149 | Leading Teams in the Age of Constant Change | Scott McInnes & Glenda Kirby

At Inspiring Change, we help our clients build work cultures that bring out the best in their people. We created this podcast to share real stories and insights from those who are shaping better workplaces every day. So grab a cuppa and pop in your earbuds wherever you are. You're very welcome to the Building Better Cultures podcast. We're excited to have you with us. Hello there and welcome to the Building Better Cultures podcast with me, Scott McInnes, where, as you know, if you are a previous listener, we talk about all things culture, communication, communications, change, leadership, and hopefully leave you with some practical things to take away and do today, right now, tomorrow in one of those spaces. My usual ask, and I'll say it again and I'll keep saying it, please do give us a little review and a little rating in whatever you're listening on right now. It takes you 2 seconds while you're listening, and it would really, really help us get the podcast out there. So that's my ask of you. Thank you very much. Today's guest is Glenda Kirby, who is the Chief Customer Officer at Populo. Now, for those of you who don't know Populo, how dare you? A very famous Irish-founded, Cork-based employee communication and workplace experience and engagement platform. It's been around for years and years and years. I knew Andrew, the founder, back in the days of Newswheaver before it even became Populo. That was a while ago. Nowadays used by brands around the world like Marks Spencer, National Grid, Xerox, HSBC, with a reach— I was looking at your website earlier, actually— a reach out to 50 million employees, which is pretty impressive. And prior to that, nearly a decade at Indeed.com and LinkedIn in senior customer success roles. But today is much more for me about the internal and probably starting to think about from a leadership perspective. And I love chatting to people like you, Glenda. We should say hello. Hello, Glenda.

Hi, how are you?

I'm good, I'm good. I nearly forgot you were there. I was just going— sorry about that. You know, I love having guests like you on because it's really interesting that the role that you're in is about helping other organizations to be more effective communicators. But of course, the role that you're in also requires you as a leader in the organization to be a really, really good communicator as well, because you've got your own team to bring on the journey. We'll hopefully get a little, maybe a little flavor of both angles as we go through the next 30 or 35 minutes.

Yeah, absolutely.

One thing that always strikes me about really good internal comms is that it's about how we build trust, and trust is a really big foundation for strong and aligned cultures. So, I wonder from your perspective, in the roles that you've had and in the jobs that you've done and now in Populo, When you think about the impact of transparency through really strong comms, empathy, intentional messaging, how does all that come together to start to build trust and then go on then to strengthen culture?

Yeah, I mean, I think trust is becoming so prevalent now of a discussion again. I think with the surge of AI, we all need to be thinking about trust every day, all day, with our teams and with our customers. For me, I mean, trust is about consistency. And when we used to think about change and communications, it would be very planful. We'd be thinking about, right, a change is coming down, we need to think about how to win hearts and minds. And now it's all day, every day. So we have to really build that muscle of consistency, of honesty. Um, and I think the skills that are shown up now for leaders have changed. It's all about like how transparent you are as a leader or as a business or as an organization, um, and how that's showing up. Yes, it can show up in internal communications, but it's showing up in your communication every day, I think, with your teams, with the people around you. Um, I think as well hybrid working, remote working has had a role to play there. I think a lot about like proximity bias. I mean, we were chatting earlier about— I'm here at home, I work from home most days, um, which, you know, is great. With it comes flexibility, and that's brilliant. But also proximity bias plays in. So how do you really start to communicate with people that you're not seeing every day, you're not on a Zoom with every day? Um, and that, I think, is the trust that needs to be built up with that internal communications. So So that's a tool that I use to help me. And I think you need to be consistent, it needs to be repeatable, and you need to show that kind of empathetic edge as a leader within those communications. So I think it's really, really important now, probably more important than it was previously.

