#ICPODCAST | Episode 55 | JIM EGAN | Corporate Communications

Welcome to the Inspiring Change Podcast, where I talk to leaders about internal communications, engagement, leadership, and the role they all play in creating amazing cultures.

There's 4 things that follow for inspire change for me. There's 4 things that happen. It's you know it, which means intellectually I get why we're doing this. I believe it. Believe it is the key. If I believe in it, then I'm going to move to the third, which is I'm going to own it, and then moves to the fourth, I lead it.

Hi there and welcome to this episode of the Inspiring Change Podcast. Welcome to the podcast with me, Scott McInnes. It's the end of January if you're listening back to this and it's been a really funny month in lockdown and I think it's the third lockdown now and people are really starting to struggle. And I've certainly, you know, probably the first couple of weeks, certainly this week I had a really good week and realized that probably the two previous I was struggling a wee bit just to kind of energize myself and just get back to the me that I like being. And I was chatting to a colleague this morning who's a psychotherapist and she was saying, you know what we're just really bad at is allowing ourselves to have bad days, is allowing ourselves the space to say, look, we're in the middle of a global pandemic, we're a year into it, we can have a bad day and that'd be okay. And I kind of summed that up this morning by saying, rather than hit the ground running on the 4th of January, I think I probably hit the ground on January the 4th, I probably didn't start running until maybe the start of this week. So it just takes a bit of time to get back into it. So I suppose my quick message here is just look after yourselves, Give yourself the time and the space to have a bad day occasionally and recognize when things aren't feeling great, because it was certainly something that I found really useful in terms of advice from her. Now, today's guest is somebody who I've met a couple of times. We were having a really good chat last week, and he shares certainly some of, of my thoughts and feelings and passion around change and around the role of leaders, particularly during change. So we'd had a really good chat last week, and I thought to myself, I wish I'd recorded all this because that was brilliant. That'd be a really good podcast episode. And then I rang him after and I said, do you fancy coming on and doing a podcast episode? And he said, sure, let's do that. My guest today is Jim Egan, who is the regional corporate comms lead for Kerry North America. He had very recently, until very recently, been in Ireland, but has since relocated back to the US. So I'm really looking forward to the chat today. Jim, hi, how are you getting on?

Well, very well, Scott. It's a pleasure to be with you all the way over here from the United States.

Thanks very much. And a big week, obviously, in the US this week.

Yeah, big week of change.

Yeah, yeah, it was a very big change, and a lot of change coming up in the next couple of years nationally, I guess, for you guys.

Yeah, it's a change that I think a lot of us are looking forward to in the sense of moving on with COVID as you talked about. COVID's among all of us. And I think we're all kind of getting COVID fatigue, and I think it's— the light is at the end of the tunnel. And I think it's a good example, Scott, of how, you know, the current administration, Joe Biden, in his talk, he was very visionary about what he believes, and that inspires confidence that we will— there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It won't be easy. We still have a lot to do, but I think it's a good example of inspiring and rallying people behind that vision. And, uh, and that's what I took from the inauguration and some of his talks leading up to that.

Yeah, for sure. And, you know, the one thing that really struck me was, was, was indeed that, that visionary piece, that piece around hope and, and kind of getting back together and, and fixing some of the, the wrongs of the past. But also, even today, when he talked about, you know, by the end of the month there could be half a million deaths in the States, and just a real— and an honesty and and an openness and a not trying to cover things up and just showing that, you know, look, we're all adults here. We have to just, you know, live with this thing. And I think that balance of honesty was a really powerful thing. So good to see Biden in there and let's hope he does some amazing work. Before we kick off, let's have a little chat about you and where you've come from and your role today. I'd love to hear a bit of that.

