Episode 307

Sarah sits down with Jason Anthoine, a veteran of internal communications with 35 years of experience, to unpack the critical balance between high-tech and high-touch communication, discuss how to leverage internal influencers effectively, and reveal why many leaders unconsciously 'under-lead.' Together, they:

• Explore why now is a critical time for organizations to reimagine their approach to employee experience, particularly in the wake of pandemic-driven workplace changes

• Discuss the three pillars of effective employee engagement: inform, involve, and inspire - examining how these elements work together to create meaningful workplace connections

• Examine the crucial balance between high-tech and high-touch communication approaches, emphasizing the importance of personal interaction in maintaining employee engagement

• Analyze the unique challenges of keeping field service teams connected to company culture, particularly when they spend significant time at customer sites

• Consider the power of small, consistent actions in building trust and engagement, from handwritten notes to personal check-ins, versus relying solely on large corporate initiatives

• Explore the concept of internal influencers and their impact on organizational culture, including how to identify and effectively collaborate with these key team members

• Address the phenomenon of "under-leading" and discuss how leaders can stay connected to their teams' needs by maintaining empathy and remembering their own early career experiences

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Transcript:

[00:00:05] Sarah: Welcome to the UNSCRIPTED podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today, we are going to be answering the question, is it time to reimagine your approach to employee experience? I would say spoiler alert, for many, it is. But we'll get into all of that. I'm excited to welcome to the podcast today, Jason Anthoine, who has thirty-five years of experience in internal communications, employee engagement, and culture change, and is here today to share some of the insights that he has gleaned with us. So, Jason, welcome to the podcast!

[00:00:47] Jason:  Great. Thank you so much, Sarah. I'm so pleased to be here.

[00:00:50] Sarah:  Yeah. Pleased to have you. So, before we get into the matter at hand, tell everyone a little bit more about yourself. Anything you want to share about you, the work you do, your background, anything like that.

[00:01:03] Jason:  Okay. Great. Well, a lot of people ask, you know, how did you even get into in well, first of all, what is internal comms? Then secondly, how did you even get into that? And it's kind of a, you know, pure story. I grew up in a very small town in Middle Georgia, and my dad worked at the school bus factory, and my mom was a secretary at the bank. And when I was a kid, they'd come home from work and talk about work just like all parents do. And I think most kids are like, I don't even know what they're talking about. Who cares? But I would just listen to them, you know? What works? What's not working? What leader did they like? What leader they didn't like? Changes that they would make if they were in charge and all that kind of stuff. And it, you know, it just kinda stuck with me. And, you know, when I went to college at University of Georgia, majored in public relations and then graduated on a Saturday, moved to Atlanta on a Sunday, and first job on Monday was doing the employee newsletter at a bank. And that is about thirty-five and a half years ago, and I'm still doing employee communications. I like it a lot better than some of the other aspects of communications because, you know, things that I say or do or have other leaders say or do, I can see an immediate impact from those things. Other times, you know, external communications and PR and marketing and stuff, you know, it takes a little, you know, difficult math to come to that same conclusion. But with this other stuff, I mean, you could just see it immediately. So, it's just in me it's just in me, and I don't know how to get it out of me. So as my old boss used to say, if you can't fix it, feature it. So, I've just been featuring it for thirty-five years now.

[00:02:45] Sarah:  Excellent. Now what has changed is how you're going about that. So, you mentioned, you know, when you  finished your degree and you went to work, you were doing internal comms for different organizations. If LinkedIn is correct, the last role you had doing that was for Newell Brands as the vice president of corporate communications, and that came to a close in early 2018. And since then, you have been working with organizations, so doing consultancy around communications and also around this idea of employee experience and evolving cultures by creating better forms of communication with teams and, of course, everything that comes from that. So, very cool trajectory. So, we're going to get into some of the advice you have based on the work you do. But let's talk first about, you know, why now is such an important time for organizations and leaders to be reimagining what they're offering in terms of employee experience.

[00:04:16] Jason:  Yeah. Wow. That's such a huge thing. And, you know, to me, first of all, I mean, isn't every day a good time to be better? So that’s one reason. Yeah. That's one reason why now. The second reason, though, is a little bit bigger than that, and everybody listening will certainly be nodding their heads. Like, it just feels like the dynamic at work has changed. It has been changing, and then, you know, they put a turbo on it when the pandemic came.

[00:04:44] Sarah:  Mhmm.