And when you think about the role of internal comms, and I love that you picked out the idea that we used to be quite planned about change because it was coming and we saw it and we said, well, here's what we need to tell people and here's what's going to happen and here's it, and then we'll be finished. And actually, it now goes on and on and on. And actually, it was interesting. I was at a conference yesterday. One of the speakers spoke about the fact that these days it feels like there's big news all the time that we used to get. When big news happened, we would get a news flash, a big yellow strip across the middle of whatever program we were watching on the telly, and it would say the Pope has died, or Britain's gone to war with the Falklands, or a man's landed on the moon, or whatever. These days there's so much coming at people. How much of that do you think is getting in the way of organizations really being able to land the messages they want? Because we talk about this idea of change fatigue, and I'm not entirely sure that that's just a work thing. I think it's just a life thing. There just seems to be a billion things going on all the time. So, how can leaders and organizations cut through that noise or contend with that?

Yeah, and I mean, in life and in work, I totally agree with you. Like, we're all people just sitting here trying to do a job. It is constant, isn't it? I feel the pace has just accelerated in the last 2 or 3 years, and we do need to figure out how to cut through the noise. And I think how I like to do it is, you know, it's a nice— let's not just always be talking about business and a message coming through that you need to absorb, um, through whatever channel you're using. It's all omnichannel now. We're trying to contact people where they're at, which is important, right? I think that is— I like to consume information probably in a different way than you like to,. So I think we have to humanize it, and it, and it shouldn't always be a message about business. Are we talking about what's going on in the world? Are we talking about what matters to people? I love that Maya Angelou quote. I mean, I'm sure you've heard it so many times, but I think people really resonate with how something made them feel. And I often think about that when I'm trying to deliver a message. I think about what channel would you like to receive this through? What way is it gonna resonate with that person, but how's it going to make them feel? I mean, I could be receiving a message and it lands so differently than if you're receiving it. Your day could be different than mine. What's going on in your life could be different to what's going on in mine right now. And I think thinking about that is really important. Having that skill set to be able to empathize with the person on the receiving end is really, really important. And I think it's that shift in how we're recruiting for leaders is happening now. Those skills that we require now are just so much more prevalent than they were maybe 15, 20 years ago. And it's hard, right? It's hard to actually get those skills in an interview process. How do we actually figure out, you know, how, how are they going to resonate with their team? So I think all of that's becoming really, really important. Cutting through the noise is important. Um, And I think how we do that is like consistency, knowing how something's going to land, getting feedback and actually acting upon that feedback. So not just delivering messages and always feeling, or actually messages going out on a daily basis. And we think about things like timing. That's important. We use all the data we have available to see, right, when's the best time to send it? What should it say? What's resonating? But more importantly is, you know, what's the feedback on the back of that? Are you actually actioning what you're hearing? Are you actively listening out to your teams? You know, sentiment analysis is important. EMPS is important, but actually showing I'm actually going to action what I've heard today. And it's not just thank you for your feedback and we're going to move on with the next message. So I think that's really important to be able to show that.

And of course, a huge amount of what you described there, you're talking, and in my head I'm going, yeah, that's a leader's job. That's a leader's job. That's a leader's job. So those people managers, people leaders, supervisors, line managers, call them what you will, those people in that middle management layer are such a critical channel because they are the ones that, to your most recent point there, can take that feedback. In terms of landing a message. They know that, you know, you've just gotten a new puppy and you might be up half the night because it's like worse than having a baby. They know that, you know, maybe somebody's mother has just died or their car just broke down or their child's got mumps or whatever. I don't even know if people get mumps anymore, do they? I don't know.

I think they do. I think it's coming back.

Mumps, is that a thing anymore? I don't know. But we know the people really well and we know those 6 or 8 or 10 people more intimately than somebody more senior in the organization might know them. Like you, for example, in your role is a very senior role. You might not know people intimately down through the organization, particularly again, to your point, in a hybrid world where we don't see people all the time. We're not walking past people's desks anymore. And the sense I get from that, plus all that busyness stuff that we talked about and all that noise— I am getting to a question— is that the role of leaders— I was literally at this conference yesterday, and I said to the person beside me, I wish this interviewer would just literally get to the bloody question because this is painful. People, I'm getting to the question. It's fine. So for me, it's coming, it's coming. The role of leaders seems to be getting harder, seems to be getting busier. What does that look like in your context and what have you seen changing in recent years?