Sure, so, you know, I'm gonna date myself a little bit, but when I was getting into the university, and I was studying, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And it was about the time where, you know, the sitcoms of the United States, some of the shows going on, I really couldn't articulate quite what I wanted to do. But I said to the chair of the communications department, I knew I was going to be in communications. I loved communications. I love connecting people with people and connecting information with people and inspiring people. It's something that I've always been fond of. So I was talking to the chair and I said, listen, the only way I could describe this is the, the television show called The Love Boat. All right, so this Love Boat is— every episode, celebrities show up to the boat and they experience this cruise, and it— the show is about the crew members and the staff. And I said, the role I want to play is on the cruise ship, is helping everyone stay connected to what's going on. It's the Julie McCoy character, where she was, she was kind of the communications and events coordinator for the ship. And I said, that's kind of what I want to do, but on a business side, is connect and inspire large groups of people to rally around and drive toward a common goal. And so the university didn't have something like that at the time, so we— I was the first to graduate with what we were calling then business communications degree. It turned out to be a corporate communications and with an internal communications function over the time. But that's kind of how I got started. Then I worked in the agency world and I was helping companies, client companies with internal communications and product launches. I worked my way through and was a consultant with Hewitt Associates, and then I worked with, with Cary. I've been with Cary for a while and I've, and I've helped with both internal and external, now corporate communications with the community and PR.

Brilliant, thank you. And I love just— listeners, you won't be able to see this, but there's a brilliant poster behind, uh, behind Jim on the wall that just says, "Find your spark, ignite your passion, and live your purpose." And I know from having had a couple of chats with Jim that he fundamentally lives, breathes, sleeps, and eats that thing on the wall. Um, I'd say if it was edible, it wouldn't be there anymore, he'd have eaten it already. Um, let me ask you, let me ask you this question. Great big question to start with, and then we might drill a little bit down into some of the detail. What's your philosophy around really effective change comms? What makes really good change comms?

Well, I mean, I could sum it up. There's a few points, but I can sum it up as I wholeheartedly believe that change is personal. Change impacts us personally. It impacts us macro as well, but it is really at the core a personal decision to buy into change. And I think as leaders of organizations, whether it be nonprofit or corporate, whether it be community or government, as we talked about with Joe Biden, I think it's making it personal. That's the key. And so it starts with me. As the leader of change, if I'm the executive leader of the change, that personal experience, it has to start with me. And so to sum that up, change is personal, and therefore change comms needs to be personal.

And so, okay, so that's really interesting. And you and I have both worked in-house in big corporations on change comms projects, and we know that that the big change message can come down from the top. Here's where we're going. The juggernaut, the cruise ship, the tanker, call it whatever you want, is going here. And we're all on it, and we're all going there. That's quite impersonal as a message, because it has to be, because it has to be quite generic. What is it? How do we make that change more personal for people? What is it that organizations are doing to bring that personal piece that you talk about?

I think there's a trend. It's probably been going on for some time, but it's really taking hold more and more. It's the change story. It's creating a narrative around what that vision looks and feels like, not just quantitatively from a metric perspective. We will be, you know, to 30% growth, or we will be in this new market, or we're going to transition to this new operating model, whatever those are. Those are facts or metrics, but it's the story that goes with it. It's why, you know, Simon Sinek talks about those start with why. And from a change perspective, I start with the personal why. Why does this matter to me as the CEO? Why does this matter? How does this help us as a company make a bigger difference in the world? And why do I believe in this? And so practically speaking, starting with a narrative with the CEO, why does this matter to you? And how do you personally connect to it? And I think that personal connection is probably the hardest question to ask and to answer, I suppose. Probably harder to answer, right? Because we leave our personalities, or tend to, we tend to leave our personalities at the door. We hang them up with our coats and we come in and we are very objective in our personalities are kind of somewhat, I don't know, bland or void in some of our work at, you know, within the constructs of a company or our role. So making it personal is what I would do and what I do is try to bring that personality and that personal story to life as we start, starting with the change lead or the sponsor of the change, in this case, the CEO or a functional lead and what have you.

And do you think that generally senior execs are very good at that? Is it something that they've really cottoned on to? Because I think bringing the whole corporate narrative, bringing the story, bringing the emotion and the personality is quite a new thing. And from what I've seen, they aren't massively necessarily comfortable with it, particularly those that maybe come from a finance background, which is the type of person that has been elevated in organizations traditionally, maybe. What's your experience of that?

