117 | The Red Thread Model Every Leader Should Know | Sonya Shelton

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.

Helping people understand why they're doing what they're doing and how it's going to help them in their job and help the company ultimately, they'll be on board. They'll be like, okay, yeah, I get it, let's do it, right? But if you, if you're just putting rules in place just for the sake of it and they don't really see the point, they're either they're not going to do it or they're not going to be engaged.

Hello there and welcome to this episode of the Building Better Cultures podcast with me, Scott McInnes. Lovely to have you back, or if you're a first-time listener, thank you so much for joining. Um, I will forget later, as I always do, so I will say this now: if you're listening on Apple, please give us a little 5-star rating and a little review. It does really, really help when it comes to people finding the podcast. Um, also, as I always say at the top of these podcasts, thank you so much to Workvivo for their ongoing support and friendship on the podcast. We really, really appreciate everything that you do. And we're really excited about your recent acquisition by Zoom and what that's going to do for your business. So, well done. You'll hear a bit more from them later on. So, today's guest, I always love having somebody on who's got a model, particularly when it's a really, really practical one. So, today I'm delighted to be joined by Sonia Shelton, who's a US-based exec leadership coach. She's also the former, interestingly, the former head of internal comms at Disney. So, I suspect that a bit of what we'll hear about today might have its roots in some of those experiences. And of course, she's an author. And we're going to talk a little bit about her book today and the model that she describes within. So, Sonia, hello there. Thank you for joining.

Hi, thank you. I'm excited for our conversation today.

Great stuff. Listen, why don't we kick off as we always do? I'd love for listeners to get to know you a little bit better. So, why don't you tell us a bit about your career, what you've been up to and what you do today.

Yeah, so, um, today I am the CEO and founder of Executive Leadership Consulting, where we work with fast-growth companies to help them connect their business strategy with their company culture so that they can actually maintain that growth. And I became really passionate about leadership, as you mentioned, um, in my la— what I say is the last job I'll ever have. As the head of internal communications for the Walt Disney Company worldwide. And what was interesting about that is that I experienced something there in that position that nobody in my position had ever experienced and that nobody in that position will ever experience again. And that is that we had a member of the Disney family, Roy Disney, leading a shareholder revolt against our CEO at the time, Michael Eisner. So here I am in this company that is known for its culture, is known for creating, you know, really strong culture, basically going through a divorce with, um, the shareholder revolt that was happening. And then of course I was, um, tasked with keeping people focused, maybe reminding them why it's good to work for the company and try to stay out of the drama that's happening and, and things like that. And I It happened on multiple levels where I witnessed what happened in the culture itself and with our senior leaders as we were going through that. But then I also realized what happened to me. And I really, through that experience, and I honestly didn't behave well in that environment. And I had this realization that leaders sometimes are impacted by their environment. And even though they know better, they act differently. And so, I had this, I just developed this tremendous empathy for leaders and the importance of culture and how they work together, right? How leadership and culture work together. And that's why I started executive leadership consulting, was because I developed this empathy and wanted to have a bigger impact.

Okay, interesting. And I think what's really interesting for me is that it's probably a triangle of which you've described two sides, the culture and the leadership, and I think the third side of that triangle has to be strategy for it to make sense. And I guess you were going through a huge change in Disney, and I'm sure you've seen with your clients lots of changes in their organization since. I wonder when we think about it from a leadership perspective, from the work that you've been doing and what you've seen, how can leaders be more effective in helping their people to understand with, understand with, understand and align with strategy? What can they be doing?