[00:04:45] Jason: It just completely sort of turned everything upside down. And, you know, you were talking about some work I had done, you know, at Newell and things like that. I distinctly remember almost all the conversations that I would ever have in my career prior to the pandemic was around why we ought to do more communications and what is that going to get us if we do it. And then the pandemic happened, and all of a sudden, we don't have to have conversations about why anymore. I think, you know, everybody, for the most part, had to go home. Leaders were, you know, leading town halls from their breakfast room tables. Like, everything was completely different, compared to how it was before that. And I think because of that, leaders especially, you know, had their own sort of hands-on experience about what this internal comms and employee experience stuff is all about, which changed their mindset. Which was fantastic timing because all of their employees also changed their mindset about the relationship with work and where I do work and, you know , what I expect from work. And a lot of that is influenced by their lives away from work, particularly around comms channels. So, think about, you know, your own employees when they're not at work. There are billions of people on all these social media platforms. That's who they are. They're your employees. And so, they're used to those types of things. And so, when they come back into work, that's their expectation. So, you know, we used to be able to get away with not meeting that. Now, you know, with turnover being what it is and people have different choices, you got to do everything you can to sort of meet those expectations. And so, if there was ever a time to sort of reimagine what we're doing to, you know, inform, involve, and inspire these folks, then now's the time to do it. Because they're voting with their feet for the most part. And if they're not really getting what they want from this organization, they're going to go find one that they can get that from.

[00:06:53] Sarah:  Yeah. Yeah. Now it's interesting, Jason, when, you know, when you talk about comms, it you know, internal comms, employee comms. Mhmm. The first thing that comes to mind for me is the inform piece. When you talk then about employee experience, that's when I start to bring into the fold the involve and inspire piece. And I think they're all very important. So, inform, involve, inspire. Can you talk about why each of those are important, you know, and how they work together? And, also, is there a commonality in where companies tend to fall short?

[00:07:37] Jason:  Yeah. Yeah. That's a great question, particularly around inform, because I think a lot of people, you know, when they think of internal communications, they think of, you know, the communications that are coming out of corporate or headquarters that somebody else is sending. And, you know, I call that sort of the big C, the capital C, Communications.

[00:07:58] Sarah: Mhmm.

[00:07:58] Jason:  and in most organizations, that should be around 10%. No more than 10% really of the communications that are going on inside a workplace. The other part of that is the lowercase c, communications, which is everything else. Leaders to leaders, leaders to their teams, teams to each other. And all of that represents, you know, at least 90% of the communications that's going on in the organization. So, a lot of times, companies will say, well, you know, we're communicating from the corporate level. And so, me as a leader or a manager way down in the middle somewhere, I don't have to do any of that because, you know, the Corp Comms team is doing that for me. And, yeah, the Corp Comms team is probably doing 10% of what needs to be done, but you, leaders, and all everyone else in the organization are responsible for that 90%. And all of that creates sort of this communications cloud around the organization so that communications are happening, not necessarily just by corp comms, but from everybody in the organization. So, it's a culture of communications. And the natural extension of, once you've really strengthened those relationships through communications, then it naturally leads to having people want to be more involved and figuring out how to inspire them to do those things. And all of those combined, I think, are what sort of makes up what we call employee experience. And, you know, if you look at all the survey data around why people like work and what happens if they decide to leave and things like that, most of their answers, you know, pay is maybe eight, nine, 10, if it's in the top 10. For most people, it is something around their experience at work. And a lot of those things fall under that inform, involve, and inspire. So if you want to have that kind of culture that you want with low turnover and high engagement and things like that that are important, then you really need to just continue to focus on inform, involve, and inspire because all the things that they list that they want are made up in those three areas.

[00:10:14] Sarah:  Yeah. There's a couple of things that come to mind here. Right? One is, I think sometimes companies make the mistake of thinking that if they do a good job informing, the inspire piece will follow without considering the involve. And I think that can be a huge mistake because people want to feel a part of, you know, what's going on. They want to feel that they're, you know, contributing to the big picture. They want to see how their individual roles play a part. They want to feel that their voice matters. Right? So, if we asse that if we, as a big c or a little c, just do a really good job of informing everyone, then they'll feel inspired.

[00:11:04] Jason:  Mhmm.

[00:11:04] Sarah:  You know, you can really miss the mark if you don't consider that involve piece. , and, you know, I was also thinking about some of the distinctions between looking at this from sort of a programmatic perspective. Right? And, like, what are the different mechanisms that we use to inform, involve, inspire as a big c and a little c. Right?

[00:11:32] Jason:  Mhmm. Sure.