Yeah, I would agree with you. I don't want to paint with a really broad brush because I think every organization is different. I think as you think about the organization and you think about the person, I look at it in two ways. I look at it first as the organization's kind of DNA. In the context of DNA is like if you're an accounting company, we were at Hewitt, Hewitt was formed as an actuary company. They were actuaries. The running joke at Hewitt was, how can you tell an extroverted actuary? He's looking at your shoes instead of his own. We joke about that. But because that is actuary work is very, so it's an introverted kind of role. And you gravitate toward that as a personality type. So when you look at leadership personality types, if you look at the DiSC model, you look at the I's, the I's have this in spades. They know this, they feel it, right? But some of the D's or the C's, the more the direct and the decisives and the more the control and the, you know, more of an isolated and counting kind of form as you talk about, it's harder for them. So yes, they tend to naturally leave some of that at the door. So it's kind of unpacking that and helping them feel comfortable in that uncomfortableness. You do that through dialogue, you do that through small wins, small opportunities. And practically speaking, one of the things my former CEO Dale Gifford at Hewitt, I love near and dear, a good friend of mine, his son is a really good friend of mine. And what we did was as communication tactic, was put him in small settings. He'd come down, he was dedicated to coming down from his office and having lunch in the canteen, in the cafeteria. And what we did is we'd go down together and he would just say, let's sit at that table. We random, let's sit at that table. We would sit down and the team, obviously, it would be like, oh my gosh, the CEO's with us, right? And that allowed him to just be Dale. And have a chat. And that opened, slowly opened and opened and opened, and over time he was very comfortable in large settings as well. So that's just the practical.

And a really good one, start small and build from there.

Start small, yeah.

Yeah, and I think the impact, I think people don't really realize the impact that something like that has, the ripple effect through an organization of the CEO coming down, Jesus, I was at lunch today, and the CEO came down and just sat down beside me with his tray, and we had lunch together. That's mad. The power of that, isn't it? Isn't it huge?

So that right there, as you described it, happened all the time. I can't believe I had lunch with the CEO. But you know what else happened? The follow-up statement. And you know what? He's a regular guy. You know what? He's got the same struggles. He's got to try to— his kids are going to high school. He's trying to figure out— I remember a former CEO, Kerry, I'll tell you this story because we were— it was early days. I started in Kerry in 2005, and I think it was around 2006 or whatever. And one of our senior executives, we were moving out, we were creating this, what is now our global technology or regional technology and innovation center in Beloit. And so we're gonna go break ground and everything. So we're gonna go out there and we're in one of our offices, And we said, we're going to drive over there. So one of our senior executives was going to drive one of the dignitaries that were visiting to see the site, right? And he puts him in his car. Before he puts him in his car, he has to push off the Cheerios from the seat because his kids— he drove his kids to work that, you know, to school that day, and they were having their morning snack. That's real. That shows you humanity of the leaders. And that's just an example where you can be you and it's okay because that helps with authenticity and it helps with trust and it helps build trust in where you want to go because they start to believe it.

Yeah, and trust is a powerful thing. And I think that we can, you know, that whole idea of, you know, we talk a lot about authentic leadership and I think that's something that scares people as well. That whole idea of, you know, if I am that actually, you know, actually looking at, you know, the other person's shoes you know, how do you bring that person on a journey where they are their authentic selves, even if their authentic selves is a massively painful introvert? Do you still need that person to be the captain at the front of the ship, even if it means them maybe coming across as inauthentic? Because everyone goes, well, that's not him, that's not her, that's not how they present normally, it must be the comms people making them do it. What happens in that That's a really good point because we cannot—

I'm an extrovert, as you probably tell, right?

So I'm not really.

I would be at the front of the stage willingly jumping around, getting excited, because I love where we're going. I have great passion for this organization, what we're trying to do. So does the introverted CEO. So does that actuary. Dale Gifford was an actuary. He has that same passion, but it comes through in a different way than I do. I can't make him do what I do naturally. So as communicators, we have to meet them where they are. We have to let their words, their words and their feelings come through. And we're just a channel for that. We're a facilitation tool for that. We, if, if I wrote something and gave it to them to read it, Guess it would fail. But if we work together on how does this manifest in your personal story, how would you say this? How would you feel it? Then it's authentic. And even if it doesn't have the energy that I may have, it's still authentic. It still builds trust. And it's still genuinely Dale. That is the key, I think, is bringing their voice out and not ours.

