring the alignment. So if I could separate the two conversations, and obviously I didn't come up with this, Scott, but you've heard the expression, what gets measured gets done. And I think my experience has been— not that's true for everyone, but my experience is that alignment is an event. We have this meeting, we have this 2-day, okay, everybody's aligned, and then we go on our way and we don't measure it. And I think one of the key components to alignment— so one would be driving, and I'll get to that. The other is measuring. Is this feedback loop. And I do a great deal of work around feedback because I think it's foundationally imperative to the success. And, and did I stutter there? Sorry, Scott. The success is what I meant to say. Uh, and the speed, because you said things are changing so rapidly. So I equate feedback to your GPS system. And so if I asked you, Scott, if you're going the wrong way, at what point would you want to know if you're heading somewhere? Would it be before you left the house, when you got in your car, when you left your neighborhood, when you're on the highway for about 5 minutes? I think your natural response would be, Jay, I want to know right away. And I'd say, well, Scott will tell me why. Because the sooner I know, the sooner I can course correct and make an adjustment. And I think that's what feedback is. And so in alignment, I think it's imperative that there is this protected time that you're having with your organization or your people to see where they are with alignment, because their alignment on the meeting on Tuesday at 3 o'clock could dramatically change by 10:00 AM on Wednesday. And so this feedback loop of asking people, you know, what, what would need to happen so that we had a greater commitment over the next 6 months from you that required a little discretionary time, maybe don't leave at 5, you leave at 5:15. Again, asking these questions that solicit the information and data you need to measure that. So that would be one thing is your ability to measure the alignment. I think with driving it, what's imperative is that we haven't— this, again, Scott, I don't know what I know and what I've heard and what I've read. So I just— let me just disclaimer there, but About 3 weeks ago, I go to church online. I haven't gotten to the point where, you know, in the group setting yet. But the guy who was speaking made an interesting observation. He said, your relationship with people is not their relationship with you. And so, you know, he gave an example of a mother with her daughter. That relationship, if you wrote it out and your next line is relationship, a daughter with her mother are completely different. An employer's relationship with their employee is different than the employee with the employer. And the reason I say that is that when you're driving this, this initiative is that you understand what the driver is for them as much as they— so Simon Sinek, I mean, as proficient as anyone is articulating the why. And I think it's imperative that not only do people understand for the organization, they're wise, the organization can identify the why for the people. And generally that goes back to that person's values. So if they have a value of accomplishment or acknowledgement or recognition, I mean, there's over 4,000 values, and you bring a project to someone and they now have their why in this, that will help them to be self-motivated, to take self-initiative. So it actually makes it easier for the leader. So let me pause there because I realize I've introduced a lot of different speaking points there.

And I think probably the one that resonated with me the most, and I spend a lot of time talking to my clients about, is back to that role of leader because the purpose, the alignment conversation is going to differ from team to team, even in the same organization. So of course, the people who are best placed to have that conversation, to to do that translation, to contextualize that direction, that why, that strategy, that whatever, is the people leader. Because they're the one that can ask the $10 million question. Well, what does that mean for us? What are we gonna do differently? What will we stop, start, and continue doing based on this change in what it is that we're now doing as an organization? And I think that's very, very powerful because I think that more localized alignment can actually drive engagement because it's now me and my team and my boss doing things that we know are aligned overall with what it is we need to achieve in this organization over the next 1, 3, 5, 10 years, whatever that number is. So, I do think they've got a massive role.

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Actually, one thing that I'd love to ask you about, because I think that we drop that responsibility on people leaders all the time. What's the role of the people leader in driving engagement? What's the role of the people leader in driving alignment? What's the role of the people leader in creating a great team? But actually, you mentioned there about the people, about the employees, about those people who are actually in the teams. What's their role? Because they're not just passengers, they're active participants in this team, in this organization. So what's their role when it comes to alignment? What should they be doing, maybe other than the feedback piece, which spot on from earlier on, what more should they be doing or can they be doing?