[00:11:34] Sarah: But also from the leadership/EQ perspective. Right? Because, again, I've seen examples where organizations have a great program for communications, and they have, you know, they're diversifying the channels they use. They're welcoming feedback. They're encouraging leaders to do one on ones, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But then it falls short at the leadership level because maybe those leaders, you know, don't have the right training or skills or that sort of thing to then execute well that, you know, they're a part of that 90%. Right? And so, you know, sometimes the disconnect between really good intent at the at the executive leadership level and creating a program for all of this then fall short in execution if you are relying on leaders who don't get it, don't buy into it, or just don't have the skills to deliver. So, what thoughts do you have there?

[00:12:51] Jason:  That that's absolutely right. And I would add another thing to that, which is the time. You know? Mhmm. There's so much piled on leaders' plates. I don't care if you're an executive leader or you're a frontline supervisor. You know? There are tons of expectations, and when people, you know, like the comms team come to you and go, hey we need you to do this kind of stuff. You're like, okay. When? Like, look at all this other stuff, that's part of my quote “day job.” You know, when am I going to have time to do these kinds of things? And I think, you know, to your point, sometimes they don't have the skills, and so the comms team might say, okay, we'll help you. Here's some talking points, which is fine. But most of the time, they don't necessarily need the content. They need the confidence.

[00:13:38] Jason:  And when they, in their minds, think about, alright, we're like, what are CEOs that I know who communicate, they immediately think of these rock star CEOs and, you know, in the media and people who are doing TED Talks, and they're like, I don't that's not me. I can't do those kinds of things. Well, the good news is 99% of the entire world is exactly the same way. Mhmm. So, there's none of your employees who are expecting you to be a rock star or some TED Talk level communicator.

[00:14:07] Sarah:  Mhmm.

[00:14:07] Jason: They're just expecting you to be yourself. And you will get all kinds of bonus points just for trying. Just for trying, you know, trying to do it, trying to meet them where they are, trying, you know, to make it. You will get all kinds of credit just by doing that. And then I think too, you know, to your point around, how does that sometimes sort of, you know, if it's programmatic at the top and then it starts to fall apart the more the execution happens, you know, as it goes down through the organization, some of that, you know, obviously is with managers and leaders and supervisors that are in the middle, but some of that is also on the employees. Mhmm. You know? You know how it is. Everybody on this podcast knows how it is. How many times do you have to tell people to sign up for their benefits, and then on the last hour of the last day, there are people who go, I didn't get any of that information. Well, sure you did. Mhmm. Sure, you did. You got it. And, you know so a lot of times, employees themselves aren't open to being communicated with for a variety of reasons. I'm mad. I'm broke. I don't like my job. I don't like my you know, whatever. There are a thousand things. And so it just takes, you know, everybody sort of shifting that mindset and reimagining things so that, like we said earlier, just creating this culture of communication so that tiny incremental steps can be made that over time, you know, make a huge difference, but not all at once because you don't have the capacity or the resources or the skills or the time to do any of that stuff. But chipping away at it is the best way to execute it no matter how big and programmatic the initiative might feel.

[00:15:49] Sarah:  Yeah. So, the next thing I want to talk about, Jason, is you talk about the need to balance high-tech and high touch.

[00:15:59] Jason:  Mhmm.

[00:16:00] Sarah:  Okay? So, can you talk about that a little bit?

[00:16:04] Jason:  Yeah. So, you know, back on the theme of programmatic sort of big c communications, most of that, where possible, is usually delivered with high-tech platforms: emails, intranets, apps, digital signage, you know, you name it. Everybody who kind of has access to those things gets delivered information and communications that way, which is fine. You know, that's a fast way. And for the people who are connected, you know, it's an easy way to reach them. But for those who aren't connected, you know, you don't have an email address. You can't get on the Internet. The only time you really have to look at anything is when you're at home and you certainly, you know, don't have access or a VPN or anything like that that maybe some of the other people have. And so, you know, after a while and for particular audiences, those high-tech platforms start to kind of fuzz out a little bit. And so, the supplement for those things is more of a high touch, kind of old school approach.

[00:17:05] Sarah:  Mhmm.

[00:17:06] Jason:  Particularly if you have frontline employees who aren't digitally connected.

[00:17:12] Sarah:  Mhmm.

[00:17:12] Jason:  They don't have access to any of that stuff. They only have access to you. So now you become the channel. You become the platform. And so, there's all kinds of benefit to, you know, holding those shift change meetings, making sure that, you know, people who aren't digitally connected are included in conversations and, you know, idea sessions and things like that. Mhmm. All of that field start it is what sort of puts some meat on the involve and inspire part.

[00:17:42] Sarah:  Mhmm.

[00:17:43] Jason:  Because as good as these platforms are and as, you know, good as some of the content is that that's coming out from a big c perspective, all of that just feels rational. That's just a rational approach. But hans are also emotional, and so this high touch approach to supplement all that stuff is kind of what gets you over that hurdle because now you're meeting them where they are as hans, Hans to hans communicating and building relationships. And then when you rely on those high-tech platforms too much, it just it starts to feel just kind of cold and check a box kinda thing.