I think it is changing and I think there's massive responsibility on leaders. It's not an easy job. And I often think back, you know, to a time when I wasn't a leader and was being an individual contributor. Is challenging? Yes, probably, if you become like a subject matter expert. But leadership, there's great responsibility that comes with that. And, you know, it's really challenging now, but there are great supports in place and there are great things you can do to help enhance your leadership skills. But I think You know, being self-aware, as you've said, you're not going to know every member of your team if your organization is very, very large. But I think making that effort to try and resonate with different people on the team is super important, whether you're going to know them individually or not. People trust their leaders because they are in the trenches with them. They understand what their day-to-day role entails. Maybe senior leadership don't know the day-to-day ins and outs. They don't know the challenges you are facing every day. So it's important that direct leaders are trusted and believed by the teams that they're working with. So that's why there's such a pivotal role within the organization. That's why becoming a great communicator, being able to translate daily strategic change into like reality is so important. And I think that's why it's becoming a real challenging role. I had a conversation with a coach yesterday about like finding space. To actually think. And it's really important that leaders do that, like take that pause to figure out whether it's communication that's landing, a change you're driving, a massive organizational change. Really taking that time to pause and actually think, how's this going to resonate, is very important. And we're not doing that as much.

Well, my sense is that organizations don't put store on that, do they? Do they put store on giving you, Glenda, time to pause and think and reflect in your job?

No, but Glennon needs to think about it if she's going to become an effective leader. So having that boundary and knowing I need this as a leader. I love the phrase the pause is as powerful as the push. And I know some leaders don't because they feel, whoa, no, we don't want everyone sitting down having a nice pause. But is it better to be running around and not thinking about the impact or actually taking a minute to really think, hey, this is going to resonate. And we've such wonderful tools now. We can see the data behind how things are resonating through sentiment analysis, through, you know, certain tools like obviously Populo is a tool you can use for internal communication. But I think it's important to take that minute and really think about things. You don't get afforded that every single day and you have to be a critical thinker on your feet now to be an effective leader. But I think if you have that opportunity, take it as well.

One of the things that you mentioned there was that there's loads and loads of great supports for leaders to become better, or better managers, let's say. Because I think it's funny, management has become a bit of a dirty word. We all want— everyone needs to be a leader, we need to lead, we need to lead, we need to lead. But actually, we do also need to manage teams as well, and we need that skill. But I think when you look at the Gallagher State of the Sector survey over the past number of years, and I actually haven't looked at the 26th one yet, it's often said that leaders are saying, we really need skills in the area of communications. We really need upskilling in the areas of how we can actually do some of the things that you described there. And organizations still aren't investing in those things. Why do you think that is? There's an obvious skills gap there. We know it's important. Nobody on this podcast has ever said, oh no, I think that people leaders and middle managers are aren't a good channel at all for communications. I think we should just send more emails, said nobody ever. So why aren't companies investing in it? What is it? What's getting in the way?

Yeah, I think noise. I think what you said at the beginning, it's like, okay, AI is coming, AI needs to be our new skill, how do we lead through transformation? I think so much is coming on top of us that we're forgetting the foundations of actually how we deliver all of this change. And it's It's so important to invest in it, and, and it sometimes becomes what's of the minute. What are we talking about now? I mean, I was having dinner with my husband last night. He's an engineer. We were talking about Claude. How can I learn Claude over the weekend? Not a very cool conversation to be having with your husband over dinner, but, you know, I'm so aware as a leader now that I need to develop those skills. So, you know, that becomes a topic of conversation. We have to invest in it. And if you're a leader, you should be holding your leadership team accountable for these skills because you need them. Um, and when I think about those skills, like clarity— if you are able to deliver clarity in the moment when you need to be communicating to a team, and it's, you know, it's not always easy, but that's a skill, and it's a skill you need to learn. And I mean, definitely in my time at work at LinkedIn, I worked with some incredible leaders who taught you how to communicate. It was actually a class that you would go to And I'll never forget this. One of the leaders, he was great. He said, answer the question first. So when you're asked something, is the answer yes or no? Answer it and then you can go off and provide clarity. And I thought, wow, this is a great skill to develop and learn. And it's a simple, really simple trick and tip which I use now because like you said, I'll get to the question. But sometimes you're going down like a road, you know, and you're like telling this great story and they're waiting on the answer. The audience is waiting on the is it yes or no? And I think if you bring that up front, that's a really good tip that I learned early on in my career. And it's something that we should be teaching, you know, those little tips and tricks in the moment that matter.