And I think allowing them to do that in a very small setting, as you said, to start with is a really powerful way because you do it with two or 3 people at a lunchtime setting in a canteen, and then you maybe do it with 10 people at a team meeting, and then maybe it's 20 or 50 or 100 people, and then suddenly you've got them on stage in front of 1,000 people in front of the whole company.

Exactly. You're having a skip-level mini town hall session to talk about the change that's coming, and he'll give his personal views on where it's going and why. And it's a more intimate setting. It's still 100 people, 200 people. It's not 26,000 yet. But that really is effective, which brings you to the role of leader in inspiring change. Dale's role is to, you know, Dale's role or any CEO's role is to inspire the organization, but also to inspire the leadership team to feel inspired to inspire the organization. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. There's a lot of inspires, but it absolutely makes sense that he's the key, he or she is the key cheerleader.

Yeah. So there's a YouTube video. I don't know if your audience— sorry, listeners— Google this on YouTube or look it up. It's the first follower concept.

I don't know. Oh yeah, brilliant. The guy dancing.

Guy dancing.

Superb.

Dancing. He's got the courage to do this. It may come natural for him, and for some CEOs, it may— that may not be natural. Right? But if you got the courage to do it, there's going to be the first follower. And the minute that first follower starts, you've got the start of the movement. You've got inspired change. So again, it's personal.

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 communication, 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. Let's examine that personal piece a wee bit more because I've often said on this podcast that, you know, the really, really critical point, or the critical role rather, of people leaders during change, that they have such an important role. I think we have to, we have to balance that as well. I was saying to somebody on, on a phone call this morning that, you know, we talk about people leaders having important roles, we have to remember also at the same time that they're also people. So as we're going through change, you know, they need to be looked after as well as used as a channel. Um, but I wonder, what are some of the things in your experience you've seen work really well or what should they be doing as a group with their teams when it comes to leading them through change? Because the CEO, the leadership team, the exco in a big company can't do it all.

No, no, he can't, but he can do it with his sphere of influence, and it starts with the direct reports. I really wholeheartedly feel that you follow, um, you follow a path where you have influence, right? Um, and I think he— what we— what organizations where they— where we go wrong with change is, is we go too big too fast. Yeah, right. So again, goes back to my core essence of personal. Spend time individually and collectively with your direct report team to make sure that they not just know it, because there's 4 things that follow for inspire change. For me, there's 4 things that happen. It's you know it, which means intellectually I get why we're doing this. I believe it. So know it and believe it. Believe it is the key. If I believe in it, then I'm going to move to the third, which is I'm going to own it. I'm going to personally own this. And then moves to the fourth, I lead it. I help others start to know it, believe in it, own it, and lead it for others. So that, that, that cyclical kind of that cycle of knowing, believing, owning, and leading, it has to start with the CEO in major change. It doesn't have to start with CEO all the time, but where it starts, it starts with the person that has the most influence. And then you're creating these disciples of change because they believe in what we're doing, personally believe in it. Logically, they get it. We, we in organizations have a really good— we're really, really good at process improvements, at efficiencies, at creating flows and making sure things work. And so if you stay at that intellectual level, you're going to put everything in place and people aren't going to use it. If it's a brand new system, you're going to put in the best system possible. But if they don't believe it, they're going to keep doing it their old way with the papers or whatever. Right. So I think it's important, practically speaking. And how do you do that? Spend time with them, tell them your personal story one-on-one, and then collectively work through it as a team. Take it at one of your executive meetings and hold it exclusively on what does this mean for you individually? What does this mean for you personally and for your team? Start to flesh that out. Then you have a bigger narrative story that you can continue to roll, and they have their story that they can take and move forward. We go too fast sometimes. If we spend time up front— a former executive of mine, a partner here that we worked with at Cary for years, would say, go slow to go fast. Spend time up front to make sure everybody understands. Not everybody, the key people understand. Your team knows what we're trying to do and why, and to support them. In that journey.