[00:18:20] Sarah:  Mhmm.

[00:18:21] Jason:  And I don't mind getting that stuff from corporate, but I want my peers. I want my boss. I want other people to translate that and tell me what they feel about that. And I want to tell them what I feel about that. So, there's more to it than just delivering it over a platform. Mhmm.

[00:18:37] Sarah:  Yeah. You use the word rational. I was thinking the word impersonal. Right? It goes back to the inform piece. It's a great way to stay informed. It's, you know, the news, the headlines. Here's what you need to know. Right? But it's not it's not personal. It's not the context of, okay, and here's what this means to you in your role. And, also, let me listen to what you think. Let me answer the questions that you have. Let me listen to your feedback. Right? And, you know, when we think about a lot of the folks that listen to this podcast, you know, they're leading field service teams. And those people, they I would say almost all of them are digitally connected. But, again, even so, if that's the only communication they're getting, it is very impersonal. Right? And the other thing to consider is that in different situations, those people may never come to an office. They may come to an office infrequently. They may just start and end their days from home. Right? Or they might be on the road a lot. And so, there are people that you know, they might not be disconnected from a digital perspective. But if we're not careful, they can become disconnected from the company culture and from…

[00:20:02] Jason:  100%.

[00:20:04] Sarah:  The idea of staying engaged and being involved. Right? I was at an event in in our industry, Field Service Europe last fall, and I attended a great panel discussion with three different leaders. So, three different industries, three different regions, all talking about the absolute criticality of, as a leader, investing time in one on ones. And as much as possible, making an effort to see your people at in person at some not for every one on one, you know, but at some regular interval. I've also had another leader on here who talked about, his name is Venkata, he's with a company called Bruker Nano, and he will say that it is an expense to the business, but he invests every year in bringing their field teams together

[00:21:05] Jason:  That's right.

[00:21:05] Sarah:  For the sole purpose of just spending time with one another. Because it's so important in building that sense of community and making them feel part of a team that it pays dividends in their engagement and things like that. So, I think that reminder is really important. And, you know, going back to what you said at the beginning about, like, all of the different things that sort of shifted during the pandemic, we know that people want to feel part of something. And them getting an alert on their employee app or getting an email once a month is not enough to make that happen.

[00:21:52] Jason:  Absolutely not. You know?

[00:21:53] Sarah:  We have to figure out how to do those high touch bits. Yeah.

[00:22:02] Jason:  Yeah. And you use the right word too, like, invest. It's an investment. Like, it costs money to build a culture, to build relationships with people. That is an expense. It definitely is, but it's more of an investment than it is an expenditure.

[00:22:16] Sarah:  Yeah.

[00:22:17] Jason:  And it, you know, it pays dividends that everybody has a very hard time measuring. But where it shows up in is in all the other KPIs that the organization is measuring. It shows up in quality. It shows up in safety. It shows up in on time delivery. It shows up in customer experience. It shows up in all the things that matter for the organization. And so, any time spent, you know, investing in better relationships to make those things better are quantifiable, and they do show up, and they show up where they matter the most, which is on those dashboards, which are attached to the bottom line. Yeah. And I think the other point you brought up, especially for field service, I'm sure there's a lot of you who are listening who truly have field service people who are on-site at customers and client organizations and things. And there's a lot of surveys that show that the more time that they spend on customer sites, the more they begin to identify with that culture.

[00:23:13] Sarah:  Mhmm.

[00:23:14] Jason:  That culture, you know? And so, a, that shows you it is possible, and b, it is also imperative that you do as much as you can so that they continue to identify with your culture. Because if you've got that if it's defined and it's great and it's strong, that's an opportunity for them to be a brand ambassador for your company at the client's culture. And then it also sort of lowers the chance that you might accidentally lose them to the client because now I feel like I have a stronger bond with these people than I do for the ones who are paying me. You know?

[00:23:50] Sarah: It's interesting you say that, Jason. So, I want to also bring up another example. I did a podcast last year sometime with a gentleman, Marco Hugo Gutierrez, who works for Tetra Pak and he leads services in in Europe. And Tetra Pak underwent this big initiative to really kind of understand the sentiment of their field teams. They really wanted to understand, you know, how engaged are these people, what makes them feel engaged, what doesn't, etcetera. And one of the biggest findings for them to action from that research was that they found their technicians felt closer to their customers than they did Tetra Pak. They felt more a part of that culture than they did Tetra Pak. And Marco said, of course, that's great. We want them to love our customers. We want them to, you know, build those relationships. But Sure. We also have to have that with them. You know? It's so important for us to invest in making them feel that they are part of our culture that you know. And they can share that, but not that they're not getting that from us. And so it's interesting that you bring that up, and that is a huge risk for field teams. And that can manifest in a lot of different ways. Obviously, one is, you know, losing those employees to a customer potentially. But even just, you know, how much opportunity cost there is in not empowering those employees to, like you said, kind of be that brand ambassador in a stronger way. Right?