Yeah, there's a very good friend of mine who was, you know, we throw around this term tone of voice and tone of voice didn't exist before the mid-'80s. So what do we want our organizational tone to be? What do we want to sound like? Do we want to be formal? Do we want to be friendly? Do we want to use we have and I will, or do we want to be we have and I'll? What type of organization do we want? And John Simmons, I remember one exactly, basically the written version of what you described there, which is the third paragraph test. He said, write the first draft of your email and then take the first paragraph and put it first. And then do a re-edit. And he said, because what's happened is you've said, dear Glenda, hi there, hope you had a great weekend. Next, please. Further to the conversation that we had about X, Y, and Z, third paragraph, on reflection, I think what we need to do is— there's your answer. Take that, put it up front.

Yeah.

And it was brilliant. And it's effectively exactly the same. Just give people what they want. We are We keep saying we're so time poor, there's so much going on, we don't have time to look at 50 million page emails. So actually just get— just cut to the chase.

Often people aren't listening until they hear that piece that they need, the yes or the no or the what's actually going to happen. And you're kind of like just sitting there waiting on that to come. So yeah, I think it's important and it's a good tip that's always stood with me. You've reminded me, I had a leader also at LinkedIn that said to me, if I'm reading something on my phone and it's more than 5 scrolls, forget it, it's gone. You know, so I want it in that top paragraph. So you're right, that's a good tip that I'll take.

Love it. And of course, advertising people have talked about above the fold forever, you know, is above the fold. That's where— that's the most expensive because that's the bit that people look at and the bit that people read. And I suppose that's the today version of your 5 scrolls. You talked about clarity, and we've talked a little bit about tone of voice. We talked a little bit about getting to the point. What other skills and tools do you think leaders need to be those really good communicators that people like you internally in an organization, or me who's maybe coming in to consult in an organization, need them to be?

I think the second important one for me would be empathy. And I think always lead with good intent. Always receive every communication, every interaction should be, okay, we're all starting in a good place. We all have to be able to demonstrate empathy. And it was interesting to me, I had a conversation with a colleague a while ago and they were like, I actually am not good at this. And I was like, oh, I thought everybody had empathy or was able to display empathy. And no, it's tough for some people. So really leaning in to empathy or spending time with somebody you think is actually really good at this, listening, you know, podcasts are great. How do I actually develop this skill myself? How would I like to receive it? Thinking about that person in the seat that the announcement is landing with. What's— like, we've talked about this— what's going on in their lives? How is it going to land with them? How does it affect them? All of that is really, really important. So I think second for me would be empathy. I think third is authenticity. I relate to it so well, so I always like to think about How would that land for me? How would that land for me in a certain situation? So be genuine and be human. We've kind of, like you said, with tone of voice, have we moved away from being very, very corporate and reading an email in a certain way that you kind of have to look at it and go, do I need a dictionary here? You know, be human. Like, we are all human. And just be honest. I think through communication, I think we talked about trust at the start. Trust is so important. If you're not going to be honest, human, and authentic, you lose the trust straight away. So for me, I think they're really core skills. Tools we've talked about— sentiment analysis, amazing, but you have to act on it. Have a clear plan. Make sure your managers, your leaders, if they're listening and if somebody has given you their time to fill in a survey or tell you how they're feeling, have a plan of action. I can't emphasize that enough. I think it's so important and we often forget that step or we let it slide. We say we have a plan and then we're revisiting sentiment analysis in the next 6 months and we haven't solved what we heard in the first 6 months. So I think to me, with customers and internally, still a really important tool.