I think, you know, we agree with Simon Sinek, who wrote the book Start With Why, and, and that's where we start, right? So in order to get employees engaged, and, um, and our goal is to become passionate about what you're doing, it's really focusing on your purpose. What's your purpose as a company? How can you help each person connect to their purpose and, and make that integration between your purpose as a company and what their purpose is so that they can have passion about it? And then it's, you know, getting really clear about what it is that you're trying to achieve with your vision and your strategy and staying focused on those things. What I, what I see so many organizations doing, especially right now in, you know, the change that's happening so fast and tons of uncertainty around the world with economies and, and, you know, things that are happening as a result of the pandemic, uh, I think that people are being very reactive. And so when your team doesn't understand why you're doing what you're doing, or if things are changing so fast and they don't know why those changes are happening and how that connects to your business strategy, they're going to start to lose motivation and engagement. So it's really looking at really being clear, staying focused even as things are chaotic around you, being able to stay focused. And yeah, do we have to pivot sometimes based on external factors? Absolutely. But it's being thoughtful and clear about why are we pivoting in our strategy, what are the external factors that are causing this, and where are we going now, and not just expecting people to follow through the chaos.

Yeah, and it's really interesting. I think, you know, we often, and you'll have done the same with your clients, I'm sure, and in Disney, talk about North Star and the journey that we're gonna take to get to North Star, and that's our strategy. And I think that, you know, strategy isn't a straight line. The slide that I most often use is a mountain path, a road in a mountain pass, somewhere in Italy and it's a really windy road that you look at and you go, "God, I'd love to drive that in an open-top sports car." And that's kind of what strategy is. It does wind back and forth, albeit in a kind of a, in a same direction. And I think as you say, the challenge absolutely is making sure that people understand that yes, we are changing, we are pivoting, but we're still within, we're still within the swim lane or we're still on the train tracks of that particular strategy. And for me, isn't that absolutely critical?

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I use a similar analogy of a plane, right? Like when you're flying a plane from one place to another, because of all the external factors, I think 99% of the time it's off course, but it's constantly shifting to get back to heading to its destination, right? And so if you looked at it just at a moment in time, you'd be like, oh, we're headed in the wrong direction, right? But sometimes you have to move a little bit to be able to come back to where you need to be. But the key is really staying focused on that north star and helping others stay focused and recognizing, yes, we're making this change, but this is still leading us to where we wanna go.

Yeah, yeah, I remember, actually, it's interesting, your plane analogy. I remember reading once that if you took off, if you're flying from LA to New York, and when you took off from LA, if you were half a degree out, when you left LA, just half a degree, you wouldn't land in New York, you'd land in Washington. You'd be so far away from your destinations. That whole idea of course correcting all the time, but helping people to understand the why of the course corrections is so, so important. We don't know the answer in 3 years' time. We think we want to get to here, but actually we're going to have to push and change and course correct as we go. And that's so, so critical. So something that we're going to spend a lot of today talking about is this whole idea of Red Thread Leadership, which is a concept that you came up with, that you literally wrote the book on. Where did it come from and what can it help leaders to achieve?

Yeah, it came from as I started to see a lot of the research coming out around purpose and the— on two sides, right? To say internally, people, especially younger generations, are making decisions about where they want to work, how engaged they're gonna be, based on the purpose of the company. And then on the other side, they're also making buying decisions, right? So they're deciding what products and services that they're purchasing based on the purpose of the company, whether they are in alignment with it or not. So they, so they will avoid a company if they really are not in alignment with their purpose, right? So I really started looking at the importance of purpose, not just with the younger generations, but across the board. And I think the pandemic really awoken or woke something up in people as well on really wanting a purpose and recognizing that life is short and, um, and I do want more meaning in my life. And so, uh, so that's where Red Thread started, was it was really starting with purpose and saying, how can we get really clear about what that purpose is and then connect our plan or our vision to that purpose and then run those two things through everything that we do as an organization to achieve our goals, right? And then we start— and then decision-making becomes easier, right? Because we know, yes, this is in alignment with our purpose and plan, or no, it's not. And so we can say no. And, um, and, and it also empowers the employees to say, should we be doing this or not? You know, maybe we've done this for the past 10 years this way, but based on our purpose and our plan, do we really need to do it this way anymore? Is there a better way?