My intent is to answer your question. So if it doesn't, please, please guide me. My experience has been that, and this is gonna answer your question for those people, is that when I work with executive teams, to be fully transparent with you, they're not looking for me to fix them. They said, Jay, I want you to fix my people. And at the senior level, and if you go up to the CEO and some of these people, there's a board that they're interacting with. That's their function. There's their top clients that they need to engage, and they're focusing on strategy. And so I say that because if you're listening, I don't think it's middle management. I think it's managing the middle is key for organizations. And so if that includes leaders that are in the middle, people, either leaders of process or procedure or people, that's imperative that you develop this. And so, you know, for those of you who are listening that, you know, work out or go to a gym or drive past a gym or you've seen the commercial, generally they will reference your core because it— once you strengthen your core and if you start out there, it supports what goes on below and it supports what goes on above. And so in an organization where you, you have these initiatives and this movement and you wanna hold people accountable, I think if you can just build a strong core with these people. Now the next question, so that's where you start. The next question would be, how do you do it? Is to really do an assessment of what the job description is for them, for these people. And then do they have the skills to do it? And it's interesting when you look at anyone's readiness level, two things come into play: willingness and ability. And, and more often than not in the middle, I see a high level of willingness where the opportunity is the ability. What's unfortunate is the people that they report into don't have that ability yet. They're telling 'em, I want you to be a better manager. I want you to be a better leader. And those people are like, well, if I'm not gonna learn from you, where am I gonna learn? And so I think strategically, if you look and, and you focus on the middle and begin to ask your question, here's the first question I asked. This happened on a call 2 days ago. They wanted me to come in. They have 48 managers they want me to work with on a leadership day. And, and I asked them, how many managers do you have? And they answered, you know, 48, none. Including their 12 executive team. I say, how many leaders do you have? And Scott, there's this silence. So interestingly enough, they differentiate already between managers and leaders. However, it was more subconscious than conscious. And I said, that's what we don't have. So I, I don't know how well I answered your question where you would do this in the middle. I think the second step is to assess what you need them to do. And if you need them to influence the people that report into them and to get buy-in, if you need cross-department collaboration, if you need them to take your direction, this person's right in the middle, is that you're developing those skills. And I think emotional intelligence is, is key. I think what you talked about communication, I think when you talk about a leader, the, the most impactful leader, we say people leader, I think it's a thought leader. It's their ability to help expand and improve the thinking of the organization. I mean, that's really what people need because as we grow, can I trust their thinking? And so the only way that you can trust it is to understand it. The only way you can understand it is what you alluded to, Scott, is as a leader, do you have the ability to ask these questions that really help them discover probably what they already know? And I think that the most effective leaders I've seen, they've been able to differentiate between telling and asking and differentiating between a Socratic method and Confucius stylist. Like, Confucius would tell stories, right, is more of a telling model. And by the way, I'm not diminishing it. I'm just saying stylistically, I think when you looked at Socrates, everything started off with this question, right? So let me pause there. How close did I come to answering that question?

No, good. And I think what's interesting is that we're starting to see a few themes weaving into the conversation, one of which is just feedback and asking great questions and being open to feedback. And again, this is now going to sound to listeners like the best event you've ever been at because last night at the same event—

I wish I was there.

We were talking about— Yeah, I know. They should have recorded it. I could have sent you a recording. They would talk about feedback loops, about the importance of when it comes to communications that, of course, as you and I both know, it's not tell, but a really good communications structure is a conversation because that's just what we do, right? So, from the perspective of feedback loops, A, I'm not sure that organizations widely are particularly good at creating opportunities or a climate for feedback. And secondly, I'm not sure that when they do get that feedback, even if they do something with the feedback. And of course, the employee engagement survey, the staff survey is a good case in point that they do something with the feedback that, you know, we don't like the food in the canteen. Oh, we've revamped the menu of the food in the canteen. But then they miss that last little bit, which is you told us you didn't like the food in the canteen. So we changed the food in the canteen to something more healthy because of your feedback. Bingo. And people say, well, that's brilliant because I've been listened to. And that's the bit that I think organizations are generally missing, what I would term link and label, bringing that back to what has been given back to us in terms of people's feedback. So, from your perspective, how can we create those feedback loops? What does that look like? Is there a process or a framework or something that organizations can take to try and start to get better quality feedback from their people?

First of all, excited that you're having this conversation. This organization I alluded to 2 days ago called. It was a referral. We're having a leadership day. What can you do for us? It's like going to the doctor.

Wow.

I don't feel well. Can you prescribe something? And, you know, as they begin to ask questions, I think that was the idea, is to uncover what is the need there, what ails you. And so I saw that they were, and respectfully, kind of checking off a box. We have a leadership day, let's get a speaker in here. And so I offered a few things that I could do as far as getting on the phone with the executive team and just ask some questions to flesh out. As I was thinking about it, I thought, wow, they have a lot on their plate and there's some homework. What is something? How could I say yes to them? Because they said, can you just send something over? Which for anyone who does this work, that's the last thing. You want to do. Yeah, it's like a doctor giving medication going, well, I'm not sure the symptoms are the problem, but let's just see if this fixes it.