[00:25:43] Jason:  Because that that strengthens the customer relationship. They're hiring you for a whole lot of reasons, and it's that delivery that really is the cherry on top. And then over time, that becomes why they're hiring you. You're yes. You're doing all the things that are on the SOW, but it's that chemistry.

[00:26:02] Sarah:  Mhmm.

[00:26:02] Jason:  And how that gets delivered, that becomes the very definition of the company's brand. Yeah. And so, you want that to be as strong as it can possibly be and you want those people to, you know, love their customers, but not so much that they become one. You know?

[00:26:17] Sarah: I want to go back - you know, we were talking about sort of the investment of this high touch approach, whatever that looks like. I know leaders that they define certain time. They go on the road, they visit all of their teams. They make sure they see them in person. I talked about Venkata who brings everyone to a central location to spend time together, whatever that looks like. So those are examples that they are relatively time consuming, they are relatively expensive, and I'm not saying that those investments of time and money do not pay off; I believe they do. However, I also wanted to make the point that sometimes very simple things can also have a tremendous impact. Right? You know, just thinking about, okay. Well, maybe doing an off-site every year is not feasible for me as a leader in the organization I'm in. But I could set aside a half an hour every week to call, you know, ten of eight of my technicians and thank them for something very specific they've done that week. I could commit to writing five handwritten thank you notes every week. I could you know, these different things. It sometimes, we overlook those simple things because we're focused on, should we be doing the big things? And if we can't, are we kind of, you know, just out of luck? Right? The Tetra Pak findings, you know, the satisfaction in those relationships came from this feeling the technician had of being able to go there and solve a problem and be appreciated by the customer for doing that. And so, there are a lot of different ways we can show appreciation and recognition that are on a whole continuum of however much continua of however much time and money you have to invest. So, I wanted to point that out as well that it doesn't have to be a grand thing every time. The little things make a huge impact.

[00:28:23] Jason:  In fact, I think from my perspective and based on conversations I've had with literally thousands of employees, it the little things matter even more. Like, the bigger it is, the more it feels like a corporate initiative that's been budgeted and, you know, it just has a different feel to not that people don't appreciate it, but they see it for what it is. Versus, like, what you just described, a handwritten note or, you know, I'm going to set aside thirty minutes, you know, every week or every day or whatever the right timing is for your schedule to have a conversation with my team that isn't about what you're doing, it's about how you're doing.

[00:28:59] Sarah:  Yep.

[00:28:59] Jason: And then that that those are the types of things that that build stronger bonds because at the end of the day, all this stuff we're talking about is a trust exercise. Mhmm. And so, your culture, your results, you know, everything that you measure there from a workplace perspective, all of that is built around trust. And even the little things you do are deposit into that trust bank account with your team.

[00:29:24] Sarah:  Yeah.

[00:29:25] Jason:  And they add up over time. And lord knows, at some point, somebody's going to write a check against that account, and you don't want it to bounce. So, the more of those deposits you can keep putting in there, even the little stuff, you know, it matters. It matters, especially to your employees.

[00:29:40] Sarah:  Another really good, specific example someone shared is, they're in an executive leadership role, and it's just so happens that, you know, in in that role, they're always getting company merch. So, zip ups, hats, polos, chargers, whatever, all this different stuff. And he said, like, I have so much of it already. I can't even use it all. So rather than letting it pile up in the corner of my office, I just send it out to my employees with a note. I just pass it along to them. And I thought, like, that's it's such an easy little thing.

[00:30:18] Jason:  That's right.

[00:30:19] Sarah: But it's again, a really actionable example of something that doesn't take a lot. You know? Another person pointed out, they like to do a gift card for the person to take their family to dinner because, you know, they said, like, often it's nice to share that with the person's family, that they're appreciated and things like that. So, there are so many ways to do it.

[00:30:46] Jason: There really are. Like, I'm reaching over right now on my desk and, like, look at this. This is just a stack of nice notes that I have received, and people are like, oh, gosh. You got all those in the last two weeks? Nope. Some of these are 15 years old.

[00:30:59] Sarah:  Yeah.