Okay, interesting. And I think I absolutely agree that piece about purpose becoming so much stronger. And I think that we're seeing, you know, that whole idea of— and I don't like terms like the great resignation and the great movement and all that kind of stuff. I think it's just people moving in roles. But actually, well, I don't believe it's fundamentally just about how we work. I don't believe it's just about employers not letting me work from home and therefore I'm going to leave. I do believe that It's about people wanting to do work that's more purposeful that we've been stuck during that period, which I think we'll look back on in 10 or 20 years' time and we'll probably go, "Do you remember that? That was mental, wasn't it? We were locked in our houses for 2 years. That was insane, but we all just did it." But I think it did, you're right, gave us that sense that we want to be a good bit more purposeful in our lives. Yeah, absolutely critical.

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Let's run through each of the 5, because I, I love an old 5 Ps or a 3 Ps.

It's—

that's totally my thing. And you've got your 5 Ps. Um, we've spoken a little bit about purpose already, um, but maybe just give us a little bit more of a deep dive around that whole idea of why purpose is top of the tree when it comes to this idea of Red Thread Leadership.

Yeah, absolutely. So, so as you mentioned, there are 5 Ps in the model, starting with purpose, right? So that we always know why we're doing what we're doing. And it's like our touchstone we keep coming back to. Is this fulfilling our purpose? And then the second P is plan. So that's where we look at your vision, your strategy, your goals. What's the plan and how we're going to fulfill our purpose as an organization? And then we look at your processes. Right? So if now that we know where we're going and why, let's take another look at how we do things in our processes. And are there opportunities to drive more efficiencies and speed based on getting more clear about why we do what we do and what our plan is to get there? And it really frees people up to be able to question things, right? I see it in organizations so many times like, oh, well, we do it this way because, you know, Maria used to be the manager of the department. And she liked to see it this way, but Maria's been gone for 3 years, but we still do it that way even though it's not efficient, right? But nobody questions it, right? And because they feel like they don't have permission to do that. So it really starts to build that empowerment in the team to say, this is where we're going. Let's really take a hard look at our processes and make that part of our culture so that we're always questioning as those things are changing, we're always questioning, is this the right way of doing things? And then the fourth P is positions. And here we're looking at your organizational structure, how you hire, how you promote, and is that in alignment with your purpose and your plan, right? So do you have the right structure in place? Do you have the right people? You know, you're onboarding for hire, how you're hiring, are you getting people on board and excited about the purpose? And then the fifth P is passion, which is really looking at the culture. So we look at, you know, what is that with the foundation of trust? Trust? Is there— are they passionate about the company's purpose, and are they passionate about their role, and how can we get them there? So, um, and going back to Simon Sinek, he has this quote that I love where he says that, you know, doing something that we don't care about and working really hard for it is called stress, but working really hard for something we love is called passion. And that's why we came up with the 5 the fifth P because it's not, you know, all flowers and rainbows all the time. It doesn't mean you don't have challenges. But when you really are excited about the purpose that you have and you're committed to that and you're passionate about it, you can break through those challenges and obstacles easier and more collaboratively, and you can get there faster.

Yeah, and I guess when you think about, you know, wanting to get a little bit more out of people, that discretionary effort, if I understand the purpose of the company, if I'm aligned with that purpose and I'm passionate about that purpose, then the chances are I will want to give that little bit more as an employee, which in turn impacts your plan, which in turn impacts your processes, which in turn maybe perhaps impacts on your positions as well as you find those people who are really passionate about that particular company and the work they're doing. So, I can see how passion plays such a really, really important part. If you think back to your time in Disney, as a head of internal comms, what role does internal comms play, or perhaps should internal comms play when it comes to driving these 5 Ps in organizations? What have you seen that's best practice that works really well?

Yeah, I think first of all, clarifying the message, right? So, reinforcing— I think with communications, especially, now even compared to when I was in the role. And at that time, it was growing exponentially too, is that we get so many messages thrown at us on a daily basis. Sometimes leaders think, oh, well, I told them what the vision is, right? I told them what the plan is. Well, you told them one time, right? And— or maybe you told them 2 or 3 times. You have to keep telling them, right? Where internal communications can help with that to remind this is where we're going, remind this is the purpose. Celebrate those times where it's coming to life, right? To showcase what's happening in the company and in different areas to say the, you know, this team is doing this and this is how it's contributing to our purpose and our plan. And this person did, you know, had this great accomplishment and this is how it's contributing to our purpose and our plan, right? So even in recognition and looking at all of the dimensions and how you're communicating, reinforcing that message of the Red Thread so that it's continuing to permeate through the company. Disney was really good at this when I worked there. And they had a function at the time called Corporate Synergy. And there was a person who worked— it was part of marketing, but it was a person who worked in synergy in each division of the company. And they would come together on a monthly basis and say, OK, What are our priorities as a company and how can the other divisions support that? And one of my favorite stories, because I never would have thought of it and I just thought it was genius, was they at the time used to have, you know, DVD video, right? That where they would take it, where they would say they would take it out of the vault, right? So it would disappear, not be available for a number of years, and then they would take it out of the vault and relaunch it. And they were relaunching Cinderella. And I was at the synergy meeting and they were going around saying, you know, who's going to— the parks are going to do this and, you know, and movies are going to do this, right? And they came to ESPN and when they came to ESPN, I thought ESPN is just going to say, we're out, right?

It's basketball. It's basketball. That's all. Yeah.

Right. Right. Exactly. And they said, what we're going to do is we're going to do a series of Cinderella stories in sports. Wow, right? And, and they said, and they said, we're gonna keep— so they're gonna be mentioning Cinderella, they're gonna be promoting them, you know, uh, doing commercials about that series, right? So Cinderella is going to be something they're saying even though they're not talking about the movie. They're going to be promoting it. And I just thought, wow, like, they, uh, that was so creative. But it also really showed me the power of having that one voice and, and looking at collaborating as a company and saying, what are we trying to achieve as a company and what's important, most important in our strategy right now and how can everybody help? And for internal communications, what we did was whatever Synergy said was the priority for that week is what we were focused on communicating and sharing with the rest of the company, right? And so at any moment people could see whatever we were communicating about was the most important thing to the company at that time.

Yeah, amazing. I love that. That Cinderella story is great. And I think that ESPN story that you gave there, because actually a lot of what you described there, when we talked about the strategy coming to life, and I talk about link and label all the time, how do we link and label what we're doing day to day back to the strategy all the time? How do we keep saying, well, this, this, what we did here today is about pillar 3 of the strategy. What we talked about last week in our meeting, that's pillar 1 of the strategy. Doing that in one-to-ones, at team meetings, divisionally and organizationally all the time is so, so important. But your story brought to light something else, which I think is critical. Critical and something that organizations aren't great at, and I think it sounds like Disney were really good at it, is that whole idea of collaboration, is that whole idea of finding the synergies. And of course, had that collaboration have not happened, ESPN would never have run a series of documentaries about Cinderella sports stars. It just wouldn't have happened. So what do you see? I mean, we see collaboration being really tough to do in organizations all the time because people tend to want to stick in their swim lanes, they want to stick in their silos, call it whatever you want, But people are comfortable in their silos, they're comfortable doing what they do. How do you get people, how have you found ways, or what ways have you found to get people to talk more collaboratively across organizations rather than being in their swim lanes? Have you got any thoughts?

Yeah, and I think it is something that I learned a lot from Disney around really creating that common objective, right? So, even why Synergy existed, The synergy existed because Disney wanted to be the biggest entertainment company in the world, right? And not just for movies or for theme parks. They had sports teams, and they had books, and they had music. Anything that you could imagine for entertainment at the time, they did that, right? And that was their vision, and that's who they wanted to be. So getting the whole company on board with that and saying, this is who we want to be, In order to do that, we have to help each other and we have to promote each other, right? And so bringing that together to connect back to that purpose and plan, as I mentioned, to say everybody is— we all have the same purpose ultimately. And how can we— we each have our piece of it for sure. But then we also have opportunities where we could help each other and cross over, even if it's just with ideas sometimes, right? So maybe it's not— to the point of actually doing work that's going to support another area of the company's objectives. But maybe it's just brainstorming or coming up with innovative ideas. And this comes back to the passion, right? So when people are passionate about the purpose, they do that naturally. And they start to say, oh, here's what we could do. Oh, here's what we could do. Or they'll see something in another area and say, oh, you know what? I saw this thing on the news, or I saw this other company do this, and I think we could do that, right? And they're thinking about it in a bigger purpose picture than just their role. And I've seen teams bring results that no one would've thought of just because they were so passionate about the purpose.

Yeah. And do you think that in organizations where that purpose isn't quite so strong, because it sounds like where you have very passionate individuals who are very, very purposeful in their and for the organization, that might start happening naturally. But I also wonder, do you have to kind of hardwire it? You talk about your third P there, processes. Does it have to be hardwired into processes sometimes? And the example that always springs to mind for me is when the sales director says, "Well, why aren't you all working as a team?" And all of the salespeople say, "Because we've got individual sales targets. So actually, you've just pitted us against each other by giving us individual sales targets." There is a great example of a process that is not driving in collaboration in an organization. So I wonder from a process perspective, do companies have to put in place processes to make people collaborate?

Yes, absolutely. And often, when I'm working with somebody and they're talking about a challenge with another area, even in coaching, right? So even if I'm not working with a team, but I'm working with an individual leader, and they're talking about, "Oh, we're having this issue with this other area of the company." I'll— the first thing I ask is, is this a decision-making issue? Like, who makes the decisions? Is it a process issue? Is it a system issue, right? And before we even talk about is it a people issue, what is the structure around that, right, that's enabling that? And exactly what you're saying, like, are you designing it to create a different behavior than what it is that you actually want. Because, um, because they even not having the same goals, right? So, so I, I worked with a company one time where, um, exactly what you're saying in a different way, right? That, that each— the CEO kind of had every area of, or every division of the company present their results in their team meetings. And he would talk about like, well, look at how well this division is doing and compared to you when they were doing their presentation, right? And kind of comparing them against each other in the meeting, right? And not, you know, just like thinking that he was being motivational, right? And it was actually creating competition just like you're saying. And then now they're trying to one-up each other. They're getting, you know, things get political. So, sometimes leaders do this unintentionally. They think they're being motivational or they think that they're inspiring their team when they're actually creating even more division and breaking down the collaboration.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's that whole idea, I think, of being so hyper-aware of the impact of your decisions. I was only doing a bit of work this morning for a client, and they were talking about making change that bumps off other divisions and departments. And not thinking about the impact that their change has outside of their own department or division, their own silo. And that's so important. And that's exactly what you described there is how, you know, what you end up doing then is pitting against each other. So, do you get collaboration? No. You get people shutting down. You get people, you know, like in an exam, putting their arm around their paper and writing in behind it so that nobody can see what they're doing. So, it does not drive the right behaviors necessarily for sure. 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.co.uk. Sharingchange.ie for more. When you think about that leadership model, the Red Thread Leadership Model, it's been around since before the pandemic. We've talked about the pandemic a couple of times. And of course, back pre-March 2019, we all trotted off into our cars and onto our trains and into the office. And we sat there for 10 hours and we said, hey, Barb, and hey, John. And then we got back on the bus or the car or the train and we went home at night. The world of work has changed dramatically. And I wonder what your take is on what leaders need to do differently now to try and drive those brilliant cultures in organizations that everybody wants to have.

Yeah, I think that a lot of the things that I'm seeing, especially with companies that either work remotely are hybrid or are talking about stopping at all is that they're not bringing people together with intention. So for example, there was one company I was talking to and they said, well, we're telling people to come in 3 days a week, but they're not doing it. And I said, well, do they know why they're coming in? So are they coming in all at different times and saying, well, if I'm going to come into the office and I'm still going to be on video conferencing all day long, why am I here, right? So, so how you need to put those processes in intentionally to say if you want people to work together, yes, is, is it stronger collaboration when they're in person? 100%, absolutely. But just saying you need to come into the office and collaboration is going to happen No, right? We need to put in some, um, some intention behind it. And how, how is coming to the office important? What meetings are we going to have when we come in, in together? Let's put those processes in place. And one of our clients that, um, as things started to open up and we, we were finishing up their strategic plan, they asked us to help us, you know, help them come up with what's going to be our plan in return to office. And I said, let's talk to let's talk to the team. Like, who— what do they want, right? Do they want to be together? Do they want to work from home? And most of them said they wanted to work from home. But the type of work they do needs to— sometimes needs to be collaborative. And what we ended up creating was, you know, for one week a month, everybody comes into the office. That's when all the team meetings happen. That's when the town halls happen. That's when the leadership team talks strategy, right? So that whole week is based on those meetings that need to happen collaboratively. Everybody needs to be there. There's no vacation time during that week, right? And, and they get the whole calendar for the year so they know. And it's worked brilliantly where they, you know, people come together, they know they have that time. And then they also have a, a policy in place where anybody can call an in-person meeting with a week notice for an intentional purpose, right? So I can say Hey, we need to get to— everybody needs to be in the office on this day for this meeting because we really need to get together and talk about this and we're scheduling it for next Wednesday, right? So, and they're allowed to call that, right? So everybody understands that. And so there's intention and purpose behind why they're coming together. And I think that goes across with everything that's changed as a result of the pandemic. That's just an example, right? Helping people understand why they're doing what they're doing and how it's going to help them in their job and help the company ultimately, they'll be on board. They'll be like, "Okay, yeah, I get it. Let's do it," right? But if you're just putting rules in place just for the sake of it and they don't really see the point, they're either not going to do it or they're not going to be engaged.

Yeah, and that, I love that whole idea of intentionality. And I think that we often, I suppose my question was a little bit leading in that I went straight to what do leaders need to do differently? But I think actually in that intentionality, there is a role for staff, employees, your colleagues, as well as leaders. Yes, leaders have to set direction and maybe be a little bit more deliberate about some of those actions. But actually, there's then a responsibility on people in the organization to say, well, you know what? No, I'm sorry, I can't do a meeting with you on Zoom on Tuesday. Tuesday morning because that's my day in the office. So, it'll have to be Wednesday morning or the week after to make sure that we think about it. And it is a day, I mean, it's, I think a lot of what we've spoken about in hybrid working has boiled down to, am I working in the office or am I working at home? And actually it's not that binary, is it? It's not that binary because actually what we're thinking about is what is it I do when I'm in the office and at home? How do I do what I do when I'm in the office versus at home? What makes most sense to do in the office or at home? There's a whole load of other questions that I don't think that organizations have been very very good at exploring with their staff. It's all boiled down to, well, it's a 60/40 hybrid split. We want you in anchor days of Wednesday and Thursday, plus another floating day somewhere else. And we're just telling people what we want them to do. And exactly to your point, we're just not very good at explaining why.

Right, right. Exactly.

Yeah, yeah. We talked about some of the things that organizations and leaders have to start doing. When you think about aligning people to strategy and you think about your leadership model, what are some of the things that you see that perhaps leaders need to stop doing, that they need to have that bit of self-awareness to go, "That's not really working. I must actually stop doing that or do something different." What are some of those things that you see?

I am seeing a huge trend of blame in leaders. And, um, it's, it's actually a bit baffling to me in that I, um, like, like, and I think it's coming from a little bit of generational bias, right? To say, oh, the younger generations don't want to work, um, you know, I have to babysit them, uh, you know, like some of the phrases that I've heard about referring to, uh, to teams and what they have to do to lead them is shocking to me sometimes. And I think it's, you know, it's like it's their fault that we're not getting there. It's not my fault, right? And even in the media, some of the things that have happened in the US that where CEOs have been recorded or in some cases actually didn't realize that they were sharing what they were sharing when they were sharing it. Have shown me that. And, and for example, I had— I read an article about one company going back to this work-from-home policy where they said, we're, we're making 5 days a week need to be in the office because we had IT do this assessment about how much time people were on their laptops. And we found this whole group of people, including their managers, that hadn't opened their laptops for more than 30 days. And I Right? Wow. He was saying this in an actual interview in the media and blaming the employees, right? This is their problem. This is why they have to come in the office, because we have to keep an eye on them because we can't trust them. And I don't see it that way. This is a leadership problem. I was like, really? Like, not one person had a meeting with any of these teams? For a month, right? Right. So I think it really is, you know, I think some companies are in industries are really struggling right now and emotionally sort of making it, well, it's the team's fault. They're not doing enough. They're not stepping up enough. I need them to step up more. I need them to be more innovative and they're not doing it. And as opposed to what do I need to do as a leader? And why aren't they productive? And why are they not innovative? And what can I do? Do I have the right people? And what can I do to help get them engaged and passionate about what we're doing? So, I think for me right now, stopping blaming the team is probably top of the list in what I'm seeing out there.

Yeah, nice one. Thank you. Last thing to ask about, because we've covered a lot of ground in the past half an hour or so, If you were looking at an organization, you're going to an organization on Monday morning and their people are just not aligned to strategy. And I'm thinking about this from a listener's perspective. If they are in organizations where the alignment is poor, what's the first thing that you would say to them or to a client to start to help to align people to strategy? What's the first thing you would do?

Are you clear about it? Are you clear about your strategy and are you focused on it, right? So what I see, I mean, I've seen very successful organizations, big companies that have a strategy with 25 priorities. You're not going to get people aligned with 25 priorities, right? And, um, you know, what are those 3 to 5 things that you can focus on? Like, maybe those 25 things are necessary, but they're rolling up to 3 to 5 things. And let's have everybody really focused on those 3 to 5 things. And I think that one of the things that I'm seeing show up in a lot of organizations, and it's happening around the world, is an increase in burnout. And I think it is this speed of change, this constant uncertainty, and this lack of focus, right? Is, oh, this is happening, so we need to do this now. Oh, this is happening, so we need to do that now. Not really staying focused and helping their team focus on what's most important and what are their priorities for the company at every time. And then even as a manager, right, how are you helping your team focus on what's most important just for your department? If you know, even if you don't, you're not the CEO of the company, you're the department manager. What are you, how are you helping your team understand what's most important week to What are their priorities? How can you help them focus so that they feel like they're accomplishing things? Which is a big cause of burnout is feeling like you're on a treadmill and that also you can get things done, right? You're not constantly in the middle of 10 different things at a time.

Okay, so it is about aligning teams more locally to strategy, about translating, contextualizing strategy for your team in a way that really resonates with them and then celebrating because I think what people want to see is progress. They don't wanna be on a treadmill, they want to be on a nice, sunny path beside the sea, making progress towards something. And I think that by celebrating those little moments of magic, by celebrating those little project deliverables, that can really help to do that because that shows momentum. I always remember that JFK story when, you know, back when they were putting a man on the moon and JFK talked about putting a man on the moon and NASA were talking about the same narrative. And of course there were a million things that had to happen before anybody stepped on the moon. You know, they didn't have a rocket at the time. So we have to build a rocket first. So there were all those little steps along the way. And I think painting that plan for people is really powerful. What are the little steps? What are the little things that we can celebrate every single week, fortnight, month, whenever it might be? So yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. Sonya, before we go, where can people find out more about you? What's the best place to go?

Yeah, so I'm very active on LinkedIn, happy to connect with anybody that would like to connect, answer any questions that you have. I also share a lot of free resources LinkedIn. And our website is executiveleader.com. And there's a Red Thread section on that website that has a free masterclass on the Red Thread model. So you can see step by step each of the 5 Ps, best practices on how other companies have implemented it so that you can start to bring it to life in your own company.

Brilliant stuff. And we'll be sure to put those links in the show notes as well down below. So listeners, you can just click away there and go off and find Sonia wherever she is. Sonia, listen, thank you so Thank you so much for joining me today. It looks like a beautiful day there. It's a beautiful day here. I'm going to go out and spend some time in the sunshine, but it's been really nice talking to you.

I really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you for inviting me.

Thanks for listening. To hear from other leaders in our podcasts, to read our blogs, or to find out more about the work that we do at Inspiring Change, please visit inspiringchange.ie.