Yeah, and it's interesting that that model of know, own, believe, and lead is as fundamentally important for a CEO or an exco member as it is actually all the way down through an organization, down to the very front line, down to the most junior staff member. Because if that junior staff member, maybe they— I think it's interesting you talk about that, that, that the man dancing video, which I will tag in the, in the show notes. Um, but it's interesting you talk about that because I think our head often goes to, well, that person probably in our company would be the MD or the CEO because they'd have to be the one to make the first move. I question why. Why does it have to be them to make the first move? Why can it not be somebody on the front line in a factory, maybe in your case, or in an office in my case? Why, why can that not be the case?

Yeah, and, and, you know, I've often seen change work really, really well When let's, let's use a small organization in the sense where the CEO is visible to that dancer, to the one person who started to dance. They believed in this change so much so that they're going out on a limb, they're courageous, and they're going to dance for this. And a CEO or a senior leader sees that. That's the moment where the leader can dance. Now the leader is joining and is the first follower, the second follower. That's the most influential. They don't have to be the first dancer all the time, but they should see it. And when they see it and they believe it, they jump in and dance because that tells the whole— their whole influencing group, whatever size that is, that I believe in this and I'm dancing with this person and I'm reinforcing this change.

And arguably, I would argue that that way round is actually more powerful in terms of creating followership, that is more powerful than the CEO being the first answer.

Absolutely. And it happens when you have organizational trust that when you start to dance, you're not going to be asked to sit down, right? Yeah. I trust that I can dance at a junior level. I can get up and say, I want to make this change. It's the right change for the company. It's the right change for our customers. It's the right change for our team. I've done the thorough looking at it, and now I want to dance. I've looked at it, I know it's the right thing, I've gotten approval to say, let's try it out, dance. And when I try it out, I need the follower, I need the first follower. And organizational trust will allow them to say, yep, I'm going to dance with this one. And that's where you get organizational agility. You really get a company that can move on a dime quickly because there's strong trust that what we're doing is the right thing. I immediately believe in it. I don't have to be convinced because I see one of my partners, my colleagues dancing.

And you don't need to be told.

No, you don't need to be told.

That's a big thing. I think that whole idea of agility is a really powerful one, that particularly if people on the front line feel they're in a trusted environment, feel they're in an environment where it's okay to start something, that's really powerful. Because I think often, you know, people look at change and what they do is they turn and they look over their shoulder. They kind of look up the hill to see where the change is coming from, rather than feeling empowered and feeling in a trusted environment to be able to just take the change and just get on with it. Because the chances are nobody will die.

Nike, just do it, in this sense, just try it. Nobody's going to— try it. You'll like it. There's another life cereal commercial from the '70s or '80s. Mikey tried it, and he liked it. So to speak. There's this courage that keeps coming up. Trust and courage keeps coming up. Leaders need to have courage to be authentic selves. Our job as communicators is to help them find their voice, their authentic voice, and give them platforms that allows them to continue to grow that comfort and confidence in sharing their voice. Some leaders do it extremely well. Hmm. Our CEO at Kerry is, is probably the most dynamic and phenomenal leader I've ever worked for. And with, um, Darryl Gifford was one that had so much passion, but he worked at it because of an introverted style. He had to work at it, and he got great at it. He's phenomenal in his own space. So know the leader, meet the leader where the leader is as communicators, and find those forums and channels that allow that to happen. But also be, practically speaking, be connected to see those dancing opportunities where then you can promote them. As communicators, we have to be the town crier of, look at how great this is and how great this person is. Let's join in that fun, so to speak.

Brilliant. Brilliant. One of the things that Chuck and I spoke about in the last episode, in episode 54, was this whole just idea that he's come from big organizations. I've come from a big organization background. You work for a big organization, but we kind of forget, I think, on the— often on these podcasts that there are literally tens of millions of small and medium businesses out there in the world. In fact, in Ireland, it makes up, I think, something like 99.8% of our workers are employed in very small businesses. So it's easy to talk about big organizations that have change teams and that have internal communications teams teams and business partnering and all that kind of great stuff. But I just wonder from, from a, you know, if there's an SME, you know, a business owner listening to this, um, what would your advice be for them if, if he or she is leading a small team, leading their company through change? Because by God, you know, if they're not doing something about change right now, then they never will. I wonder what would your, what would your, say, top 3 tips be for, for those types of people to lead their small businesses through change?

Man, that's a fantastic question, Scott. I think when you said that, I thought, "Geez, I'm not sure there isn't one single company, no matter the size, who isn't going through change." The speed of change, the digital platforms that are available today, automation, efficiency, everything is changing.. And so being a part of that change and being at the, depending on where you want to be, the first follower on change or the bleeding edge of change, what have you, based on your business model. My advice to the SME, to the business owner of a small company, medium company, what have you, maybe doesn't even have communication support in its infrastructure, which is, you know, somebody like your good self, is to think of ways to connect with your people in some simple practical ways are just hold an informal town hall. When we first kind of got started, we were, you know, we operated the organization kind of operated as independent business units in a sense in North America. So we held a no-agenda town hall where employees showed up. We had about 700 people show up to the office and we had it at this banquet hall across the street and no-agenda town hall. The CEO rolled up his sleeves, you know, he took off his jacket and said, All right, ask me anything, right? Ask me anything. Let's figure it out.

That's brave. That's brave.

It's very brave. But you know, there was trust in what they were going to ask. There was nothing nefarious. There was nothing there. They were just— employees were always asking because they want to know, how can I contribute to this? And it gives you a platform to become authentic and talk. Talk about the change you're going through. Just be transparent. Tell them what you know and tell them what you don't know yet and how we're going to help figure that out together. So practically speaking, look for those opportunities to connect with your people. If you have a team of 10, meet with them, be with them and talk, have a no agenda meeting to talk about it, or meet with them and have an agenda around what's changing, why, why you feel this is the right thing to do and get their input. So those dialogues, change is personal dialogue. Look for forums that allow you to dialogue. If it's a big, big change, if it's a big monumental thing that you need to go through, a merger, acquisition, it does help to get support, support like from a communications professional who can help you think through this and build out this plan. Someone like yourself or somebody that does this for a living. That is probably a very very, very good investment because you can't— you know, you can fumble through it, it might be successful. Boy, if you get a little bit ahead of this and you plan out those forums and you plan out those authentic moments, that's what is going to make all the difference.

Yeah. I've often said that if you get 5 disgruntled employees in a field of 700, you'll get by. If you get 5 disgruntled employees in a field of 10, that's half your staff that are not coming on the journey with you.

Yeah, and all the investments you make, you know, I talk about this from my side hobby in the context of how does change happen, what is the ROI? If you see all of these metrics out there, you know, even McKinsey had a recent report out that talks about the percentage of change that actually delivers on the intended return on investment. It's minimal. It's 30— somewhere around 30% or less. That's a lot of investment wasted. Don't manage the change properly. And by manage, I don't even like the word manage change. Lead change. Inspire people to lead change is probably the better way to describe it.

Yeah, it was interesting. That must have been a rework of that McKinsey research, because that McKinsey research, or that idea of 70% of of change failing has been around for a good while. And it's interesting when you drill down into the numbers that, if memory serves, 33% of the reason that change fails is because the leaders aren't on board, and something like 38% is because the people in your organization aren't on board. And that's not to say that all change fails, you know, to deliver nothing. It just doesn't deliver what you expect it's going to deliver. So it's interesting. There were two things you touched on there, actually. One was that ideality of connection that I want to get on to in a second, and creating a connection between your— the people that work in your company and, and the company itself and the direction it's running. But also the power of somebody saying, I don't know. That, that exec standing up in front of all those people with his sleeves rolled up and his jacket off, and somebody asks a question, and to have the, the bravery to say, I don't know. I think a lot of people see that as a weakness. I see that as a massive strength. I don't know what you think.

I think it's a massive strength, to your point. I think it is the doorway to inclusivity and participation. It is an invitation. Words I don't know is an invitation to help me figure that out. Let us do it together.

Yeah, what do you think?