[00:30:59] Jason:  I have moved these from job to job to desk to desk, and now they're on this desk. And every now and then, I just like to go through there and read what people had to say and remember that I made a difference. And so, if you think that that stuff doesn't matter, go think about your own little special box that you have or your special folder. It is full of stuff like that. Those aren't $5,000,000 corporate initiatives. Those are ten minutes that somebody took and wrote a personalized note to you that made, you know, a world of difference to you.

[00:31:28] Sarah:  Yeah. Absolutely. Now and I want to come back to sort of this point we've been talking about is when we when we do this well, you know, we create that trust. We create these relationships that are very impactful. You talk about the fact that often there are these companies' internal influencers that remain a very untapped resource. And you refer to them as the ones everyone goes to for the meeting after the meeting, which is a really good point.

[00:32:05] Jason:  Yep.

[00:32:05] Sarah:  So how can leaders do a better job of identifying who those internal influencers are and finding ways to, you know, create alliances with them or, you know, better working relationships so that they're leveraging that resource in a helpful, positive, natural way?

[00:32:31] Jason:  Absolutely. And the best way to find this out and, you know, there's formal ways and informal ways. You don't have to spend any money to find it out. The best way to find it out is to ask your own employees who they go to for the meeting after the meeting. You know? Not in a threatening way or any other kind of way, which is like, you know, I tell you all stuff and then y'all go and talk about it. Who do you talk to? They'll tell you; you know. And for some leaders, there's a little bit of jealousy in there and it can feel also a little bit threatening if they're going to, you know, somebody else on your team and you think, oh my gosh, that person is going to end up taking my job. But no. That's not how it is. The they employees identify a relationship with a leader or manager as different from a relationship with an influencer. Once not better or worse, they're different. I come to my leader manager for certain kinds of things. I go to my influencer for other kinds of things. I need both just like in our personal lives. Different kind of relationships with different kind of people. And so it's important to understand who those people are because they're influencers, and they can influence things in a good way, and they can also influence things in a not so good way. Usually, it's in a good way because the research that I've looked at is that most of these people, HR might call them, you know, high potential folks, but they're not necessarily on the high potential list because HR doesn't know who they are. But they I would call them high potentials because they are super engaged just by default. They were just wired that way. It's hard to create these kinds of folks like but they just come fully loaded already like that. And so, they read all the stuff. They listen to all the stuff. They distill it. They think about it. You know, work is them and their work, and it and that's just a fountain of knowledge for all these people that they're influencing. And the important part about that is that in most organizations of any size and in any industry, about 12% of the workforce is what we would consider to be leaders, and they can only directly influence 50% of the rest of the employees. 50%. As opposed to these influencers who are typically 3% of the workforce, and they can directly influence 90%. So that tells me one important thing. Whoever it is out there that's relying on cascades, stop doing that. Because the leaders from the CEO all the way down to the frontline supervisor can't reach as many people as the influencers can. So, once we know who these influencers are, we can rely on them to help, quote, cascade this stuff. Because they're more trusted. They're more believable. They're going to, you know, use weekend words to describe things, and sometimes, you know, others use weekday words to describe things. And it's just it's going to put a turbo on the things that you're doing. The other reason why it's important is that if one of those influencer leaves on their own or asked to, whoever they're influencing is 90% more likely to also leave and almost immediately with the thinking being, well, gosh, Sarah knows everything. And if she's not here anymore, why on earth would I stay? Right? And so, it's just important to know who they are. It also depends on your culture. If you have the kind of culture where that might create, you know, some friction or whatever, then just know it and treat them with kid gloves. They're already influencing. Now you just know that they are. And you could just leave it like it is. In other cultures, you can celebrate them. They're now champions or change or catalyst people or, you know, you want to put a group together and call them something. In some cultures, that's fine. But in others, you know, for sure, the fight club is not talk about fight club, and that might apply for your culture as well. But either way, now we know who they are. We are and that they're influencing, and what can we do to make sure that they stay as plugged in as possible without it becoming like a second job for them? Because, truthfully, they're already doing it. They're already influencing. So, you don't need to do anything else, really, to make them super influencers. They're already as influential as they're going to be. And the more you make them that, I think the less trustworthy they are because then it starts to feel like they're a corporate mouthpiece.

[00:36:58] Sarah:  Right.

[00:36:58] Jason:  And they're not. They don't want that to be that.

[00:37:01] Sarah:  Yeah. I think that's important. I was thinking about how to articulate this thought while you were saying that. I mean, I think it like you said, it's important for it to be organic. I think it's also important to not allow it to become a situation where you're, like, paying them off. And I don't mean that in reality. Like,

[00:37:20] Jason:  we're not out of the way.