Yeah, yeah. I was, I was chatting to a potential client the other day that had approached us about a bit of work and they've gone through a really, really tumultuous time over the past 18 to 24 months. And she said, oh, we have to do a culture survey every year now. We've been told by the board, and we did one last year, and we've done nothing with the results, and we've got another one coming up. And I said to her, you know what, just to set your expectation, if those results come back and they're the same as they were last year, and the results were described as like somebody coming into the boardroom and throwing a dead dog on the table, I said, if those results are the same this year, you are doing very, very, very well. I would fully expect them to be worse because it was bad then and you've done nothing about it. So what's that going to say? What does that say to people?

Exactly. And how can that be an effective team if you're sitting here giving your time and, you know, it's golden to get that feedback. As a leader that, you know, these are major challenges in our business that we want to address. Now, we're realists. You're not going to solve them all. And it's better to be transparent and say, we hear you, we're working on this one. We're not going to have a fix in the next 12 months, but here's the steps we're trying to take. I would much prefer to hear that than, oh, it's come up again, it's getting worse, you know. So I think you need to be honest. In that moment as well and consistent, um, if you're not going to be able to make an impact or drive a change that, you know, people want to see. But maybe through things like, you know, lunch and learns, coffee mornings, informal sessions that you can dig into it and really find, is there something else that I could fix that would— is within my control? And I think they're important also because sometimes, you know, Sometimes the requests are not achievable. Like, let's be honest, they're not.

Of course. Yeah.

But I mean, I think you can make small impact with things that actually might make a difference if you really dig into those, those suggestions. And I just think it's really important to be listening.

Yeah. And maybe, you know what, not maybe, absolutely. Those big things that you maybe just can't do something about because of budget, because of regulation, because of people or whatever, that you just say, We've heard you. These are the 5 big things that you said were problems right now. These 3, we can do nothing about, and here's why. These 2— yeah, the why.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So important.

This episode is brought to you by Inspiring Change. We work with senior teams to help them be clear and intentional about the culture they need to be successful, to communicate change in a more human way, and to give their leaders the skills to tools and confidence to be amazing catalysts for change. To learn more about our work and who we do it for, just pop along to inspiringchange.ie. I want to come back to empathy just for a second. I remember years ago, Shane Barry, who was a good friend of mine and a colleague when we were in AIB together, he was a coach and we were doing my MBTI. I'm an ENTJ, in case anybody cares, probably no surprise to anybody. But he was asking me about, you know, how do I think people want to be treated? And I said, well, you know, I treat people the way that I like to be treated. And he said, why do you think that anybody wants to be treated the way that you want to be treated? Surely— and it's a line that we throw around all the time, you know, well, you know, I'll treat people the way I want to be treated. It's called the golden rule. And, um, but that's since moved on to treat people the way they want to be treated. And that's the platinum rule. And I wonder what difference, what difference does that make for leaders and people on their teams?

I think that's tough. I think it's one of the hardest ones, right? Because you've said at the beginning of the call, we don't know everybody intimately, you know, like we used to. Maybe you do. Maybe you have the luxury of knowing everyone on your team, and it's great that you would know how certain things land. And I think tools like Insights Profiles are really understanding people how they like to receive information, who they are as a person, are great tools to help with that. But I think you're spot on. We're all so different. We need to acknowledge that and we need to understand how we can deliver complex messages to different types of people. But we can use different channels for that. Maybe people like receiving a message in person, maybe they like email, maybe they like Teams, maybe they like, you know, all these different channels that we can use. And I think asking that is important. You know, the way sometimes you get surveys now and it's like, how would you like to consume this information? I think they're brilliant. I'm a visual learner. I love video. Absolutely love it. Do I want to sit and read 50 emails? No, nobody does. I love a video, you know. So it's really important knowing that and being able to have those different channels. Um, so I think learning that as you go is important when you're trying to be empathetic in a situation and getting the feedback right, how it landed. That'll help you understand different people and the way they like to receive information.