Yeah, rub the cream on your leg, it'll be fine.

Yeah, exactly, you'll be fine. Um, well, I got up in the morning though, I did read him an email and I said I want to be sensitive to the fact that this, um, I made a request for homework, the time may allow. So if there was an answer to your question about a piece that foundationally would serve you well that you could build upon, it would be feedback, how to get it and how to give it in that order. And what it would do for the culture and have this universal applicability is it build an open, honest, on-time communication. And that was a long-winded answer to your question, Scott, is I think two things. One, I think we need to understand how everyone defines feedback because I ask, you know, tell me about How are your feelings as it relates to feedback? When people say, well, it depends on if it's good or bad. Feedback, clinically speaking, is just information and data. What if feedback just became information and data? And then to add to it, to improve your performance. And so I think it starts with shifting people's thinking about the feedback. And so if we could shift it from being positive or negative. And so now when I work with clients, you know, they go, oh, thank you for the compliment. Oh, it wasn't a compliment. It's just information and data. That's it. I think you look handsome today. I think that was a smart question you asked. So take it as a compliment. The reason being is it dramatically shifts your thinking about it, your emotions about it. And then your behavior. So if you don't mind me sharing with the audience, it's a little bit embarrassing, but maybe you've been there, or if you are there one day, is I have a client that fired me last November. And so in the process, we're about the third interaction. They said, Jay, this is going to be the last interaction. I said, oh, what would you share with me? Because we'd actually had a longer engagement, two more times planned. They said, this feels a lot like therapy. And so I'm human, Scott. I can't tell you if I've evolved to the point that I'm immune to hearing things that I don't like to hear. So, but what I did realize is that one, I asked them for information and data, right? And they gave it to me. So there was no disconnect there. And I was trying to analyze it and I thought, wow, the disconnect came when I heard something I didn't like. And then I thought, well, I didn't like it. Wait a second. I'm now judging it whether it was true or not. It could have been their truth, not the truth. So this happened on a Thursday. And again, for the listeners, I'm not immune to it. I'd be less than authentic to tell you it didn't take a toll on me and I didn't think about it. So on Monday, another group I was working with, about 12, and there's been some ongoing work there. And so I said, hey, I want to get some feedback from you guys. I said, someone shared some some information gathered with me last Thursday. And jokingly, I say, I got fired. And here's what they shared. And Scott, universally, I'm looking at everyone's faces and they're smiling. I said, you're smiling. Tell me about that. And one of the people raised their hand. They said, I define therapy as having a problem, talking about it, and then walking away with a solution. So I absolutely define your work that way. I'm very grateful for this type of work. And so it just illustrated to me is that, that was just information and data to help improve my performance with that person. If I had taken that as fact and then dramatically shifted my methodology, I would've lost this new group and kept this one. The gift is, is how do I get everybody equally engaged? And so this is where the feedback loop comes in to ask people, And so I think for feedback, to your point, is that if we can begin to think of it differently, it's only information and data on how they experience me. And I shared with you before is that my relationship with you is not your relationship with me. And that's why it's important with feedback. And so when you share something with someone, this happened the other day, encourage someone to say, well, ask them what did they hear? And they told someone that, hey, I think that if you made some adjustments here, you get a different result. And then they ask the person, what did you hear? I'm a terrible employee. Thank God they asked for the feedback because with that employee left, and now it's 6 months later, right? Or they didn't wait the 6 months, they just quit the next day. And so it's a long-winded answer. I think it starts with feedback. It's redefining how people think about it so they feel differently about it and how we ask questions to solicit the feedback. You can't be accusatory and inquisitive at the same time. It just doesn't work. So if you're going, well, why were you late on those reports? Right? You know, the reports were late, so you are giving some information and data. And why were you late? That's accusatory. If you said, you know, we agreed upon a certain time and that didn't happen, what would need to happen going forward so that you could honor that commitment? Not only to me, but to the rest of the team working on the project. One's inquisitive. And again, it's all soliciting feedback. So the feedback, I think, could be informal in that format. And if for some reason you're working to that point, I'd have protected times to give people feedback. I think the newer they are to the organization, the newer the initiative, the higher the frequency. And as you build the trust in the relationship, that you can— the frequency can change. It doesn't need to be as often. Long-winded answer.