[00:37:21] Sarah:  Saying, like, it can't be manipulative. Right? Like, it can't be, like, they're being they can be leveraged where it makes sense for a mutually beneficial purpose, but they can't be used in a way that is manipulative either to them or the employees that they're influencing. Right?

[00:37:42] Jason:  Right.

[00:37:42] Sarah: But you see this sometimes in, you know, our realm, and you reference this with you know, if you have a change coming along and you know that there are some influencers in, you know, your structure, you can work with them proactively to say, Hey, I'd like to involve you in this upfront. I'd like to get your feedback on it. And I would like to, you know, have you help us find the right ways to communicate this change to the teams because you're plugged into them. You know what will resonate, what won't, etcetera. And that's a very wise and appropriate use of

[00:38:24] Jason:  Totally natural and organic. You would do that. Even if you didn't know, you know, you would that's something you wouldn't naturally normally do. So that makes total sense. It's very organic. It feels organic. Yeah.

[00:38:35] Sarah:  You mentioned in your content that leaders have a natural tendency to under lead. So, what does that mean?

[00:38:46] Jason:  It's such a strange concept to me. And if I can ever figure this out, this will be the book that I that I write or have AI write for me. The idea is, like, just whoever's listening, just, like, think of your first job. Alright? Whatever that was. It doesn't even matter. Flipping burgers or McDonald's. I don't care. Whatever the first job was, you were there and then there were, like, 15 layers of leaders above you all the way up to the CEO. And so, you're just doing your thing, and you're observing decisions and personalities and, you know, things that happen in the organization. And at some point, because we all do this, you know what? If I ever get to be up there, I'm not going to do things like that. I'm going to do things my way. And then lo and behold, after fifteen or twenty years, those people are up there, and they continue to do the same thing. So, at the so my question is then at what point in your career do you lose touch with reality? Because it happens, and it happens quite a lot. Not for everybody, but for a lot of people. And when it happens, that's when it feels like these folks are underleading. And I which means they're not informing. They're not involving. They're not inspiring. They're not, you know, being more high touch than high-tech. And it's a mystery to me because they all used to be people on their teams. Age wise, role wise, whatever. They all everybody used to be those people. And when they were those people, they wanted those things. And now that they are the people who can give those things, they're not.

[00:40:27] Sarah:  Mhmm.

[00:40:28] Jason:  And that feels like for at least in a lot of those areas, a conscious decision. And so, however you felt when you weren't getting what you needed early in your career, that's how your team now feels. So, if you want to sort of get over this underleading concept, then the easiest thing to me is to remember what it was like when you were them.

[00:40:52] Sarah:  Mhmm.

[00:40:53] Jason:  Remember what it was like when you were them. Like, you're getting so much of this corporate swag and you're just throwing it in a closet somewhere because, you know, I don't need yet another pullover. Some of the people out there have never been given a pullover anywhere they worked, you know. And you were like that too when you first started out. Imagine how much that would mean to you. Do those type just put yourself. It's that EQ. It's that empathy. It's that, you know. I understand other people, and so what can you do to constantly think about how it used to be for you when you were them so that you can be what you wanted your own boss to be back then? You know?

[00:41:32] Sarah:  Yeah. What you're saying just made me think of an experience I had last year. I went to visit a leader who is very well respected in our space, James Mylett. He works currently for Schneider Electric and is in Texas. I had never been to their offices and so I got there and checked in, and he, you know, met me in the lobby. And we stopped and grabbed a coffee, and he said, should we sit over here in this little area and I said, sure. You know, we sat down. We had a bit of a chat, and then he was going to give me a tour. And we're walking around, and I said, well, where is your office? And he said, I don't have one. And I'm like, what do you mean? And he's like, I don't like to sit in an office because I feel like that disconnects me from people. Like, I would rather just, depending on what I'm working on, I'll either sit in a conference room for a bit or I'll sit out in an open working space, but I it just helps me stay more connected to the culture and what's going on. And I thought

[00:42:41] Jason:  Yeah.

[00:42:41] Sarah:  So, you're an SVP at a massive company, and a lot of people I would say most people in that role have a corner office. You know, that they might even only work in one day a week, one day a month sometimes. Right?

[00:42:58] Jason:  Yeah.

[00:42:58] Sarah:  Not him. Just doesn't have one at all. Yeah. And I'm like, that's

[00:43:02] Jason:  That's amazing.

[00:43:02] Sarah:  But it it's a really good example of one part of what you're saying, which is, I think, like, keep grounded in, you know, the humanity of it all. Right? I think the other thing that happens that it's more on, like, the company culture, the corporate culture part is I think people are put in really unfortunate situations. You know? A lot of times they end up having to, for lack of a better term, sell out to take those roles. You know? So, you have this passion when you're among the

[00:43:40] Jason: Sure.