I had this— exactly, I had the CEO early days in the agency. We were a relatively small agency. I joined when I came out of university. And, um, and she said— she was the CEO— she said, guys, I want to take us into this field. I don't know how we're going to do it, but I see opportunity for us. And I think there's tremendous growth just for us, but a bigger impact for our clients if we can do this. Don't know how to do it. Let's think it through. Any ideas are good ideas. Join us in this journey. Boy, I was excited to participate in that exploration. It wasn't being told what we're going to do. It was, let's figure it out. And that, I don't know, is powerful. And it shows vulnerability in the right context. It's okay to not know. You don't have to have all the answers. If you did, why do you need everyone? What does Steve Jobs say? You know, I hired them because they know more than I do in that area.

Yeah. Why is it we hire clever people and then tell them what to do?

Yeah, that's it. That's it. That's it. See, you are brilliant at this.

Yeah. Really good. Really, really good. A little bit on that idea of connection, because I very much believe that, you know, connected people that are connected to an organization organization and feel connected rationally and emotionally are going to bend over backwards for the company because you're bending over backwards for them. And I just wonder what the role of internal comms is in creating that connection. What do you think internal comms pros should be doing or can be doing to build that connection with people?

When I've seen it work through the years, and I can draw upon it with recent experience, It is when a team, a collection of people, call them employees, you call them associates from Hewitt, call them colleagues. When a team of people see a higher purpose in what they're doing. I don't know about you, but I like to wake up every day and try to make a higher purpose, to achieve a higher purpose, to make a bigger difference in the lives of others. To bring joy to others, to bring inspiration to others. It isn't just the day, the work that gets me to come to work. It's not the paycheck that gets you to come to work. They've proven that, Maslow's proven all that out. It's why do we matter? And as communicators, whether you have a company purpose or you have a vision or you have an ambition, whatever word you wanna use, Why do you matter? And why does— why do we matter as a company? Why do we matter to the world, to society, to the planet? What difference are we making? And what is my role in doing that? That's the connection we as communicators need to make. So understanding why we matter is the first step, and then it's finding opportunities to convey that through stories of how we're making a difference, a higher purpose difference.

Yeah, and that idea of storytelling is so powerful. You know, I even think about, you know, when I think about a brand like Kerry, you know, making, you know, food and flavorings and that kind of thing, you know, immediately my brain springs to, well, that's not about, you know, somebody on a production line manufacturing cheese or manufacturing butter or making a flavor for Ben Jerry's ice cream. That's about bringing people together. That's about, you know, people sitting on a picnic rug having a picnic. It just happens to be your product. It's about me and my wife and kids having a, you know, a tub of Ben Jerry's or Häagen-Dazs of an evening and having a bit of a laugh. It's that experience that those people in that moment on that production line are creating, right?

You know, Kerry's purpose is inspiring food and nourishing life. We get up every day as 26,000 people. I know personally I get up every day to see how can I help this organization Inspire the future of food, inspire food for the better, better nutrition, better for you ingredients, better access to food, right? So, so, and it's nourishing life, life from the products we make. I mean, everything from babies to the elderly, making sure they have the proper nutrition, making sure that they have, um, the basics of food. And inspiring life through families, through connections of food. We're inspiring life by bringing people together with food, right? It's nourishing bodies, it's nourishing family traditions, it's nourishing community and culture. That's why we do it. That's why we come to work. And, and, and I love that about this organization because we all really truly and honestly believe we can make a difference for for people and the planet, for society and the future generations. And that's what we do every day. And it's, it's really exciting. And the person on the plant floor is making food that nourishes people, and that is inspiring in and of itself. So yeah, if you can have a higher purpose to make a better difference, um, that's our job, to communicate that and to tell that story.

Yeah, very powerful. Um, find your spark, ignite your passion, live your purpose. I'm reading over your shoulder at that sign on your wall again. Um, Jim, I think that's a great way to finish. Um, thank you so much for taking the time. I've really enjoyed the conversation. I hope the listener have— listeners have too. Some really good practical advice in there and things you can pick up, roll up your sleeves, get out there, be vulnerable, lead, believe. All really important stuff. So thanks very much. And look, I hope I'll have you on again in the future. I look forward to it.

Scott, it's been an absolute pleasure. As you know, I love talking with you. If there's anything else you need from me, I'm an open book. I'll give you whatever I got. All my best to you.

Thank you. You take care. 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, you at Inspiring Change, please visit inspiringchange.ie.