At Inspiring Change, we help our clients to implement sustainable change and drive business performance by putting their people first. We do that through a focus on strategic internal communications, employee engagement, and leadership consultancy. If you're struggling with change or getting your people aligned behind your purpose, vision, or strategy, then get in touch. Simply visit our website at www.inspiringchange.ie for more. But I think what's really interesting is that it goes against the grain of much of what we talk about when we talk about leadership these days, which is bring more emotion to work, be more emotional, be more vulnerable, be more authentic. Whereas what you're saying, and it makes complete sense, is There are actually times where adding in the emotion, like during feedback, it's not good or bad, it just is. It's just fact, is really powerful. Maybe there's a time to actually turn down the dial on the emotion, turn down that idea that, well, they're reading something into it. But what I also love was that idea that what I'm saying to the person isn't necessarily what they're hearing or what I think they are hearing. So asking more questions, when I say this to you, what are you now thinking? So that we can have that conversation is really powerful.

Well, I love what you just said because at the core of asking questions from a methodology standpoint, everything, and I work with mediation and conflict workers as well, sales organizations, is I ask questions. I always lead with that because I want to know what you know. I want to know what you're thinking. I want to know what you feel. Right off the bat. And you just articulate that. I want to know what you're thinking. It's so— people say, well, how do I ask? Exactly like you did, Scott. J, tell me, tell me what you're thinking. And, you know, I equate it to if you're playing cards with someone, you're going to play poker and you're going to gamble, you really don't want to push in any amount of chips until you have a sense of what's in their hand. I think great communicators and leaders— and I'm going to use the term synonymously because if you want to be a leader, that's That's something you may take up on your own. Being a good communicator is you will end up having people, you know, follow you. So great communicators, if I use that in lieu of leadership going on, it's intentional. They communicate from the other person's perspective. And when people feel as though you get me, now they're engaged. That's when I begin to go beyond the mental, physical, financial engagement and they cross over into this emotional— I think emotions are great at work. I think they serve you well. I think there's rational decisions that require emotion. I think there's emotional decisions that require rationale. I think your ability to be self-aware and then self-regulate in those moments is imperative. Introducing emotions. The challenge is, is for the people who can't manage their emotions. But doesn't mean that it's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It doesn't mean that it's not a good idea. It's just how do we manage that so that it serves us, us, us well, not just you, but me as the employee. And that's, by the way, where you'll get alignment.

Yeah, yeah, powerful stuff. Jay, listen, we've been chatting away for nearly 40 minutes.

Wow.

Time has flown. Wow. I know, I know, this always happens. We're going to wrap up. Before we do, tell me where people can find you. Tell listeners where people can find you if they want to find out more about Jay Williams and the work you do.

Well, I'll be on parole in about 5 years. So in the interim, yes, the California penal system. Zoom. Yes, Zoom would be the best. Now, if there's something that you want to chat about, you can go to the theajwco.com. So theajwco.com. And there's actually a connect, uh, contact tab on there, and you can go right on there and you can schedule a call. If you're an executive, there's something that I just introduced based on my experience, and I hope, Scott, you don't mind me chatting through. I just think it may be of interest. Is again, when I was working with senior-level executives, not that they didn't find value in what I was doing, it just, it wasn't a priority this training. However, they still had needs. Sometimes they had an immediate need. And so what I've made available, and it's on the website, you'll see it. It's called exigency. It's E-X-I-G-E-N-C-Y. And the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of it, it's a case or a scenario that requires an immediate conversation or solution. And so my clients have said, there's times, Jay, we listen, we love chatting with you and you're asking 100 questions. Sometimes I just need an answer for you for a call, for a situation. And so when you go on there, I just want to tell you, under the contact, there is a place where you can do that. And there is an investment that's involved, but there's also calls that you can set up that don't require investment. So if you're wondering about the difference between the two, And if you're a leader, whether you're small or midsize or, you know, Fortune 1,100, but whatever the case may be, and you are a senior leader and there's something that you do need a quick response to and you don't have 4 hours to go through training or a call, I would invite you to do that. The other thing I offer, and you'll see it on the website as well, is a Q&A. And you can send in a question. And obviously I keep the confidentiality that's there, but I'll record a video response and post up there. For you to use or maybe reference in the future. So if you're looking for something kind of fun or different there.

Brilliant. I'll be on there later. I've got 100 questions. Great. So I'm gonna keep you busy for a week. Jay, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you. Thanks a million for taking the time.

Me as well. Thank you for the opportunity, Scott.

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