And I also think, I mean, just for any people listening who've got teams, and I think that from people like me and people like you, Glenda, they probably hear this a lot, you know, you are that really important channel. It's important to know what people need and want and then communicate with them in a way that lands with them. And there's people probably listening to this going, 'Oh, Jesus, that means I've got to communicate with my team of 10 in 10 different ways.' The answer is no, because I don't think realistically you could really do that. But I think what you do is you try as much as you can to be empathetic and open and vulnerable and say, 'Look, lads, I'm really trying here to meet everyone's needs. We've not got the time to sit down and do this in 10 different ways and 10 different sessions and 10 different meetings. I'd love to do that, Yeah, but we just don't have the time. So I'm trying my hardest to make sure that I'm meeting the needs of all of you. And I think that's okay.

Yeah, me too. I also think it's good to try different channels, different ways, you know, and just see how it resonates. Yeah, we don't want to be going to 10 different places though. It's like, you know, a message come out and you're like, where, where is it? So you just— yeah, I also think like team meetings are still so effective. How do you think that went this week? How did that message land with the teams? Like old school but still really effective, you know. And let's not take an hour to deliver these messages, you know. Quick, effective, short. Love the new sprint rollouts. Think all of that's really good.

Stand-ups. Yeah.

Do you want to take 10 minutes in the morning just to see what's going on, get a pulse check? All of that is so effective, I think.

Yeah. Shane tells a wonderful story of— he's getting loads of name checks. I'm gonna have to mention— I'm gonna have to let him know that he's been name checked twice already. Scott tells a great story of his boss who would sit down with the team when a big comm came out. His boss would be in earlier than the team when he was working in L&D and would print 5 copies of whatever the communication was. He'd highlight out the important bits and leave it on people's desks and just say, have a read of that, and then let's have a chat after about how that actually affects us. You're like, okay, Communications 101.

Brilliant. Here's what I think. That you should get out of this.

Yeah, brilliant. But don't worry about all the other noise because that doesn't affect us. Here are the important bits for us. Yeah. Let's go back to change for a bit because we talked about that daily change and the noise and the cutting through the noise and all that stuff. And the fact that change in many ways is really, really complex. And I wonder, for me, those leaders really come to the fore as communicators during change. So, In order to bring people through that change, and I've now got Kubler-Ross change curve in my head, where we try and get that valley of despair a little flatter and we try and pull in the time over which the change is happening to be a little shorter. But of course, for me, that's very much about effective communications, how we bring people through the emotions of that change. So I wonder, how have you seen or how do you think leaders in the wider organization can really, really effectively bring people through restructures, uncertainty, rapid growth without losing people along the way?

Yeah, I mean, so important, especially during those moments, which unfortunately have been often in the last kind of 2 years, which is really tough. And with that, people are feeling very uncertain. So you have to be really conscious how you're going to drive that change or how you're going to communicate through it, because you're people are already feeling nervous. AI is making people nervous. This, you know, constant change where people losing jobs, losing roles, making people feel uncertain. So I think we talked about clarity, so I definitely think that's important. I think accuracy, like really not going out with a message until it's actually the message. There's nothing worse than having to pull it back or having to come on top of it with another message that you know, what we actually meant was, you know, I think that's unfortunate. So let's really try avoid that. And I think timing matters. I really do. I think, are we going to tell somebody about a change before we're even sure of the impact ourselves? No. Like, let's hold and take that pause until we've actually really examined it. Like, we want to be authentic, we want to be truthful. Yes, but we don't want to cause unnecessary stress with teams if we haven't really thought it through. So yes, I think about the change curve and all of those tools that we, we would have had previously. But I think the three things that resonate with me are accuracy, clarity, and timing. Very important. Really thinking about when's the best time, what am I going to communicate? Am I clear in my message and what it means to that individual? And maybe the message means different things to different people. We've talked about that. Maybe you need to take a group aside that it's actually going to impact. And yeah, you're going to have to drive it in that way. But I think thinking about those things at the forefront is very important before you even go out with that message. And then bringing the human element in, like, we know that these changes are going to cause a really negative human impact and bringing the empathy that we discussed in is super important. But if you're not in that position, also recognizing like it's not affecting you, but you need to be able to be there to support people through it. So in a leadership way, in a manager way, and not kind of going too far into that. But yeah, it's been really tough, I think, over the last 24 months on leaders and it's still happening. So leading through that has been difficult, and I think recognizing that is important. Yeah.

And do you think that leaders sometimes worry that if they go out with the empathetic line of, look, this is going to be really tough for lots of people in the organizations, ultimately there is a really super empathetic message that the leaders get it, and thank you, that's great, that you understand the pain that we're going through. Do you think they ever worry about the fact that Maybe I'm seeding an idea. Maybe there's not a worry there at all. And if I go out with this very empathetic message, I might actually start a fire that wasn't there at all. So actually, by being open, honest, and empathetic, then I might kick something off.

Yeah, which we do not want. So, I mean, be really clear on when and how and what you're trying to deliver. I always think about the end in sight. What are we trying to do here? Why are we trying to do it? So yeah, absolutely, that can happen. I was an engineer originally and I always think about this bug on your shoulder. We used to call it in coding, if you couldn't see something that was wrong, you'd bring somebody else in to look at it with fresh eyes. And I think that's super important in those moments. Like if you are so ingrained in an organization, you often forget what it feels like to be on the receiving end. So bringing somebody else in for extra pair of eyes, you know, open to feedback that this isn't going to land well, or is it necessary, or what are you going to cause by this actually going out today? So I think that's important as well.

There's a line that I heard a few weeks ago, and I've been using it all the time ever since. I'm sure people are sick of it. When you're in the bottle, you can't read what's on the label.

Yes. Absolutely. You're so caught in that moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're just sucked in.

Beautiful. You know, when you join an organization, you're so new and you can see, you can actually see what needs to change because maybe you were a customer or, you know, you've come from a competitor. And those golden 60 days, you're like trying to pull everything out because then you're in it and now you're like, oh, I know how hard this is to change, so I'm not going to bother raising it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And look, there's probably a whole other conversation around when that happens. What does the organizational culture need to be to allow you to come in? Because that is absolute gold. Somebody brand new coming in and going, why are we doing that like that? And why do we do this like that? And why does that process look like that? And why does that— would you shut up and just leave us alone? Because we're busy enough already trying to make— actually, that's golden. And then what happens is you just get sucked into the way of doing things after that 60-day, 90-day, 100-day golden period. And, and gone. And that feedback is gone forever because you've been sucked into the ways of doing things, and that's really tough.

Yeah, I have this little poster on my desk, and it's like, what do customers want? Like, it's a simple line. What do they want is what I'm trying to think of every day, you know, because you get so caught in— I've got NPS feedback, I've got churn analysis, I've, I've got— I've met with these 6 customers, and you've all these things going on that you think they want, but actually, what is that they want? Such a clear, easy question that you can ask of your teams as well. So it's those moments of clarity, isn't it, that really matter?

Yeah. When my daughter was doing her Leaving Cert a couple of years ago, I kept finding little notes stuck in my notebook a few pages in and on my desk. And I'm looking at one here and it just says, in a world where you can be anything, be kind.

I love that one. Yes. Yes, so important.

Yeah, I think there's a lot in that. Come here, Glenda, we've run out of time. We are at time. I feel like we could just talk for hours about this stuff. And given that you only live up the road, we must get a cup of coffee, as I said earlier. But for now, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on. If you want to get in touch with Glenda, LinkedIn is probably the best place, and we can put your LinkedIn profile in the comments. If you want to find out more about what Populo does, populo.com. Populo.com.

That's right. Populo, the Latin for people. And we just added an extra P. So yes, come visit.

There we go. Perfect. Glenda, absolute pleasure having you on. Thanks so much for taking the time.

Thanks a million. It was great, Scott. Enjoyed it.

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