[00:43:41] Sarah:  team that, I would never do that. You know? And then you start making tradeoffs that lend themselves to that. And I think it's tough because you can criticize that. You know? But it happens in a way that it's really hard to pick apart. But I do think I do think that there is a shift in company culture because I think that this whole employee experience topic is becoming so important

[00:44:11] Jason:  Mhmm.

[00:44:12] Sarah:  At such a scale that companies are really grappling with, you know, some of those historical practices and dynamics and really having to dig in and change. And I think as that shift continues, it puts those leaders in a better position to challenge the status quo. But the reality historically is

[00:44:37] Jason:  Mhmm.

[00:44:38] Sarah:  The people that really challenge the status quo, even appropriately and where it rightfully should be challenged, aren't the people giving the senior leadership roles because they want a team of yes men that will, you know, take those orders. So, there is a part of that dynamic that comes into play. So, I'm just saying that because I think sometimes leaders get put in positions where they do remember what it's like. And there's a certain part of that they can control within how they treat people, the little things they could do, etcetera.

[00:45:18] Jason:  Sure.

[00:45:19] Sarah:  If they're working against a pressure that is really at odds with the change they would like to see, I'm excited because I think there is a growing groundswell, if you will, of people who will push back and positive things that will come from that. And not only that, but companies that are recognizing those dynamics aren't working anymore anyway. Right? So, let's change it from the top as well. You see both. Right? So, I think that's a good thing, but it's a very interesting point to bring up.

[00:45:51] Jason:  Well, it takes a ton of courage. And, you know, on that example that you gave about, you know, some leader who's trying to kind of push those boundaries and then, you know, ends up, you know, getting kicked to the curb. They end up becoming the startup CEO that's very disruptive and is doing thing different, and they're the ones speaking at TEDx. So, they're the ones that are on the cover of all the magazines.

[00:46:11] Sarah:  And they're helping this groundswell too. Do you know what I mean? Because it's people that, you know, fundamentally don't believe any longer that profit comes at the expense of people. Right? Like, that we can do both. We can treat people well, and we can have a good working culture, and we can make a lot of money. They're not

[00:46:33] Jason:  There's a lot of data that shows that. Yeah. There's a ton of data that shows that. You know? Some of the most profitable companies are the ones that are spending the most in these areas, which

[00:46:42] Sarah:  Yeah.

[00:46:42] Jason:  Doesn't sound, you know, like that math would add up that way. But there I mean, there's company after company that, you know, that we can use in as examples like that. And then I think the other thing too is that transition if there's if you're trying to think that way for your organization, to me, the easiest way that I use to kind of explain that to my own clients is this is something you are already doing, and it's called customer experience.

[00:47:09] Sarah:  Mhmm.

[00:47:10] Jason:  And so, in most organizations, you know, marketing owns a relationship and sales on the transaction, and the two of them, you know, are ultimately responsible for customer experience. So, what does employ experience look like? Typically, HR and IT kind of own the transactions for employees, but who owns the relationship?

[00:47:32] Sarah:  Mhmm.

[00:47:33] Jason:  That's an opportunity for the all the leaders. Leaders and managers have to own that relationship. And then when they're like, well, I'm not quite sure how we would go about doing that. Well, just look at everything that you've done to drive better customer experience and all those initiatives And just substitute the word employee for customer, and that just gives you an easy way to start thinking about it that's less risky because the organization inherently understands the customer experience side of things that people have been doing for twenty plus years now. We're just going to take that same thing and apply it under here, and that feels less risky and less scary.

[00:48:12] Sarah:  Mhmm. Yeah. Very interesting stuff, Jason. I appreciate you coming on and sharing. If you would like to connect with Jason, easiest place is LinkedIn?

[00:48:26] Jason:  Absolutely. I'm on LinkedIn. My website is JasonAnthoine.com. And on both of those places, you can find my own podcast, which is called Riding Shotgun. And the whole idea behind that is I've been riding shotgun with leaders, you know, my whole career. Come ride shotgun gun with me on each episode and learn some things that I've learned from doing that. No more than five or six minutes, you're in, you're out, you're on with your day.

[00:48:52] Sarah:  I love it. Awesome. Alright, everyone. Check it out. Thank you, Jason. Appreciate it.

[00:48:57] Jason:  Thank you, Sarah. I really appreciate it.

[00:48:59] Sarah:  You can find more by visiting the home of the UNSCRIPTED podcast at futureoffieldservice.com. The podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening!