What's Your Story: How Leaders Tell Stories to Influence and Connect with Audiences

What's Your Story is a podcast dedicated to helping business leaders use storytelling to improve the impact of spoken communications within their organizations. If you’re looking to learn communication and storytelling strategies, as well as best practices from leadership and talent development experts, this is the show for you. Each episode features an interview with an executive or thought leader, discussing topics like: effective storytelling, executive presence, influencing others, corporate communication, leadership and talent development and more. The What's Your Story podcast is hosted by Sally Williamson and brought to you by SW&A.

Building A Business And The Power Of Stories 01/17/2025

Building A Business And The Power Of Stories Episode: Building a Business And The Power Of Stories Guests: Hust Williamson, Mary Scott Jameson and Hodges Markwalter Welcome to another episode of What’s Your Story where we host in depth conversations with business leaders to explore how they use storytelling to engage their audiences. Taking on the journey of entrepreneurship is not an easy feat and it’s not for the faint of heart. It takes passion behind your product or service and quite a bit of gusto on how you deliver your messages to investors and potential customers. And today, we have two entrepreneurs joining us: Mary Scot Jameson and Hodges Markwalter. Here’s a little about each of them: 00:01:55- MARY SCOTT JAMESON, CEO AND CO-FOUNDER OF SITANO- An Atlanta native, Mary Scott Jameson, is Sitano’s co-founder and CEO/Creative Director. Mary Scott attended the University of Georgia with a B.A. in Art History and minor in Spanish. She began her career in fashion almost 10 years ago in the Neiman Marcus buying program in Dallas, TX as an assistant buyer. Since then, she has pursued various positions in HR, conference and event planning, and business development in the multi-family real estate and alternative asset management industries. She enjoys sketching, running, playing tennis, hanging with friends and interviewing female founders on her podcast, . She resides in New York with her husband, Walter. · · Instagram: @sitano_official · 00:06:27-HODGES MARLKWATER, CRO AND CO-FOUNDER OF VIVA FINANCE- Hodges Markwalter is the Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Office of Atlanta-based VIVA Finance, a fintech upstart that provides working Americans access to fair and affordable credit. His responsibilities include overseeing VIVA’s growth initiatives, including digital marketing, partnerships, and revenue operations. Hodges also assists with operations and personnel matters at VIVA. Prior to co-founding VIVA, Hodges worked at Truist Securities as an analyst in their Equity Capital Markets group. Under Hodges and his brother Jack’s leadership, VIVA has originated over $180,000,000 in consumer loans and improved the financial health of 30,000+ customers. Hodges earned a BA in Finance from the University of Notre Dame, graduating with Cum Laude honors. · · · LAUNCHING A COMPANY: 00:11:50- How do you get your first audience for your business? How do you get started into changing it from an idea to a business? 00:15:00- Mary Scott takes us down a different path from VIVA Finance. GET BUY IN: 00:17:30- Fundraising with investors and getting buy in into the next phase. 00:18:29- Mary Scott describes her story of finding different spaces to include her brand and her product. 00:19:49- Hodges talks about the early days of pounding the pavement and tells us how he created his pitch. FEEDBACK AND BUILDING A BRAND: 00:21:47- When a company’s story or brand is really compelling, when thinking about your company what was the feedback that was helpful in the early stages when building your story? 00:22:33- Hodges talks about being nimble. 00:24:00- Mary Scott shares the feedback she received in the early stages of building her company and the feedback she continues to receive. INVESTORS: 00:25:52- What does it take to get an investor to back you? One key takeaway. STORIES: 00:28:12- Stories shared by Mary Scott and Hodges about the early days of launching their businesses. · Mary Scott shares a story about when losing sleep became a best seller and solidified her commitment to her company. · Hodges tells us a story about how doing something so small was the make or break moment of his company’s success. /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/34898470

Reigniting Ideas & Strategies with Teams with Keith Wilmot 03/21/2023

Reigniting Ideas & Strategies with Teams with Keith Wilmot It’s safe to say we all wish we could wake up every day and bring everything we have to the roles we’re in. Each day would be a new day, every agenda a clean slate. But the reality is that many of us are in roles that are a little messier than that. So messy in fact that getting to new ideas or exploring an out-of-the-box concept isn’t easy. In fact, with a pile of problems and challenges in our every day, new ideas can feel impossible. Unless you’ve spent time with Keith Wilmot. In our latest episode of What’s Your Story, Sally talks with Keith about how his agency, , helps leaders and their teams get unstuck by blending process and creativity to release new ideas and broaden the lens on most situations. And he also has a wild story to share about his own experience with getting unstuck. More about Keith Wilmot Keith’s successful career spans over two decades of leading innovation and creativity for global brands such as Coca-Cola, Listerine, Neosporin, Brach's Candy and many more. Keith has extensive experience in global, publicly traded organizations, as well as leading small, privately held firms. He is described by his team as a student of leadership and disciplined operator with a unique skill-set of money and magic. Show Notes Coca-Cola Company - Built an internal agency called Ignitor Built innovation capability, behaviors, and mindset shifts in the organization to allow creativity to happen inside the organization. McDonald's Nandos Mercedes-Benz The first company to create the crash dummy and the crash dummy process Leaders get stuck in some core behaviors and mindsets that force certain types of processes and operations and organizations. Impact efficiency Impact teams and organization If they're not intentional about breaking those patterns and looking differently at their organization, those areas of getting stuck can be pretty damaging to an organization. Decentralization of the innovation strategy - a decentralized approach to creativity in an organization and innovation, meaning that every single person that's in your organization is responsible for and owns the innovation agenda of the company Virtual vs In Office workers Ignitor believes it's about engagement and collaboration, If meeting in person teams must make meetings more intentional. If teams are going back into the office, you've got a whole new cultural challenge. Salesforce It’s important to make sure companies are still bringing people face-to-face. How to clarify the challenge, and how do to clarify what you're trying to solve for? Several tools that go into helping organizations, brands, people, and leaders better clarify the challenge. Insight and finding insight in places that you normally wouldn't find. Suite of eight behaviors and six mindsets that accelerate collaboration, and innovation creativity in the teams and the organization. Growth mindset, and it's the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. What are the most important initiatives? What are the initiatives that we believe are going to deliver the most value? Coca-Cola Red The worst place for an HR leader in an organization to be is in their office. Why hiring a group like Ignitor for offsite and onsite training is more effective than having the leader of the organization add it to their list? Norwegian Cruise Lines We're innovators that are powered by inspiration that powers us, but we're measured by the realization of ideas. So a team has to come to a point where whatever they create together has got an output, and has an impact on the organization. When did Ignitor fail an organization? Ronald McDonald House charities Animal Kingdom Lodge - "What is your 600-pound white Siberian tiger story?" /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/26287830

Talent, Data & People - The Strategic CHRO with Kim Sullivan 10/24/2022

Talent, Data & People - The Strategic CHRO with Kim Sullivan We all faced new dynamics and uncharted waters as managers and leaders navigating a pandemic, social unrest and different ways of working. But if you considered the corporate role that felt the most impact, the CHRO, Chief Human Resources Officer, would rank high in terms of the toughest leadership positions over the last few years. And that's why this episode is so timely. In this episode, Sally talks to Kim Sullivan, who has been an HR leader for three global companies and a CHRO for more than six years which means pre-pandemic, post-pandemic and during the pandemic, giving her great perspective and comparison. Tune in to hear Kim's take on today’s leaders, employees, company cultures, and perhaps a few insights on expectations that all of us need to adapt to. More about Kim Sullivan: With more than 20 years in the HR industry, Kim Sullivan has had an extensive career, including a mix of strong business acumen and the desire to develop people, while also identifying the business drivers and complex issues of every organization she’s worked with. She has experience modernizing the People Solutions (HR) function by implementing new HR service delivery models; redesigning, eliminating, and repositioning roles; and implementing a digital HR strategy to address short and long-term business needs. Kim is a thought leader in all things transformation, including organizational culture. She is passionate about elevating HR team performance to ensure people and culture strategies enable a company’s value agenda. She holds a master's degree in Human Resources Development from the University of Houston and a bachelor's degree in Speech Communications and Organizational Psychology from Texas Southern University. Show Notes: CHRO - Chief Human Resources Officer What has been the change of the CHRO role over the years? Typically tucked under the CFO There is a heightened need for the CHRO role to be at the table helping to make decisions that support the stratic outcomes for the business CHRO in the Global pandemic Continued to reflect on the overwhelming impact on the world Defining digital transformation Moving people from worksites to their homes in three weeks or less Keeping the lights on CHRO continues to learn from March 2020 Essential skills to be a CHRO Understanding the business and how to business makes money How to solve problems that positively impact the organization's business goal Understanding what are the people implications and cultural implications Must be talent savvy, biz savvy, data-savvy - how do you use data to make decisions Coaching and advising the leadership team Engage with leadership and with the frontline staff Employee Experience - everything a worker learns, does, sees, and feels at each stage of the employee lifecycle. How do companies define reset? Hybrid/ Virtual work Plan what the "return to the office" looks like for their organization dependent on the organization and employees People value flexibility - What is the why, and when should they come together? What happens when they get there? Define what roles should be remote, in-person, or hybrid. Mid to senior career-level workers feel more productive and focused at home; recent graduates want more in-person networking opportunities but do not want to be in the office every day How to define what is valued as work-life integration? Collect data to find what is the desired work style Use that data to establish the workplace strategy Leadership is culture; culture is leadership. Be deliberate about the culture you want to create and who you are as a company. Clearly define your values and be intentional about when you come together. Define what your employee's role is, make sure to check in with them, and have systems in place to support them. Mirror what you say you do as an organization at all levels of the company. Management needs to be international and consistent. Stay visible even in remote settings. Make sure you show up with these values to attract outsiders to your organization. If you are a people manager today and you are not equally focused on the business and the well-being of your people, you are not doing your job. The Great Resignation - An ongoing economic trend in which employees have voluntarily resigned from their jobs in large numbers beginning in early 2021 due to low wages, cost of living increase, career advancement, seeking better benefits, and remote work. What are essential skills for new leaders? How to have fun Encourage employees to take time off Not celebrating grind culture Demonstrating that leaders care about employees Prioritizing resources to make sure employees are taken care of. Want employees to be engaged and happy DEI - Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Employees need to feel included and represented in the workspace Is there a talent shortage? Value proposition - making people interested in working with your company Glassdoor - Gig Economy - a labor market characterized by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs: Fiver - How to factor these desires into our work models? Determine which jobs can be a gig vs. remote vs. in person Work on attracting different nontraditional talent Focus on skills, not just job level Asynchronous communication- happens over a period of time—rather than immediately. Synchronous communication- takes place in real-time. Successful organizations invest in talent. Company Culture- describes the shared values, goals, attitudes, and practices that characterize an organization What is leadership's role in Company Culture? Set the vision Clearly define what their desire is for the culture Ensure their leadership team has leaders ready to model the behaviors that support your desired culture - a senior leader needs to hold their team accountable CHRO role in Company Culture Partner with the senior team, and articulate the culture will be Help to operationalize the culture through people processes or operational process Coaching and being an advisor to the CEO Own the measurement of an organization People analytics and insights on what is going well vs. not /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/24780450

Getting Down to Business with Kim Wilson of Lucy's Market 06/13/2022

Getting Down to Business with Kim Wilson of Lucy's Market Small businesses have gotten a lot of visibility over the last two years. As the world slowed down and dealt with a pandemic, we were more aware of the businesses on the corner that weren’t focused on five-year plans but were focused on next months’ payroll to survive. It brought front and center a look at how small businesses work and interestingly, as the world reset, it seemed to inspire a whole new culture of entrepreneurs and people who’d like to be their own boss. But running a small business isn’t for the faint of heart. As the last two years have proven, the safety net looks very different for a small business than it does for a big company. And as we move beyond worries and reset with opportunities, we thought it would be fun to talk to a small business about success, resets and lessons learned. If you’re in Atlanta, it won’t surprise you that we went straight to Lucy’s Market to talk to Kim Wilson. But if you’re listening from another city, here’s what you should know. Lucy’s Market is the special place in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta where you go for fresh vegetables and leave with the makings of a party. Or you dash in for a bottle of wine and a favorite cheese and leave with the serving pieces that make it look like you worked harder than you did to create a setting. It’s a local spot with warmth, charm, a little spunk… an expanded list of offerings that seem to have evolved effortlessly over the years. In this episode, Sally talks with Kim Wilson, thefounder of Lucy’s Market. Kim shares her story and more about what it took to build Lucy’s Market. More about Karen Kim Wilson Kim Wilson has always had a passion for fresh produce and florals, spending a number of years growing an extensive vegetable garden in her backyard. However, she never considered evolving that passion into a career until she was ready for a change after working in advertising sales for over 25 years. At the same time, a gas station was abandoned on Roswell Road in the heart of Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood. Kim took over the space in 2009 and turned it into a farmer’s market, establishing Lucy’s Market. The market’s growth ultimately led Kim to move it inside the gas station before expanding and moving to another location. In 2017, Kim relocated to where the market stands today. Named after Kim’s love for her grandmother and daughter, Lucy’s Market still carries the same deep roots and many of the same customers since the early days. Over the past 12 years, Lucy’s has ripened into not only an admired farmer’s market but a specialty store, gift shop, and floral boutique. Show Notes Who is Lucy? Kim Wilson's grandmother was named Lucille, and she named her daughter after her grandmother. Was Lucy's Market a grand vision, or did it evolve? The market began very small with Kim's love for veggies grown in her backyard. Lucy's started as a place to get fresh veggies Monday-Saturday, and then the business spread word of mouth. Kim had over 30 years of sales experience before starting Lucy's Market started. Movement The business moved around a bit and evolved, and the concept followed. Location and parking are the most important things when moving. She seeks wide-open locations with lots of space. Her experience in real estate has helped her understand the value of location. How did she grow this? Using her sales experience, she got to know each customer by name and worked to understand what they liked and what they were looking to purchase. The Business Today: Currently, 7000 sqft retail space, 8000 feet of office and storage to hold seasonal inventory. 30 employees, many are part-time with a core full-time team. Seasonal employees are hired in addition to the 30 consistent year-round employees. Market is open Mon-Sat They sell fresh produce, locally prepared food, wine, flower arrangements, gifts, and gift baskets. How do you decide what to offer? Decisions are made based on customer desire. 85% of the business are women. What has surprised you most in terms of what people come in to buy? The generosity of her customers - lots of gift baskets sold daily. Lucy's Market is about creating memories. Was the pandemic rough for Lucys? The hours were changed, but they could stay open through the pandemic because they sold food - curbside and delivery. They made it easy for the customers to purchase, and Lucy's Market grew. Prior to the pandemic, they had a solid customer base. They swiftly shifted the method but didn't need to build the base. They started doing a weekly video that became extremely popular and helped build an audience in Atlanta and nationally. In January of 2020, they took products online. Now they are completely online as well and open in-person. They promote things daily, and the users will go online and purchase. Between 5 and 10% of sales online are predicted for next year. Mistakes that Lucy's Market has learned from? She's made mistakes but continues to listen to customers. When introducing new products, you have to train your customers to pick up products from Lucy's. How do you know when the time is right? Fresh flowers are going online. Delia Designs for Lucy's Market When have you learned about risk? Many things work out. When it comes to risk, make sure you have something lined up and things to back it up. What is next? Another location, being open and accepting new opportunities Kim Wilson's Background No background in retail but 30 years in sales. She knows what she likes, knows how to get it Pay people well to keep good workers. Because of great workers, they've been able to grow. Kim understands marketing and learning to manage her team, putting the right people in the right place. Advice? Marketing is essential - understand social media and utilize your online platforms. People get their information online, so you need to be online. Lucy's Market posts something every day, and they do weekly videos. Referrals and Hiring Lucy's Market used to employ friends and family but now referrals come to Kim through friends of friends - currently, no family working for them. 2-3 Golden Rules For A Small Business Owner 1. Customer service is key - be nice to everybody 2. Create an experience for your customer 3. Always be positive - being positive is a key to life. "I've made something, and I think it's going to be around for a while." Kim Wilson /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/23414936

Resetting & Reducing Social Distance with Karen Riddell 04/04/2022

Resetting & Reducing Social Distance with Karen Riddell Social distancing is a term that took hold during the pandemic as a descriptive way of creating boundaries from each other. But after two years of distancing and now going back to offices and social settings with colleagues and friends, social distance may take on new meaning. At a minimum, the re-engagement in groups feels awkward at first. We’ve forgotten some of the social norms and feel a little rusty at small talk. In a corporate setting, we realize that Zoom calls didn’t allow for much of a relationship with colleagues. So, we aren’t quickly at ease as a member of the team. Virtual events just aren’t the same as taking time for lunch or going on a walk with a colleague or friend. And now, we’re somewhere between anxious about reconnection, stressed about being left out or lonely because many of our friends have moved on. Our social life and world didn’t just relaunch or reset to where it may have been two years ago. We continue to hear from managers and leaders who are trying to accelerate connection and strengthen relationships across new work settings. And I think we’re all looking for some confidence in connection and some new ways of getting there. In this episode, Sally talks with Karen Riddell, Sally’s long-time friend and Positive Psychology Life Coach who has taken a special interest in social connections. More about Karen Riddell Karen Riddell is a Positive Psychology and Life Coach, who started her business after her interest in friendship led her to become certified in applied positive psychology and life coaching. In her coaching practice, she works with groups and individuals to find the sweet spot where their strengths, purpose and passions align. Karen partners with clients to clearly conceptualize their goals, envision the possibilities, and map out a concrete action plan for thriving. Karen’s practice centers on positivity, engagement, connection, purpose and vitality. In December 2020, Karen published Friendship Matters, a book extolling the miraculous power of friendship to transform your life. The how-to book details specific, simple ways to find, make, and build new friendships as well as ways to enrich, deepen, and strengthen existing relationships. It also contains an easy-to-use workbook that allows the reader to create their own personal path to joy through friendship. Prior to this, Karen received two degrees from The University of North Carolina, moved to Atlanta with her husband, where they had three daughters, and Karen became a prominent community volunteer. She is now writing her second book for mothers-of-the-brides sharing tips on how to navigate the complex process of wedding planning, and doing it with joy. Show Notes Karen Riddell - Positive Psychology Life Coach After social distancing, people now feel awkward with re-engagement and out of the practice of social norms. They are anxious about reconnecting, stressed about being out, and lonely. Social distance is more than just physical space. For managers and leaders: What are some of the most significant challenges with the limited socialization over the last few years? The impact of social distancing is underestimated. We are experiencing a double pandemic - Covid is threatening our physical health and social distancing is threatening our mental health. Work is a structured social setting that fell through. Social connection strengthens us in all the vital facets in our lives. It brings us physical and mental health, stronger families and relationships, and success in the workplace. Social disconnections weaken us in all those areas. What about social anxiety? Pre-pandemic - FOMO (Fear of missing out) People now feel FOBI (Fear of being included) Social anxiety can feel different: embarrassed awkward uncomfortable in crowds. Social anxiety can be felt physically: heart racing sweating panic attacks Negative emotions cause us to want to avoid social settings, so we are reluctant to jump back in. People who live alone or had smaller social circles to start have struggled the most with social distancing—singles or anybody residing with an immunocompromised individual have as well. People with larger social circles or a family did not struggle as much. What can most individuals do to reacclimate to social connection? Start by taking a strategic approach to social interactions: Before an event or activity, think of simple ways to ease its pressure. Limit the time at the event. Plan to go with someone else. Think about who you will see and what you will talk about. Plan how to recharge batteries after. Plan at your own pace - start with people you know well. Be compassionate and patient with yourself. If you start to have negative thoughts, try to reframe the thoughts. New ideas on how to bring socialization into a virtual workgroup? Most success comes from communication, not how but what you communicate about—balance work-related materials with social interactions. Internally and strategically interact virtually - using programs like slack Collaborate and create with virtual programs in real-time Grouping people in subsets and prompting group ice breakers Host contests and challenges Send humorous videos Host a lunch and learn Play up holidays Talk about families and hobbies Work to replace something spontaneous with something structured. What piqued Karen Riddells' interest in this work? All the things she had done were not activities and jobs that she was particularly interested in, but she did them because of the people she enjoyed being around. This realization got her interested in the power of friendship. https://karenriddell.com/https:/karenriddell.com/book/friendship-matters/ Friendships are vital to health and happiness and are the key to physical and mental health. People with a strong network: have a better sleep experience less chance of getting a cold/flu teeth and skin are healthier less likely to have stress heal faster better cardiovascular health stronger immune system more likely to take preventative health manners stronger working memory less likely to suffer from anxiety and depression People with a solid social network will have up to a four times greater chance of survival. The hills and hurdles in life are easier to manage with friends by your side. How can you get a strong social circle? Start by getting a friendship/positive mindset - you need to be ready to get in the right space. Put your passions and interest in play. Introverted leaders- What if you don't have time to develop strong friendships? Any leader in a business environment needs to make it a priority to develop friendships - Streamline your efforts to what will be the most successful. The formula of great friendships 1. mutual respect and reciprocity 2. trust and vulnerability 3. devotion and commitment Companies struggling with employee retention - is friendship a retention tool? Gallup organization research shows: An employee with a friend at work is 7 times more likely to be engaged in their job. No friends, your chance of being engaged plummets to 1 in 12. Work friends reduce stress and burnout - friendships at work increase job satisfaction by nearly 50%. People with 3 or more friends at work are 96% more likely to be satisfied with their lives overall. Create the moments and allow people to use them in a way that works for them. *Please note the following story does contain sensitive material. If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Call 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255) Karen shares a story of being a new mother and getting out of a funk by getting active and developing a community. She then shares a similar story of her mother, who needed a community as she struggled with loneliness. She was suffering from postpartum depression in a new town. Even just one friend has the power to make a difference. /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/22675748

The Mastery of Skills with Kenny Selmon 10/01/2021

The Mastery of Skills with Kenny Selmon Every day, we talk to people about practice. And we explain that to become effective at communication, you have to work at becoming good at it. And we define mastery of a skill as those who become so good at a skill that you can count on their performance and outcome consistently. And once you begin to talk about performance and outcomes, it’s easy to draw a parallel between mastery of a skill like communication and mastery of sports like the Olympics. And that’s what we’re going to do for you on this podcast: connect the concepts of practice, mastery and outcomes. And accentuate the value of practice and the ultimate results of effort. Because that’s what today’s guest has achieved. Recently back from the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games, Kenny Selmon represented the U.S. in the 400-meter hurdles. He began his track and field career just down the road at Pace Academy in Atlanta (where my claim to fame is that I overlapped in high school with him for one year!) and where he won the National Championship in the 400-meteres in 2014. Then he continued on to run hurdles at UNC, where he places 2nd in the NCCAA Division 1 National Championships in 2018 and set UNC’s record for the 400-metres. After graduating from UNC, he won the 2018 USAF Outdoor Championships and the Athletics World Cup in London. And in 2021, he qualified for the 2021 U.S. Olympic Team. Tune in to see what Kenny shares with guest host Hurst Williamson about the Master of Skills. Show Notes Mastery of a skill is an individual that becomes so good at a skill that you can count on their performance and outcome consistently. The podcast today will cover the practice, mastery, and outcome. Accentuate the value of practice and the ultimate results of the effort. Kenny Selmon, Olympic Athlete, USA What were some of the most difficult hurdles to overcome on the journey of being an Olympic Athlete? Covid Impact Lost sponsorship No access to tracks to train Unknow future of the Olympics What is the difference between intention and repetition behind the practice? How do you keep that intention when training? Know your ‘why”, understanding why you are doing it. Your “why” gives you the full vision and picture Know what you want even if you are struggling to find your “why” When you understand what you want it makes the steps to get there easier and will lead you to your “why” What is it like to consistently practice even when you’ve mastered the sport? How do you keep going? Every day you must perform at the highest level, even in practice. You don’t know if it’s going to work, all you have is faith and knowledge that your work will pay off. Have a coach that knows how to get you there Prepare for disrupters (rain, heat) Must always be ready to perform, there are no second chances What role does resilience play for the brand of an athlete? The importance of personal brand Book referenced at 14:56, Genuine care to supporters – responding to text messages, listening, and understanding they are on the journey with you. Everybody is competing with the brand and the personality next to you, how to stand out? Understand that athletes are all people that have been given a gift. Always be a person first. It’s not about standing out, it’s understanding who the person is and being genuine. Be yourself. Is there a brand that stands out to you? (Kenny) “Brand” is connected to success Allyson Felix for her brand to work so must continue to do well, compete, and win. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allyson_Felix Companies look for candidates that can show discipline and focus behind their experience. What are the parallels for an Olympic athlete? Faith- What you can not see Knowledge – You know knows what it will take, they’ve been through it Delayed gratitude – Bad/hard days will be stacked up for one day of celebration All of those experiences connect Stoke – a free platform where people connect to chat about Live TV www.stokeapp.live Mission: Our mission is to virtually connect the existing communities that watch Live Sports, TV Shows, and more. We strive to create a fun and active social communication channel for Live TV that streamlines all the different conversations surrounding it. Viewers pulled into the stories of Olympic Athletes. How has working alongside other Olympic athletes changed your perspective of storytelling and personal narratives? They are all people and they have problems and lives, but their work is at a very high level. Understand they are all people at the end of the day. Favorite story from the Olympics Watching his coach live his dream Knowing all structures were built specifically for that event Organization and technological aspects of the event /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/20675396

The Art of Coaching - How to Choose the Right Coach with Francie Schulwolf 07/06/2021

The Art of Coaching - How to Choose the Right Coach with Francie Schulwolf In the last year, millions of workers took early retirement, which created a band of less-experienced managers and leaders in most companies. It’s a great career opportunity and accelerated promotions for several managers. But it also pushes a less-experienced leader to learn how to drive while the car is moving, and it can create risks within a company when someone is leading who doesn’t have a bank of experiences to draw on. That’s why coaching is a hot commodity. A Coach becomes a trusted advisor to a new leader. A good Coach becomes a sounding board… and a confidante. A good Coach can broaden your thinking and help you solidify your options. And the best Coaches will help you expand your skills and your tools so that you can leverage the learnings even after the coaching relationship wraps up. So, how do you find the right coach? On this episode of What's Your Story, Sally talks with her colleague and SW&A Executive Coach, Francie Shulwolf, about how they work together to identify the right direction and guidance for coaching clients. Francie has also been a recipient of coaching services from her previous leadership role in a large hospitality company. Over the years, she often says: “What we do here at SW&A is different. It’s so much richer in terms of takeaways.” So today's podcast shares insights from both sides of the table. More about Francie Schulwolf Francie is an Executive Coach and Business Development Director at SW&A, and a former Communications Leader for a global hospitality company. Her focus is on developing strong, confident communicators. With close to twenty-five years of global, corporate experience in advertising, marketing and communications, she is intimately familiar with the demands executives face. This understanding, along with her honest and warm style, create a safe and comfortable environment for individuals to learn and grow. Show Notes In the last year, millions of workers took early retirement which resulted in a shift in the workforce, creating a group of less experienced managers and leaders. A good coach can broaden your thinking and help you expand your tools. How do you find the right coach? Role of the manager has shifted Managers are taking on a more significant role. Distractions are gone, people are home. There is more pressure to get things done. People were being more intentional/more empathetic. Do you need a coach if you have a mentor in your company? Mentor sees you daily and helps you navigate the waters of your company. A Coach provides you the valuable tools to enhance your leadership style and is a third party outside source that is focused on the individual’s leadership outside of the company. A coach is results driven. How to start Decide what you need a coach for. Coaches have the skillset to build leaders' communication and leadership style. Chemistry is important with the coach - Trusted relationships Should you get a coach? There is a difference between somebody who has experience vs expertise. Coaches help you combine the two and become a compelling communicator and leader. Tell your potential coach about what you are looking for Most business decisions are not new decisions - a good coach has experience. The coach brings insight. Impressions are someone else's perspective - insights shift to improvement. Videotaping Going through the before and after on the video - raise awareness of habits. When you get out of your head and into the room, it shows. Distinguish experience from expertise The reason to go to a coach is the expertise in the final assessment. The 4 things that help somebody align with a coach Chasing chemistry - must have chemistry to get to a place of trust with a coach. Insights vs improvement - get the feedback, doing something with it, have great awareness. Balance experience vs expertise - What do you need to do to be better? Inside coach vs outside coach - get a third party involved. /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/19722908

The Big Pitch with Rachel Spasser 04/15/2021

The Big Pitch with Rachel Spasser This episode's topic is The Big Pitch. And it’s a discussion of one of the most important presentations you may ever give. It has a definitive and measurable impact. It’s rarely shared with a large audience. And while the audience may be small, they are a critical one. Because their interest and reaction to the presentation may change the future of a company. And in fact, that’s actually the point. Today, we’re going to talk about “pitch” presentations. Those opportunities when a start-up, mid-size or even a large corporation wants to be acquired. The Big Pitch is a different kind of storyline with huge expectations and potential disappointments. And when you’re the communicator, it’s a crash course in how to position your company in a story that will resonate and attract a buyer. In our podcast today, you’ll hear a lot about those expectations and some best practices on how to think about The Big Pitch. More about Rachel Spasser Rachel Spasser is a Managing Director and Chief Marketing Officer at Accel-KKR Consulting Group. Rachel provides strategic guidance as well as sales and marketing leadership across Accel-KKR’s portfolio. Prior to joining Accel-KKR’s Consulting Group, Rachel was the Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Ariba, Inc., an SAP Company. With over 25 years of experience in marketing, business development and general management, Ms. Spasser has spent the past 20 years focused on the business-to-business technology space and speaks frequently on topics such as marketing strategy, demand generation and management and customer adoption marketing. Show Notes What are Pitch Presentations? Rachel Spasser Managing Director and Chief Marketing Officer at Accel-KKR What is the market like today after an unprecedented year? Q2 of last year was quiet. Companies that were going into investment during Q2 pulled back to wait and see what the market was going to be like going forward. Q3 through the end of the year was very busy. A lot of capital in the market and investment firms need to deepen that capital. Acquisition has become an essential part of the growth strategy. Listeners and the buyers are financial backers and sponsors. Listeners are the deal teams Strategic side Development department and functional leaders interested in acquiring that business. Make sure you understand who the listeners are going to be prior to the pitch. What are people listening for? Expertise Metrics of their business Leadership and the team dynamics Common mistakes in storytelling. People fall short on the presentation itself by rambling or going deeper than the listener can comprehend and not reading signals well. Data is important and should support the story you’re telling. Telling the rearview mirror story rather than the forward story. Backstory is great color and great context but there has to be context of what the future looks like. Seller can make the story real with good examples and buyer can have a vision for tomorrow. The deal makers and the bankers - most knowledgeable about the situation. What role do they play? The best bankers are the ones that can coach and bring the team along and develop a compelling way to bring the story along. Communicator - or the seller. Typically not a normal sales process. Pitch is high pressure environment. Salespeople are the most prepared for pitches. The pitch team should consist of: Key functional leaders CEO and CFO and senior leadership team CTO Head of Marketing Chief Customer Officer What do you do when your Chief Operating person or Executive is not comfortable in this space? Don’t bring them into the room. Hire a coach to help them feel comfortable presenting even a small part. Investor is looking at the team asking “can these people get me to where I want to go?” and sometimes the CEO doesn't want to go there. Team showing up and showing well is important. If the numbers don’t add up, it doesn’t matter how great the story or the pitch is and the numbers alone aren’t enough, you need both. Having a good presentation where the investors can believe that the team can take the investment to where they want to go. Investors are partners - It’s challenging to create this partnership virtually. Have informal interactions, virtual drink online, relationship building Third parties are important, references, customer calls, and we've adapted to Zoom and become better at it. Video is important if you're going to make it through. Make sure to have assigned parts in a Zoom presentation to avoid speaking over each other. The big pitch, does it make or break a deal? Red flags will make the deal more difficult. Use stories to bring your product to life - help the buyer understand why customers want to continue to work with your company. Data can support those stories but without those stories data is easy to forget. How do you make the story stick in a way that makes you and your company memorable? /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/18735977

Disrupted! A Talent Acquisition Perspective 03/29/2021

Disrupted! A Talent Acquisition Perspective Disruption happens every day across the corporate world. As employees, we experience reorgs, layoffs and acquisitions, and as disrupters ourselves we move cross country, chase ideas and challenge norms. But amidst all the disruption we all experience, some of us seem to thrive in times of turmoil. These are the communicators who have mastered the two secret arts hidden within corporate disruption: learning how to establish a compelling brand and build an intriguing career narrative. They are skills that take time to perfect, but they’re the differentiator factors between those who are cast adrift from disruption and those who prosper from it. We believe in this strongly...and it’s why we wrote our latest book: Disrupted! How to Reset Your Brand & Your Career. But don’t just take our word for it. On this episode, Hurst Williamson is joined by 2 Talent Acquisition specialists to share their perspectives on the trends they see every day and what makes a job candidate successful…or forgettable. More About the Guests Elisa Abner-Taschwer is the Talent Acquisition Manager at FORUM Credit Union in Fishers, Indiana. She has over 30 years of HR experience, primarily in Talent Acquisition. Elisa lives with her husband of 27 years and their Mini Golden Doodle, Max. Lauren Baksh, M.Ed. is the Senior Manager of Talent Acquisition at Graphic Packaging International. She has over ten years of talent management experience in the manufacturing industry and currently supports her team with the design and executi Show Notes Careers are no longer on a straight and narrow path. People will change their job/career 7-10 times throughout their career. Interview determines if there will be a next change in a person's career.What does it take to make a job a candidate memorable or forgettable? What percentage of people are good at interviewing? Less than 5% Not as many people are good at interviewing that think they are good at interviewing. Those that think they are good at interviewing usually lack authenticity. What goes wrong in an interview? Lack of prep - didn’t know much about the company or the interviewer. Lacked confidence - unaware of body language. Lacked impact - didn’t understand their experiences well. Prospective employee must be interviewing the company as well as being interviewed by the company. Preparation will help a candidate seal the deal. Good story tellers have better impact in an interview. Virtual vs. In-Person Interviews Same challenges exist in a virtual interview as an in person interview. Candidates see virtual as more informal and have a low awareness of their setting and background. Fewer people ghost virtual interviews. When prepping for a virtual interview, consider it the same as if you are going to meet with someone - dress professionally. Potential employers encourage prospective employees to ask questions about the attire and the platform being used to the interview. How many resumes for a potential position are reviewed? Far too many 20-30+ resumes for an open position 30-50 resumes What really makes a candidate stand out? Individuals who understand the organization and the culture. Candidates with confidence in themselves and the ability to have a good vision as to what they want in their new position. Candidates must be a good cultural fit. Candidates must ask questions in the interview and understand the opportunity. The most critical skills for a top candidate: Problem solving and thinking. Collaboration and cooperation. Communication and influence. Advice to stand-out in interviews: Translate the experience you had with the job you want to do. Think about things that you’ve done that have given you that experience. Update your resume annually and add accomplishments from the previous years. Highlight how you work on a team. Candidates approach an interview very reactively. Understand the resume is a list - make sure to drive the interview and conversation. Have a reactive and proactive interview. Be prepared to highlight your key aspects. Be able to shape your narrative and asked questions about the company while staying authentic. Come with questions to make it a conversation. Employers are looking for people that want to work for the company not the job. Is there a war for talent? It’s a very favorable market for talent right now. Companies are trying to be the company that people want to join and understand that not all candidates are going to have 100% of the skills that are being looked for in a candidate. Candidates must show up as their authentic self. Employees own their development and the company and their manager are there to support the individual. Take a risk and it might change! /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/18511040

Disrupted! A Talent Development Perspective 03/22/2021

Disrupted! A Talent Development Perspective Disruption happens every day across the corporate world. As employees, we experience reorgs, layoffs and acquisitions, and as disrupters ourselves we move cross country, chase ideas and challenge norms. But amidst all the disruption we all experience, some of us seem to thrive in times of turmoil. These are the communicators who have mastered the two secret arts hidden within corporate disruption: learning how to establish a compelling brand and build an intriguing career narrative. They are skills that take time to perfect, but they’re the differentiator factors between those who are cast adrift from disruption and those who prosper from it. We believe in this strongly...and it’s why we wrote our latest book: Disruption: How to Reset Your Brand & Your Career. But don’t just take our word for it. On this episode, Hurst Williamson is joined by 3 Talent Development specialists to share their perspectives on what makes an employee a high-potential candidate and what traits they look for in tomorrow’s leaders. More About the Guests Alexandra Daily-Diamond is the Northwest Regional Talent Development Manager at Gensler, a design and architecture firm. In her role she identifies people-focused solutions to HR challenges. She focuses on organizational and employee development and engagement, talent management, coaching, and HR strategies that promote wellbeing. Hilda Currey is the Enterprise Learning Management Systems Administrator for Methodist Health System, a non-profit healthcare organization located in Dallas, Texas. Hilda has over 25 years of experience in corporate & healthcare learning and talent development, and has held a series of progressive positions in the training and development field. Megan Breiseth is the Senior Director of Learning and Development at InsideTrack. Megan has worked in employee development since 2006. At InsideTrack, she coached online adult learners and eventually moved into Learning and Development leadership. During her career, Megan has built and managed learning programs that unlock the potential in coaches, managers, and support staff. Show Notes Disruption is happening across the board in companies and for employees. Employees no longer have a mapped-out career path. Seek opportunities to expand your skills and repackage your potential. What do companies think about talent development? What percentage of the workforce has needed to do some kind of rest in 2020? 100% of the team had a reset in priorities, personal goals, and how they do the work. All training was converted to virtual learning, 10% of corporate employees shifted to work from home. 100% of people's jobs changed and circumstances changed. Staff neededg to focus on what is most essential for students and institutions to meet their basic needs. Prioritize safety, wellness, and how to set up systems to support employees so they could show up. Pandemic aside - What other things would be examples of organization disruptions? Integrating separate systems into one Transition from for profit to nonprofit business Change roles to be more scalable and sustainable More efficiency changes in the workplace Pandemic heightened changes that would have happened otherwise but pandemic made it more urgent. Economy is a general factor in disruption. - Global company and global economic impact. Companies are shifting to have a clear focus to elevate the human experience. What is the organization's responsibility in an employee’s development and what is the employee's responsibility in that? Company being intentional to listen and empower. Employees seek out feedback on what the individual could do better. Ask the questions that are going to get employees thinking deeply. Empower employees to own their career and see themselves. Have a specific program for leaders. Offer employees training or tuition reimbursement. Encourage them to play a visible role in committees. Offer the opportunity to get input from coworkers and managers. What happens when an individual hits a wall where they don’t have the skills they didn’t know they needed to advance but were still good at their current job? Push employees to get the skill - many companies will work with employees to get them to develop the skills they need to continue. Encourage employees to have a conversation with managers to get the skills they need. Library of competency to get measured on. The goal is to look within the company but they will be open to hire outside the company if a specific skill is needed quickly. In times like this, a person would lose the job for somebody who has that skill if the employee has not done anything to grow. When a person is having their potential assessed, being great at what they can do isn’t always a great indicator that they can stretch when a skill is needed. Examples of employees that were hired from other industries to do a new job: Head chef- great head of customer service DJ as a sales person Zookeeper as a head of operations 3 key attributes that talent development looks for in any position Ability to communicate and influence others Agility during changes or times of uncertainty Problem solving and critical thinking Debunking of the rumor of “There's never enough “top talent” Personal brand and feedback The book goes over the importance of hitting the reset to create your brand you must make yourself visible. Participate in programs. Volunteer for outside organizations. Champion specific projects. Use talent and skills on a broad perspective. Personal brand is how people think about and talk about you when you aren't around. Asking for feedback removes the barrier and opens it up for an honest conversation. If you dread feedback, work on your mindset around feedback, your mindset will share your reality. We can’t grow unless we get negative feedback. Seek feedback and control the narrative. Participate in a performance review for yourself and from your manager. Feedback should be given on a day-to-day basis. Not all feedback is useful but it's important to put yourself out there. Seek feedback from individuals that make you nervous. You can’t grow without stress or change - everyone deserves to love what they do. Always seek to grow and chase meaning and purpose. /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/18420293

Disrupted! A Podcast with the Creators: Why We Wrote It & What We Learned 03/15/2021

Disrupted! A Podcast with the Creators: Why We Wrote It & What We Learned Disruption happens a lot across the corporate world. Sometimes, from a company’s perspective through realigning functions. And sometimes by employees themselves as they make choices to try different things. But whether disruption is caused by a company or an individual, it’s occurring more frequently. And from our vantage point, we see individuals who aren’t ready for it…and aren’t good at resetting around a challenge or an opportunity that disruption causes. The book sets out to help individuals understand why disruption occurs and how to plan for resets. This episode of What's Your Story has guest host, Lia, who interviews Sally, Hurst, and LaKesha about book insights, highlights and maybe see if they'll share a few tips from our latest book, Disrupted! How to Reset your Brand and Your Career. More about The Creators Sally Williamson is the founder of SW&A and an expert in all things related to spoken communication. Sally brings more than three decades of experience, insights and a general love of connection to empower more than 15,000 leaders and managers to influence and impact any group. Disrupted! is her fourth book. Hurst Williamson is the ultimate utility player who can uncover client needs, lead a workshop or weave an incredible tale. He owns every room and brings genuine engagement to communication. He is the heart of the career journey and a proud member of the generation most disrupted. But he sees it as an opportunity to tell your story and own your journey. And he’s helping many of our clients do just that. Hurst co-authored Disrupted! and it is his second book. LaKesha Edwards is a life-long learner who loves research, insights and discovery. With a Ph.D. added to her own career journey, she questions what we’re learning and how we’re solving it. And with SW&A, she creates the steps to continue a development experience by thinking through what we learn, what we teach and how we coach. And quite frankly, she keeps us all on our toes. She led the research behind Disrupted! Show Notes Disrupted! How to Reset Your Brand and Your Career Disruption happens all over the world and it’s occurring more frequently. This book sets out to help individuals understand why disruption occurs and how to plan for resets. Why Disrupted! How to Reset Your Brand and Your Career was written: It felt like the right time for the topic and they had the tools to sell it. As a communications firm they have a broad view of business change. SW&A wanted to support individuals and how they deal with disruption. This time, around wanted to include two new minds in the process to have fresh perspective about a topic that will directly affect their generation. The timing of COVID-19 offered the space, insight, and necessity for this book. This book has blended all their different talents together. What was Disrupted! How to Reset Your Brand and Your Career trying to uncover and discover? Focus on developing the skills of current employees. Noting talent strategies have shifted with business beliefs. Talent acquisition is trying to bring in the needed talent to solve for gaps. Where does that create insight for a reader or an individual who’s thinking through their own career path and development? Talent Leaders have encouraged employees to take ownership of their own career path. Training for employees to directly support company goals is 82%. 8% of their time is focused on development outside of company goals. If your interest does not align with the company's goals, it will not be a priority. Talent development is in charge of supplying the people to let that growth happen. Goals get narrow fast - if an individual doesn’t fit in the scope, they will fall behind. Employees must take ownership to develop their skills to make sure they stand out. Employees must not rely on somebody watching out for them- they must own their career. There is not a master database of employee’s development, skills, and career goals. How to stay competitive? Feedback - is the best indication of what an employee’s file at a company is. Seek feedback to control personal brand. Seek feedback from individuals that make you nervous. Personal brand is how people think about you and talk about you when you’re not around. What are the critical skills needed today? Communication and influence. Problem solving and critical thinking. Agility during times of change and uncertainty. To be a better strategic thinker is to be a better strategic communicator. Talent recruiters will look for talent outside an organization if specific skills are needed quickly. How are disruption and reset related? Disruption is what everyone feels. It happens to everybody and at any time. Not always handled well. The rest are the people who take control of disruption. How they pivot. The art of how you take disruption and turn it into insight. What does reset look like? Everybody will have to reset at some time in their career. An individual will change jobs 7-10 times in their career. Reset comes down to the interview. In the Talent Acquisition podcast they were asked how many people are good at interviewing? Less than 5 percent. Talent acquisition is competing for top talent. Many people don’t understand how to explain their skills through storytelling. Acquiring skills that fit a specific job is not always through traditional experiences. In the book they look at different career levels early, mid, and peak career. People are successful in reset if they have a compelling brand and a compelling career narrative. 1st half of Disrupted! How to Reset Your Brand and Your Career is about personal brand and coaching around feedback. It’s broken down between early, mid-career and peak career. 2nd half pivots into a career narrative. How to think about organizing all your experience together. Mindset shifts on how you think and talk about yourself. /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/18328982

Helping Tech to Talk Exec with Mac Smith 01/25/2021

Helping Tech to Talk Exec with Mac Smith From a distance, you could assume that product creation and innovation is easy because it seems to happen quickly. But you’d be wrong. It actually requires an army of technologists and engineers to keep innovation moving and to deliver products in a speedy fashion. And they aren’t alone. Long before a product reaches a build phase, there are multiple steps to analyze a market, identify a need and propose a product against a market opportunity. Sometimes there can be a communication conflict between senior leaders and technical teams, and often, the outcome is a lack of understanding and buy-in. It’s why one of the key development needs amongst technology teams is learning to communicate with an executive audience. On this episode of What’s Your Story, Sally is joined by Mac Smith, who leads Cross Portfolio Research for Search & Assistant, at Google. And he’s going to share his experience with why communication conflicts happen, and how they can be improved. More about Mac Smith Mac is the Head of Cross Portfolio Research for Search & Assistant at Google. He leads a 25 researcher organization on research programs that bridge Google Search & Assistant product lines. The team combines product support with cross portfolio programs and processes that increase the overall speed and quality of a 100 person research organization. Before this role, he was the Head of User Research for the Core Search Product. Show Notes Is there a struggle between executive teams and tech teams? Much of the content struggles to connect at the right altitude to connect with the executive teams. For tech teams who are thinking about how a particular product would work, much of the content in the area of comfort lies around their expertise: The how Data Risks Blockers - etc Try starting with the main point instead of throwing details. The experts struggle envisioning not having all the details to make a decision. The challenge has always been there are repeats on different scales. What has changed as they increase scale is the amount of time the execs have, as well as the complexity they are dealing with has grown exponentially. Perspective difference hasn’t changed - as the organizations have grown, the amount of time you have to make that decision has changed. In smaller scale companies, you have more of an opportunity to work with those decision makers. As the company grows, it becomes more structured and you have fewer opportunities to make those connections. Most of the leadership has spent a considerable amount of time as product engineers prior to becoming executives in tech. It’s important to understand the complexity of systems that run your business so you can make decisions that bridge business, experience and technology. The challenge is many of the engineers have never been in the executive position. From the executive perspective: the aperture of their view, the connection, and the time have all changed - that is the biggest perspective. Executive teams need to come in the door and think about what decision they will make that day. Leaders connect dots. Looking at something a moment in time vs something over time. For researchers there are two parts to the job: 1. The craft of collecting information. 2. The role of being an advisor and a steward of that information. If you are advising or influencing a leader your job does not stop upon delivery of the information, you also need to help/guide that person (the executive) to make a decision. The need for people to have effective communication in their roles has gotten greater. Growth makes communication more challenging. In the early stages of a company, you see more expert to expert conversation. When the audience grows you are no longer having those expert-to-expert conversations. Growth requires you to evaluate how you communicate. How does your expertise connect to the bigger picture, and can you understand the perspective of that executive to help them make that decision or fill in a gap for them? What is the consequence of not being understood? You don’t get what you want. You need to connect it to what the executive wants. If you give me this, you will get this. What is the biggest consequence for not being an effective communicator? Most executives see the company as one large team and they want that team to be successful. If they don’t feel the idea is effectively being communicated, they will send people away and tell them to come back with more research. The communicator must understand what is needed by the executive. Time loss is the biggest challenge. What are the common mistakes that happen over and over again? Presenter starts the conversation from their perspective and misses context completely. The takeaway is buried at the end of the conversation. Presenter is not prepared for the drill down by the executives. Presenter must realize the executives want them to be successful and ask questions attempting to help. They are essentially asking the presenter to give them a reason to change or do something. In this scenario, tech experts miss an opportunity to connect with exec staff because they feel tested. Most technologists want to be better communicators and the biggest challenge they face include being anxious or unsure about effective communication. Tech groups are phenomenal learners, they work hard to make it fit and make it work. How to improve skills as an effective communicator: Start at the end, not from your perspective. Start with the end goal for the audience. Encourage people to prototype their results that they need to get to and show to others. Modify based on their feedback to show the end that you're going to hit. Do stories have a place in technology? Facts and data are not memorable - add a layer of storytelling to that data. It helps others to understand what you are trying to accomplish and connect to broader business perspective. Set out the board context and framework – here is the what and how of this story, and then illustrate that with concrete stories. When you marry those two together- it takes a complex space with conflicting information and makes it very concrete and relatable. If you learn to communicate well, the chances of you becoming one of the executives becomes significantly higher in terms of probability and speed at getting there. /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/17684159

The Stories Behind a Purpose with CeCe Morken 01/07/2021

The Stories Behind a Purpose with CeCe Morken These days, we’re all exhausted. And it’s not just the physical tiredness of managing kids, virtual schooling, shifting work locations in a house, or balancing disruptions as our personal lives and workspace converge. It’s a mental tiredness and fatigue, and the effects are pretty dramatic. It’s a good thing that companies were already working on body and mind wellness. Wellness support and training has become an integral part of many company’s benefit plans and training initiatives. The added stress and uncertainty of the pandemic has intensified the conversations about mindfulness, meditation, and a company called Headspace. On this episode of What’s Your Story, Sally’s guest is CeCe Morken, President and CEO of Headspace, and she’s here to share her experience with how she found herself in this role and the benefits of finding your purpose. More about CeCe Morken CeCe Morken serves as President and Chief Operating Officer of Headspace. She is a highly accomplished technology industry executive with 35 years of experience building and growing organizations, from start-ups to global, publicly traded companies. CeCe joined Headspace after 13 years at Intuit, where she led multiple business units. She served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Strategic Partner Group, responsible for the accountant, financial institution, and enterprise platform business generating $700M in annual revenue — in addition to leading both the Corporate/Government Affairs and Corporate Responsibility functions for the company. Morken was also responsible for building strategic partnerships between Intuit and financial institutions, government and educational entities, and enterprise platforms, and also responsible for expanding global engagements, which doubled the velocity of contracts in the target countries of the UK, Australia, Canada, and France. Before serving in this capacity, Morken led Intuit Financials Services (IFS). She led this business through a technology and business model transformation that moved the business to the number one ranking in share and product design across online and mobile platforms, leading the industry in open platform designs. Subsequently, CeCe led the strategic decision to divest the business and close the sale to the private equity firm Thoma Bravo in August of 2013. Morken is a graduate of North Dakota State University, with majors in Economics and Business Administration, and attended the University of Chicago Booth’s executive development program. Morken currently serves on the Boards of GENPACT and NDSU College of Business. Morken has also been recognized as one of The Most Powerful Women in Accounting (2017), National Diversity and Leadership Most Powerful Women in Technology (2017 and 2019), and has received the Intuit CEO Leadership Award in 2011, 2014, and 2017, and the Bill Campbell Coaches Award in 2018. Show Notes Headspace: Improve health and wellness of the world. This organization helps people build healthy routines through mindfulness in an app. 46% of people over the age of 18 will have a diagnosable mental health issue 60% of those are untreated Purpose of Headspace: Corporate social responsibility and working in service for the greater good. What is the impact of mindfulness thinking? How mindfulness has changed the workplace Study by Headspace: 65% of employees report that most of the stress they feel is from work 42% state that work/life balance is the greatest source of stress 45% of those lose 2 hours a day because of stress There has been an increase of CEO’s listing mental health and mindfulness as a priority in the workplace. With the emphasis on this from other companies there are positive results and improvement. Employers need to enable people to bring their whole selves to work. Virtual environment has mad that difficult The Headspace work environment is one to model. They offer the following: Meeting breaks No meeting days Every other Friday off Headspace offers support programs for companies and shares their best practices with their employees Offer flexibility for the caregivers in the family to prevent losing women in the workplace Mindfulness isn’t about taking more time, it’s about being present. It’s not about time, it’s about frequency. Being purposeful with your time. Headspace got big names like Sesame Street, John Legend, and other celebrities involved. Headspace Outreach Working with Governor Cuomo's office giving all New Yorkers access to their app for free Worked with other states hit hard, early on, by the pandemic Made their app free to every unemployed person, all health care providers, and educators Headspace provides content like: music, stories, sleep casts, etc. All offerings are backed by science and clinical studies. Headspace worked with Sesame Street with the goal of helping young minds develop healthy habits. Hundreds of thousands have taken advantage of their app. CeCe shared a Storytelling meditation clip from the Headspace app on Wisdom: Mind, Body, Speech The clip covered intention, mindfulness, voice and body of speech. How to manage, inspire and support a team virtually: Best practices for management: Don’t just ask “how are you?” ask “really…how are you?” Start the conversation with their development, not just the business outcome Be a good role model - take breaks, set up healthy boundaries Ensure that you’ve got clarity of common purpose and do “less” better Remind people why you are there and what you are focused on. Speed - don’t wait for normal - make a difference and take advantage of the situation and lean in more. How you spend your time is important, pick your career for the right reason. Find purpose in your work. Do something that makes your heart beat faster every day. /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/17429510

The Wingman with Francie Schulwolf and Lia Panayotidis 06/04/2020

The Wingman with Francie Schulwolf and Lia Panayotidis As a leader, your brand, style, message of the company, and the company itself are intertwined. SW&A has coached several leaders and considered themselves the “wingman” for people in leadership positions. On this episode of What’s Your Story?, Sally talks with instructors Francie Schulwolf and Lia Panayotidis about their experience as The Wingman. More about our guests Francie Schulwolf: Francie’s focus is on developing strong, confident communicators. With close to twenty-five years of global, corporate experience in advertising, marketing and communications, she is intimately familiar with the demands executives face. This understanding, along with her honest and warm style, create a safe and comfortable environment for individuals to learn and grow. Lia Panayotidis: As a lead instructor for our style programs, Lia focuses on raising awareness of individual brands and working with people to strengthen personal presence. She creates an insightful learning environment in each program and can make the most vulnerable discussions a little easier. She approaches each program with a natural joy of connection and fifteen years of diverse experience in training and development Show Notes As a leader, your brand, style, message of the company, and the company itself are intertwined. Sally Williams and Associates coach several leaders and consider themselves the “wingman” for people in leadership positions. Wingman means the person behind the leader who is focused on that individual to become successful. Sally has spent several years speaking in front of groups and now uses the tools she learned in leadership and visible roles to help others. Coaching is about observing others. There is more joy in watching someone else succeed. What is the role of communications as an influencer? Having the ability to get people to deliver on a message they can get behind. Understand every CEO has a different approach and skill set. Being the voice behind the curtain that makes everybody sound really good. Understand how to separate content from style components. Practice and teach others how to become self-aware and develop self-confidence. Coaching is all about connections and getting leaders to the next level. What is done with the content collected? SWA talks about celebrations and people. SWA learns from each new leader they work with. Coaches are trying to figure out what is going on and how to get their leaders/clients to that next place. They work toward figuring out how to help them discover their voice and how to get them there. What is frustrating as a coach? Coming into a session and encountering apprehension from the beginning and an unwillingness to be open. When clients have their guards up from the start. Seeing the potential that the coach knows is there and they are matched with resistance. Clients who don’t realize the value of feedback. Leaders who refuse to watch themselves on stage to learn. What makes a great coach? Creating a safe zone where clients can try new things. Coaches who are still learning. The clients that are remembered are the ones that really made a difference during the training. The ones who grew a lot not. Leadership is about: learning what is happening in the room Embracing the intent is behind what they are doing Discovering how the listener is doing Coaching is taking the love of people and development and putting it together. How do you coach mastery? You give them the tools and show them how to master it. Encourage clients to be intentional about practicing. Realize that each person’s goals are different and embrace it. Ask the clients: What do you want for yourself? What do you see for yourself? Success is gauged by audience response. Helping clients realize it comes down to their own desire to master it. /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/14701331

How Securities Teams Share Data Insights with Kim Keever 05/04/2020

How Securities Teams Share Data Insights with Kim Keever Every communicator plays a significant role within an organization, but some of those roles get more visibility than others. Sales shares about customer insights, marketing relays their brand and product strategies, and something we’ve seen grow in the last five years, is that data security teams have become big communicators, with many CISO’s managing the communication to leadership teams and corporate Boards. On this episode of What’s Your Story, Sally connects with Kim Keever, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer of Cox Communications, one of the leading cable, internet and home automation providers to talk about the increased demand for security insights and how she brings clarity to a pretty complex topic. More About Kim Keever Kim Keever is the Chief Information Security Officer and Senior Vice President of Security, Analytics and Technology Services for Cox Communications. Her teams are responsible for all aspects of Information Security for Cox Communications, the Center of Excellence for Analytics and for Technology people programs. Since joining Cox, she has built an industry recognized security program. In early 2016, Kim’s team received an innovation award from CSO Magazine, and Kim was named a top woman in technology by Multichannel News. In both 2017 and 2018, she was named one of the most powerful women in cable by Cablefax. Kim is a graduate of Georgia Institute of Technology. She is a member of several industry associations and boards including Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS). She is active in volunteer organizations including Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Technology Advisory Board and support of homeless shelters located in Atlanta. Show Notes There has been an increased demand for security insights since 2014 because of large company security breaches. Leaders started looking for an increase in security insights out of worry and wanted to know: what happened, how did it happen, and could it happen to us? How do you talk to leaders about security without scaring them? We talk about security with a risk based approach: Call out the highest risks first. Do a little bit at a time. Give them context. Give them a comparison so they can better understand where the risks are. There are two types of CISO’s: High tech. Business focused. The ability to explain the technology in a business context and alert companies to what the risks are is important because it’s the most effective way to help CISO’s operate. Companies will be more likely to get buy-in and senior leaders will feel more comfortable with the security team. How do you understand the magnitude of what to keep a watch on? There are different areas in which data breaches are happening: Bad Guys. Nation State Actors. Hack-tivists. When you start talking about security and risk, you run the risk of making companies look bad as far as their security of data goes. Don’t let your vulnerability be because of funding. How can you partner with other departments or organizations to get the funding needed to reduce the risks and fix the issues early on? Don’t bombard your listeners with too much detail, give them the facts but don’t overwhelm them. Train your employees on effective communication, and continue to practice it. Be sensitive of the information you share. Help clear up misunderstandings or potential misunderstandings. When you speak about complex things, you may need to say them multiple times and tell them in different ways in order for listeners to fully understand and remember. The security team is trying to educate the entire organization, more than just talking about security risks. Hands on experiences have helped prove the need for heightened security. Finding ways to make security fun and interesting tends to help the content resonate with people. A strong leader is someone that employees are willing to follow. As a leader, hire people who are smarter than you and have diversity of thought; those who are independent in their work and want to do the right thing. Give employees opportunities to keep them engaged, allow people to own their own space, and let them grow in their career. Keep your employee’s best interest in mind, and always keep an open dialogue. Security is a great field to get into. Having a background in technology helps, and this career is in high demand and won’t go away. Be willing to gently show people that they may not be doing enough in one area. /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/14279900

Communicating Through Crisis 03/24/2020

Communicating Through Crisis As we focus on a pandemic around the world, we are all searching for information and for answers. On a personal level, we’re relying on our government and our media to share what’s happening. It’s an unprecedented topic and a new normal in our homes, schools and our lives. But we also wonder about our professional lives. And companies have to interpret the impact of that new normal for employees. In most companies, that calls up the communications and human resources teams to activate or develop a crisis communication plan. SW&A hosted a special panel with some of our colleagues and friends, who know how to manage crisis communications. You’ll hear insights and best practices on what employees and customers need and want during trying times. It takes clarity in ambiguity, confidence in uncertainty and some guidance and advice from those who’ve been there a time or two. Panel: Patti Wilmot: former HR Leader - Patti has over twenty years’ experience as a former-chief human resources officer. She has helped create award-winning leadership development programs focused on creating a “bench” of future leaders. She brings expertise in assessing talent, improving the effectiveness of leadership teams and helping leaders leverage their strengths to improve effectiveness and impact. Steve Soltis: former Executive Communications Leader - Steve is a senior adviser with MAS Leadership Communication. Soltis recently retired from The Coca-Cola Company, where he led both executive and internal communication for the past 11 years. In his role at Coca-Cola, Soltis was responsible for orchestrating the company's entire C-suite executive visibility efforts and for formulating its employee communication strategies and execution. Francie Schulwolf: Former Communications Leader at InterContinental Hotel Group - Francie’s focus is on developing strong, confident communicators. With close to twenty-five years of global, corporate experience in advertising, marketing and communications, she is intimately familiar with the demands executives face. This understanding, along with her honest and warm style, create a safe and comfortable environment for individuals to learn and grow. Sally Williamson: Founder of SW&A - Sally is a leading resource for improving the impact of spoken communications. She has developed key messages and coached leaders and their teams to deliver them effectively for more than thirty years. Sally specializes in executive coaching and developing custom programs for groups across company verticals. Show Highlights: What is the picture of success? What do you want to achieve through this situation? How can businesses leverage this situation? How to win hearts and minds. What is your central message and who are your stakeholders? Know how your employees are doing, understand what your consumers are needing to hear. Timing is critical and consistency is key. Address compensation as best as possible for employees. Be honest with your messaging, if you don’t know the answer let employees know. You can be just as clear about what you know and what you don’t know. Always show unity with leadership and re-enforce it in your messaging. Figure out who are your best messengers who can clearly communicate. Be in constant contact with your employees. Come out with messaging that connects with your brand and your culture. How to construct a plan that shows a picture of success - do this through employee engagement and build off of that. How do you help a group think about clarity and how to understand it? How do leaders deliver this messaging to their teams? There needs to be a means to get the message to them, let employees know how it will get to them and be consistent. Front line people managers are incredibly important during this time, this is the time to step up and this is the time to reach out to employees. Contact each individual employee frequently and know what is going on with your employees. Even if you don’t have something to say to employees, still have that touch point to contact them frequently. Employee care is incredibly important. Keep morale up. Make sure your employees hear about what you are doing before the public knows. Get senior leadership out, touching base with employees personally. Learn to develop manager talking points from leadership. What companies are doing a good job with communicating their message through the crisis? Clarity of truth is important. Not all companies can give good news. This is the moment that will define your leadership. It’s overwhelming as a leader right now, leaders need to be the calming force and utilize empathy. Leaders need to be able to send information both ways, up to higher leadership and down to employees. Don’t let a world wide crisis become your crisis, do everything with kindness and with accurate information. Ask people how they are and if they know what they are supposed to be doing during this time. How we treat our team members now will come back to us. /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/13680302

Clarity Around Complexity with Bharath Kadaba 03/04/2020

Clarity Around Complexity with Bharath Kadaba Innovation is king. But that doesn’t mean everyone understands it or knows how to leverage it. In fact, many view it as the silver bullet and the easy button that changes everything overnight. And that’s just not how it works. Innovation evolves step by step and can be years in the making before a viable product or concept can be leveraged. And that’s why companies invest in future technologies. On our latest episode of What’s Your Story?, Sally speaks with Bharath Kadaba, Chief Innovation Officer of Intuit, about his role building and leading the Technology Futures group within Intuit, and how that group communicates about their work in a way that builds interest and buy-in. More About Bharath Kadaba Bharath Kadaba is Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Intuit, and leads the Technology Futures group. His organization is responsible for creating game-changing technology in support of Intuit’s mission to power prosperity for consumer, small business and self-employed customers. Since joining the company in 2008, Bharath has served in a variety of executive leadership positions. Prior to his current role, he was Vice President and Engineering Fellow with responsibility for leading engineering teams that built innovative new technology for the company’s QuickBooks, TurboTax and Mint product lines. Before that, he led advanced technology development as Vice President for Global Ready Offerings, and Vice President for the Global Business Division, Product Development, respectively. Before Intuit, Bharath was Vice President of Media Engineering at Yahoo, where he led the development of a shared services platform to serve as the foundation for all media properties (news, finance, sports, games, etc.) and significantly expanded the U.S. media product capabilities. Prior to Yahoo, he was an executive with Siebel Systems, AristaSoft, and News Corp., after spending 15 years at IBM and IBM’s TJ Watson Labs. Bharath earned a Ph.D. in Computer Networks from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and a BSEE and Master’s in Computers and Control from the Indian Institute of Science. Show Highlights Innovation evolves- What is it and how do you leverage it? Why do companies invest in future technology? How does a company define a future technology group? How do we bring technologies and build products that benefit our customers? Start with the customer problems. The goal is to help consumers lead a prosperous life as technology is constantly changing, what is the match between the customer problem and the new technology? Purpose: To help customers at the same time as building future technology. Customers always want to see how they can make more money. Small teams that are obsessed with technology - How can we change the way humans interact with machines? There is a need for people who are passionate about the work, problem solver, innovative, and future thinking. The beauty of the deep craft expertise is somebody who knows the tech well and can problem solve. Always be willing to explore multiple solutions. Fall in love with the problem not the solution. What is a craft expert? How do you find a craft expert and a person with curiosity and expertise? Find somebody customer obsessed, they will be the first to solve the problem. Customer Collaborative commerce? What is it? How does your team think about clarity when outcomes aren’t always clean/how to find clarity in communication? Understand what is clear and what is ambiguous - Always set the expectations of what you know and don’t know from the start. Communication and narratives are critically important. Know what the challenge is and why you have the challenge. How to show that you are about the future and relevant today at the same time. How to invert a story so that it’s built entirely from the consumer's perspective? How to teach a team to do good work and illustrate what they do? How much has awareness gone up since they began talking about what they do? How storytelling has brought to life the impact of what they have done and how they do it? Doing Great Work is not enough, you have to stand up and tell a story. /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/13293386

Sharing Student Stories: Storytelling's Place in a Changing Academic World with Pete Wheelan 01/14/2020

Sharing Student Stories: Storytelling's Place in a Changing Academic World with Pete Wheelan We know storytelling’s place in the business world, but have you considered the role it plays in academic institutions across the nation? In our first episode of What’s Your Story?, Season 2, Sally speaks with Pete Wheelan of InsideTrack about how he uses storytelling alongside professional coaching, technology, and data analytics to increase the enrollment, completion, and career readiness of students. More About Pete Wheelan Pete Wheelan is dedicated to leading mission-driven, high-growth companies unlocking human potential and currently serves as CEO of InsideTrack, the nation’s leading student success coaching organization. Under Pete’s leadership, InsideTrack has now served 2 million + students and 4000+ academic programs for clients including Harvard, the Cal State System and Ivy Tech. He led the purchase of InsideTrack by Strada Education Network, a $1.4 billion public charity focused on improving high education outcomes, and InsideTrack’s acquisition of Logrado, the foundation for InsideTrack’s uCoach technology and analytics platform. Pete also serves as Executive Chairman at Roadtrip Nation, a fellow Strada Education Network affiliate. Before InsideTrack, Pete served as COO/CRO of Blurb, a leader in self-published books, and as SVP of strategic marketing and business development for Lonely Planet. He also founded online portal Adventureseek and was a strategy consultant with BCG. Pete received a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.B.A. and J.D. from Northwestern University. Show Highlights What is the power of stories in academic settings? Inside Track is a company that started in 2001 that was trying to solve the issue that college is hard and most institutions don’t provide support that is not academic or financial aid related What are the big issues that stop students from completing their academic programs? For communication, the best way is to meet students where they are, utilizing email and texting and not just a phone call. What are students seeking with InsideTrack's service? Most higher education institutes have gone from a growth mindset to a fixed mindset Why is the sense of belonging a big struggle for new students? What are the causes of a student actually dropping out? How do you approach universities to integrate this program? How does the storyline with the school take shape? Inside Track coached 300-400,000 students in 2019 Inside Track has access to student satisfaction and work to help remove obstacles and challenges for students Student success has become increasingly important in the institution What are some things InsideTrack provides for students? InsideTrack has been a resource for over 2 million students With students, InsideTrack provides reputation and relationships that develop over time - it’s not a one and done. How do you keep the human at the core of your program but use technology to enable them? To sell this program the best case is having partners and clients tell their story via a case study, Teaching sales to lead with stories in their conversations Bring coaches and coach managers into early conversations with potential partners Use first generation students as coaches to represent and share their story- makes it real and relatable Stories that are repeated by other institutions using their stories and coming back as a referral InsideTrack is a predominantly virtual workforce. Advice on inspiring employees? Communication Authenticity Repetition Clarity and consistency When you are approachable it provides credibility for the other communications to an employee. /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/12679538

Training Technologists to be Storytellers with Patricia Martin 10/17/2019

Training Technologists to be Storytellers with Patricia Martin On today’s episode, we’re speaking with Patricia Martin of Cox Communications about the importance of effective storytelling and communication among technologists. Patricia also shares some insight into the impact good leaders can have on inspiring others. More About Patricia Martin Patricia Martin joined Cox Communications in 2005. In her time there, she has led several key initiatives at Cox, including the creation of the first national team of virtual construction estimators and Cox’s first-generation Video Back Office National Center of Excellence. Martin oversees the Network Operations Centers and Tier II support teams for both Residential and Cox Business support models. In 2017, Martin streamlined the Service Assurance NOC to one operating model with two locations, Atlanta and Phoenix. She synchronized national teams and subject matter experts toward improving customers’ experience and set a new road map within the company for other functions to emulate. Martin is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma and of the WICT Betsy Magness Leadership Institute. She has been recognized by Women in Cable Technology (WICT) and CableFax for her leadership skills, her ability to drive results, her unwavering commitment to her team and customers, and the positive changes she has delivered at Cox Communications. Show Highlights What is Technology Service Assurance? How do you successfully keep multiple platforms operating while knowing who is the right technologist to contact? PIR - Post Instant Report- It’s important to communicate with your customer base letting them know what occurred and how it won’t happen again. How does a team communicate internally to non-technical audiences when they are facing a challenge? Why is it important to be a good storyteller especially during budgeting time? How do you build confidence in your technologist through storytelling? Focus on the issue, and leave the details for others who will understand. What is the importance of developing a structure to share information? Consistency in how you deliver your message in a technology world is extremely important. Why is communication important when leading an organization? People who are great communicators will be great management and directors. How do you establish a connection with an audience? Make sure your message meets people where they are. Set them up with a storyline to help people digest it and explain the reason of “why”. How can using stories help lessen the blow of a big change for employees? Helping people understand why tough decisions were made allows them to see that it was something happening with them and not to them. Why is it important for leadership to tell stories and be vulnerable? People want to know who they work for. Listeners connect to stories on challenges and disappointments, they want to see the journey. Connect with people as a leader, because that is what people will remember. What makes a good leader? Vision, strategy, empathy, and a backbone of steel. /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/11653535

Telling the Difficult Stories with Allison Ausband and Evia Golde 10/03/2019

Telling the Difficult Stories with Allison Ausband and Evia Golde On today’s episode, we’re speaking with Allison Ausband and Evia Golde about how Delta Airlines and United Way of Greater Atlanta are taking on one of Atlanta’s darkest topics, human trafficking, and brought it to life so the statistics became more than numbers. Allison and Evia also shared a few success stories that have come out of Delta’s #GetOnBoard training. More About Allison Ausband Allison Ausband is Senior Vice President–In-Flight Service for Delta Air Lines, leading a team of 24,000 flight attendants, supervisory and support personnel around the globe,as well as Delta's onboard global food and beverage operation and experience. She previously served as Vice President–Reservation Sales and Customer Care, where she was responsible for 10 customer engagement centers in four countries, which handle over 37 million customer contacts each year and generate over $2 billion in annual revenue. Under Allison’s leadership, Delta’s In-Flight Service team has achieved all time customer satisfaction scores. While in Reservation Sales, she developed and launched Delta’s social media customer service model as well as a home-based employment program, creating a new virtual workforce culture that yields more than $2 million in savings each year. She also led the corporation’s strategy to move from the bottom to the No. 2 position in DOT Consumer rankings, and under her leadership achieved JD Power certification for Delta's engagement centers--the first US airline to ever achieve. Allison began her career at Delta in May 1985 as a flight attendant. Currently, Allison is Delta’s executive sponsor for human trafficking and leads their annual Breast Cancer Research Foundation campaign. She is a member of Leadership Atlanta Class of 2014. She is a University of Georgia Board of Trustee and serves on the Board of Directors for Delta Community Credit Union and the Board of Trustees for the William R. and Sara Babb Smith Foundation. She is also an active member of her local church serving on the personnel committee. More About Evia Golde A retired attorney, Evia has served as the Human Trafficking Committee Chair for Women United Atlanta since 2014. Women United is a group of 100+ donors who support the work of the United Way of Greater Atlanta, and Women United’s signature issue is to eradicate child sex trafficking in Atlanta and Georgia. During her tenure with the UWGA Women United, she has held the role of Cabinet Chair and in 2016 was Co-Chair of the Safe Harbor Ballot Committee, a campaign that helped successfully pass the Safe Harbor Amendment to create a permanent Fund for victims of exploitation in Georgia. She is the recipient of the United Way of Greater Atlanta 2017 Leading a Life of Purpose Award. In addition to her work at the United Way of Greater Atlanta, Evia has been a Community Advocate raising awareness to combat the sex trafficking of Georgia's children. She has been involved as a volunteer, advocate and fundraiser with multiple organizations fighting to end child sex trafficking, including Wellspring Living, youthSparke & Street Grace. She currently sits on the Board of Wellspring Living, a non profit that has been serving survivors of childhood sexual abuse and exploitation since 2001. Show Highlights There are 25 million victims of human trafficking - How do you take a tough topic and bring it to life so the statistics become more than numbers? Why did Delta take on this dark topic and how did it get involved in the prevention of it? 2011 ECPAT Code of Conduct was created and Delta was the first airline to sign it and took a leadership role as a company to fight human trafficking What has been Deltas biggest success story? -Getting people on board to take the initiative to stop human trafficking. #getonboard What are the signs of human trafficking? Examples of human trafficking identifying training: employees were able to save two young girls because of what they learned in the training Why is the awareness piece so important? Why wasn’t it talked about before? How and why did the United Way get involved? Why does Atlanta have such a huge human trafficking problem? How has UPS been involved in combating human trafficking? How did the See Something Say Something campaign begin? During the Superbowl, there were169 arrests over 11 days. What is Georgia Pacific's role in the fight? What is the Safe Harbor Law and what does it do and how did it impact Georgia? How do relatable stories change the way you look at the issue? Why are people willing to listen now as opposed to a few years ago? What are the things the victims are doing to help other victims? /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/11485505

Forge - Talk, Listen, and Laugh - Essential Ingredients for Women (with Cox FORGE) 08/22/2019

Forge - Talk, Listen, and Laugh - Essential Ingredients for Women (with Cox FORGE) On today’s episode, we’re joined by a group of women who have learned the power of sisterhood in career. Through personal development, overcoming ego and fear, and integrating passion into their day to day life, these women have grown to cherish the powerful bonds between strong women who lift one another up rather than cut one another down through competition and cattiness. Today, they’ll teach us what they’ve learned on their way. More about today’s guests: Ashley Hill: Ashley Hill manages the Supplier Diversity and Risk Management programs at Cox Automotive. She’s been at Cox for 9 years in various finance roles including the FORGE rotational program. Prior to Cox, Ashley worked at Cisco Systems and Cbeyond. Ashley received a Bachelor’s degree from Georgia Tech in Business Management with concentrations in Finance and Operations Management. Growing up as a military brat and traveling the world, Ashley developed the skill of adaptation and a love of diverse foods. Lainey Sibble Lainey started her career at KPMP in the Real Estate Audit practice. Upon realizing she wanted to redirect her focus within business, Lainey returned to graduate school and earned an MBA from Columbia Business School. Since Columbia, Lainey has found her passion in strategy. She spent two years working in strategic finance roles at Unilever, and then joined Cox where she has worked across the different divisions. She started in a financial investment strategy role at Cox Business, rotated across divisions and functional groups through a leadership development program, and ultimately found a strategic planning director role at Cox Automotive, where she works today. Julie Meier Julie joined Cox Enterprises in 2013 after beginning her career in public accounting, and has since held roles in Audit, FP&A, Strategy, International Finance, and Business Operations. In her current role, she helps Cox’s Sales and Marketing teams understand the impacts of proposed changes on financial statements and customer relationships. Julie enjoys supporting her alma mater, Notre Dame, by serving on the alumni board as well as volunteering around Atlanta with the Special Olympics, Habitat for Humanity, and Ronald McDonald House. Lauren Kicklighter Lauren Kicklighter is a team-oriented and dedicated individual that enjoys driving results. She also enjoys an environment in which she can learn and grow and coach others to do the same. Experienced in managing projects, she learns quickly and is enthusiastic about adopting best practices and procedures. Her goal is to improve the efficiency and quality of business operations through utilizing data-driven metrics. With strong executive presence, Lauren builds relationships quickly as well as effectively communicate sound strategic recommendations. Kristi Roche Kristi Roche is a Director of Audit Services at Cox Enterprises, Inc. with 10+ years of experience across a variety of finance disciplines. She joined Cox in 2014 as part of the Cox Automotive Strategy team before joining the leadership program in 2017. Prior to Cox, Kristi worked in finance and strategy roles for Carter’s, Accenture and Protiviti. She’s an avid Georgia Bulldogs fan after earning both her BBA and MBA from the University of Georgia. What sorts of issues cause trepidation about joining groups of other women in a career setting? Do issues like catfights and competitiveness often cause problems? Are these traits of strong women? How did these women find their own rules and cadence for the group? What role did personality tests play from the beginning on? How did a sorority approach (vs. a competitive approach) build vulnerability, bonding, and the ability for the women to help one another? What types of stress behaviors came out when the women had to do their bi-yearly reports to top leaders from various companies? Why was this their least favorite part of the program? How did having support from other women help? What things were important to the bonding of the women in the group? What role did shared life experiences and rope courses play in creating the sisterhood? How does personal development (vs. work skills) assist in careers at the early stage and the leadership stage? What did they learn about how to build a team (and how not to)? How did the timing of this program affect women differently? What major life events occurred during the program? What discoveries did this result in as far as choosing a path forward, regardless of what was happening in life? What archetypal roles did the women play in the group and what difference did these combinations make to the team? How do you integrate your passion into day to day life when it isn’t an integral part of your day job? Satisfaction emerges from finding opportunities to add your passion to your role. /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/10954943

Building Collaboration and Inspiration in Marketing, with Sarah Stansberry 08/08/2019

Building Collaboration and Inspiration in Marketing, with Sarah Stansberry On today’s episode, we’re speaking with Sarah Stansberry about how to take a disparate panel of marketing experts and integrate them into a cohesive team with common goals. Sarah discusses her seven tips for leaders to help guide teams through the use of shared principles and methods to open engagement and conversation. Sarah’s insight into storytelling expresses how the simple act of telling a story changes both the listener and the speaker alike. More About Sarah Stansberry Sarah Stansberry was named Interim Chief Marketing Officer of Equifax in March, 2019 and brings strong expertise in general management, digital marketing strategies, global demand generation, product marketing, public relations and brand activation across web, social and search channels. As the Interim CMO, Sarah champions corporate marketing as the catalyst for Equifax growth focused on strengthening stakeholder engagement, demonstrating market leadership and optimizing marketing effectiveness globally. Sarah joined Equifax in 2013 and has held numerous marketing leadership positions of increasing responsibility, most recently as the SVP, Solutions Marketing and SVP, Marketing Operations where she and her teams focused on creating and activating customer-centric marketing strategies across the Equifax enterprise. During her tenure, Sarah has led lead product marketing, digital strategy and web experiences, product and solutions sales training and marketing operations teams. Her focus on aligning people, process, tools and team dynamics helps change marketing organizations from reactive, sales support teams to true business partners that enable business growth through delivery of integrated marketing strategies. Previously, Sarah held other marketing leadership roles including VP Marketing for LexisNexis Risk Solutions and SVP Marketing for AccuData Integrated Marketing. She has also served in a number of marketing positions for start-up and large enterprises such as Click Commerce, RR Donnelley & Sons and PLATINUM Technology. Sarah was recently recognized as the 2018 Marketing Executive of the Year by the Technology Association of Georgia. She holds a degree in Marketing from Loyola University, and an MBA in Strategic Management from DePaul University. Interested in learning more about Sarah’s take on fostering collaboration across teams or her little book of tips? You can reach out to her via LinkedIn: On this episode we discuss: Specialized teams vs. a general focus on marketing: how do you solve the challenge of bringing together subject matter experts to generate broad insights and effective teams? How do themes and stories play a role in helping people do self-checks? How can this help with guiding principles of a company in order to keep disparate teams on the same page? Educate, enable, empower. For example, you shouldn’t create from scratch if you don’t have to. Utilize templates to help generate common work such as go to market plans. How does this three word concept help with team cohesion and trust? The Tiny Book of Teamwork… What is this guide about? How did this guide come about? What are the green boxes of love, and how do they set expectations among teams? Many Ways for Many Brains… How do people consume content differently? Why is it important for marketers to keep this in mind? Plus, other segments of the book and what they mean to the modern marketing team. Check Yourself… Why it’s important not to be a jerk. Negativity in the workplace is each individual’s responsibility. One of the responsibilities of leadership is developing future leaders. Sarah discusses the ways her seven tips help foster this mindset, even subconsciously, allowing leaders to be more thoughtful and get more engagement from their teams by providing a way and framing to have a conversation. Sarah discusses stories and storytelling and their impact on both listeners and the communicator themselves. /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/10820591

The Stories that Make Successful Conferences, with Allison Hunt Eubanks 07/25/2019

The Stories that Make Successful Conferences, with Allison Hunt Eubanks Today, we have the pleasure of speaking with Allison Hunt Eubanks about the LexisNexis CAM conference. How and why does a company host an event of this magnitude? How do they bring it all together, train their speakers, and generate a cohesive gathering? And what role does storytelling play in an event where attendees are meant to walk away with a message? Find out on today's episode! More About Allison: Allison Hunt Eubanks is Director, Content Marketing and Events for the insurance business at LexisNexis Risk Solutions where she leads the content marketing team, and is responsible for the overarching messaging strategy, which includes driving messaging alignment for four business lines. In her role, she oversees content for four blogs, and for more than 110 annual events, including a national customer meeting for approximately 500 attendees. Allison joined LexisNexis in 2014 and has more than 15 years of insurance marketing experience. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism – Advertising from the University of Georgia. What exactly is CAM and how does it relate to Lexis Nexis? If not lead gen, what is its purpose? How do you measure its success? What is the process behind choosing the theme and the topics discussed at CAM for the breakout sessions? How do you make it look like it all goes together? LexisNexis itself is huge. What is the purpose of bringing everyone together? What value to attendees of CAM receive? What sort of customer feedback do you get from customers in reference to CAM? Are there other actionable measures of success? And, on the topic of success, is there a formula, whether that be the venue, the topics, entertainment value? What challenges do you have with assembling many technical experts? How do you help train and prepare your speakers to ensure the event goes smoothly? What are the benefits of bringing in an outsider instead of staying internally focused? What are good and easy ways to facilitate connections? Can storytelling play a role? What story does Allison have to share? How does she use stories to show the value of CAM to customers? /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/10654652

The Power of Mentoring Among Women with TD Bank 07/11/2019

The Power of Mentoring Among Women with TD Bank Today, we have the opportunity to discuss women in leadership and the value of sisterhood and structured mentor programs on the success of modern business women with four female leaders from TD Bank. These ladies will also share how stories impact authenticity, growth, and inspiration within an organization when operating as leaders. More about Molly Abair:Molly Abair is the Executive Credit Officer for TD Bank’s New England Metro. In this role, she is responsible for adjudication of commercial loan requests, ensuring the portfolio grows within the banks’ risk appetite. She’s honed the ability to bring together stakeholders with differing views, understand their perspectives, and facilitate a collaborative approach to success. Molly’s instinctive approach to leadership and talent development aligns TD Bank’s vision and framework. Her intent focus on customer and employee experiences has contributed greatly to consistently strong business results.More about Rachel Wilner Rachel Wilner is a respected leader and senior executive for the commercial banking team managing the Delaware and Chester County regions for TD Bank. She has demonstrated the ability to produce strong results in multiple regions of the bank and within other financial institutions during her career. Rachel is a recognized coach and mentor, has successfully developed high caliber teams, has cultivated deep relationships with clients who view her as a trusted advisor, and is also deeply committed to the communities she serves. More about Emily Stoddard Emily Stoddard is the Middle Market Team Lead for New York City. Emily is responsible for leading a commercial banking team to grow TD Bank's loan portfolio through deposits, products and services offered to middle-market businesses throughout the five boroughs of New York City. She is recognized as a strong client professional and a strategic leader who consistently motivates her team to deliver results while being passionate and disciplined. More about Cindy Stover Cindy S. Stover is the North Florida Market President for TD Bank, America’s Most Convenient Bank®. As Market President, she has leadership responsibilities over the Jacksonville, Gainesville, Daytona Beach and Ocala areas of Florida. Cindy is responsible for the successful operational management of Commercial banking while providing leadership and guidance for TD Bank’s North Florida overall strategic and market performance. On women in leadership… 1 in 5 leaders are women in the finance industry. How has TD Bank improved this statistic for themselves? How does diversity play a role? What about confidence? What are the top skills needed to help leaders develop? Are any of the necessary skills particular to women? How do relationship building, listening, and communication skills play a role in reaching collaborative solutions? Where did these ladies find feedback early in their careers? What difference did it make? How important is having a mentor? How did the team begin to think about mentoring, and how did the program come together and evolve at TD Bank? In what way did “paying it forward” help develop the program? What does the group do when they meet and how do these group sessions assist the women involved? How did they structure it? Sisterhood plays a role, but the right leaders need to be in the room and be able to mentor. How did Cindy get involved in the program? And what does she get out of her mentee relationships? Have the men within the organization been supportive? How has structure benefited mentors and mentees alike? What would women leaders who believe they are already good mentors gain from being part of a structured group of mentors? How does a woman’s image impact her career? How can a woman’s image detract from her ability to bring focus to herself and her words? In what way can mentors give visual feedback from a good place to help women further their careers? How do stories help leaders instill authenticity and inspiration within their organization? Which stories do these ladies use to guide their mentees? /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/10482920

How to Develop a Global Leader With Helen Nghiem 07/01/2019

How to Develop a Global Leader With Helen Nghiem On today’s podcast episode, we are meeting with Helen Nghiem of Epsilon to learn what makes a good leader and how she trains leaders from all over the world. How important is communication as leaders take on more teams, and how does the pressure shift as leaders are no longer able to manage projects on their own? Are leaders the same across the globe, and is the modern economy changing what is expected of leaders? Helen Nghiem discusses how to use leadership skills to tell stories in order to communicate effectively, to instil a sense of loyalty and excitement for a company, and how these stories make memories stick. Helen Nghiem is a seasoned consultant and corporate learning and development leader with a passion for galvanizing leaders and employees for change. Throughout a 20-year career, Helen's industry experience is wide, spanning management consulting, energy, travel and hospitality, technology, and digital marketing. She drives business results by drawing from deep expertise and insight to build unique talent and organizational development solutions. In her current role, Helen helped Epsilon grow from a $500M company to a Fortune 100 global enterprise. She cites the company’s steadfast investments in leadership and employee development as the agent of growth. You can find more information about Helen on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/helennghiem 1:00 Leadership development and creativity. Skills needed in communication, influence, and engagement in order to develop leaders 2:00 What is Epsilon? What do they do regarding leadership interaction and management? What technology do they use and how does data play a role? 5:00 Did Helen focus on people who were becoming new leaders who were taking on responsibilities they’d never had? Or did she focus on seasoned leaders? What was the business need Epsilon chose to approach and why? 7:00 How does Helen define a leader? How does vision play a role? What about the shared experience of change and ambiguity? And communication skills? 10:00 How does pressure shift to communication as the number of teams reporting to a leader grow in number? What makes leaders not able to take over a task if the team falls through? 12:00 Did Helen have a master plan for what would make a leader successful when starting her program? What sorts of topics did this entail? 17:00 What did Helen learn from leaders in the program over 9 years? What did the leaders get out of it? Have leadership needs changed in that timeframe? How does leadership change across cultures? 23:00 What are the most impactful stories Helen has heard from leaders? How do leaders fare with managing the requirement to tell an impactful story in front of other leaders? Does she remember the stories told by leaders over the years? What makes them stick? What benefits does this have? 30:00 How are senior leaders impacted by Helen’s program? Open, honest, and vulnerable are expectations of leaders. How do stories promote these sensations? 36:00 Where has Helen seen the impression of a leader strengthened or expanded based on their experience in the program? What part did storytelling have in this? Plus, Helen shares her own story. /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/10298870

Telling Shareable Stories to Sports Fans with Barry Blyn of ESPN 06/13/2019

Telling Shareable Stories to Sports Fans with Barry Blyn of ESPN Barry Blyn is the Vice President of Original Content and Brand Intelligence at ESPN. A graduate of the NYU Stern School of Business, Barry has worked with insights, data, and people throughout a variety of industries including politics, comedy, and sports. Currently in sports, Barry offers insight into the mind of the fan from ancient history until now and the nuances that lie therein. Do sports have meaning? And, if they don’t, why do fans engage in such deep loyalty practices, wearing their team’s colors and painting their faces? Can you convert a sports fan to a new favorite team? He tells us of ESPN’s consumer image, sponsorship opportunities and how fans react to them, the virality of sports stories, and the ever-accelerating sports news cycles. Because of his time in other industries, Barry is able to home in on what really sets the sports industry apart, and what changes content creators and storytellers should make to target this audience. Most importantly, Barry talks to us about stories themselves, often while using stories himself that demonstrate the concepts he discusses. How do you know when a story works? What if you hear your story repeated back—and what if you hear it repeated wrong? Find out in today’s episode! 1:00 Sports stories fit almost all types of business situations. But what about if you’re in sports? What type story do you use then to explain the business situations? 2:00 What does Barry Blyn’s team do at ESPN? What tools do they use? 4:00 How has the business of giving insights changed? What impact has Big Data had, and what’s important now when so much information is available? 6:00 What insights does Barry try to collect in regards to sports? How does history and brain wiring play a role in sports insights? Are all sports fans the same? 8:00 How have things changed over the years as it pertains to sports and events? Is that a particularly interesting or complex area of sports insights? How has the sports news cycle changed? 12:00 Stories are how information gets remembered and repeated. Are sports fans one of the audiences who repeat content the most? Are sports stories the original viral content? 14:00 How is sponsorship in sports different from advertising in other niches? 20:00 What were the early risks of Game Day? 25:00 Are the sports fans Barry profiles constantly changing or easy to profile? What changes can occur? 34:00 Are there times Barry’s stories get repeated back to him? Barry describes some important moments in his career that assure him his storytelling works. /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/9831047

Employee Experience and Winning the War for Talent with Nick Mailey 04/25/2019

Employee Experience and Winning the War for Talent with Nick Mailey On today’s podcast, we have the opportunity to speak with Intuit HR executive Nick Mailey. He shares with us his insights on building not only a brand, but a “work brand.” How do work brands influence the types and levels of talent that an organization can attract? Why is that so important in today’s world of talent deficits? Nick expresses a need for a culture and a mission that’s meaningful to future employees—and a data-driven plan to make these future hires aware of these important facets of a business. Nick’s expertise highlights what new and existing companies can do to facilitate an engaged, loyal workforce with high mobility. More About Nick: Nick Mailey is an HR executive who leads Talent Acquisition at Intuit, a Most Admired Software Company that also ranks among Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For. A passionate talent executive with over 20 years of experience leading recruiting teams in Silicon Valley, Nick is enthusiastic about driving business results by attracting awesome talent. Nick’s expertise is in developing creative recruiting strategies, assessment methodologies and innovating recruiting solutions. He focuses on cultivating highly engaged teams. He encourages his team to develop creative and innovative solutions to solve problems. Nick received his Bachelor’s degree from Temple University and his Master’s degree in Organizational Development from the University of San Francisco. He’s been recognized by HRO magazine as an HR Superstar and one of the Top Talent Acquisition Leaders in Industry today. 1:00 How do you create an environment that makes workers want not only to join the company but also to stay? How does storytelling play a role in this? 6:30 “Powering Prosperity” How has Nick Mailey used research in the workplace to understand how well people recognize Intuit? How is this relevant to the brand and, more relevantly, employment brands? Why is it important to have a purpose and a more mission-driven focus? 9:30 How do you expose potential employees to what working for a company would entail? How do you convey the experience and culture? How does the data support the methods Nick shares? 17:30 How much are “Follow-Me-Homes” part of Intuit culture? How is this a testament to the power of stories? How does this story build a higher degree of commitment to the cause of powering prospering? What percentage of Intuit employees don’t know that story? 27:00 How does Intuit bring a candidate into the company after having exposure to the brand and its mission? What is the interview process like? How was it developed? How does Nick coach candidates through this process to help them get ready? 36:00 How does Nick leverage leaders and their stories within Intuit? What is the purpose of a “talent magnet?” 40:00 What is the importance of highlighting the challenges in a story, especially for leaders? How do the twists and turns of a story humanize leadership? /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/9492284

How to Take an Idea from Conception to Startup with Christian Ries 04/11/2019

How to Take an Idea from Conception to Startup with Christian Ries On today’s episode, we’re chatting with first-time entrepreneur Christian Ries about storytelling, professional entrepreneurship, and pitching to investors. Christian can attribute much of his success to his growing storytelling abilities and customer-focused approach. Learn about his techniques and evolution as he tells us his story today, from the very first thought that sparked JonnyOnIt. More about Christian: An established entrepreneur and proven leader in the sales and technology industry, Christian Ries does what he says he’s going to do. In just under a year, he has not only founded and grown his home services business—JonnyOnIt—but has expanded it and has continued plans to increase its geographic footprint in 2019 and beyond. JonnyOnIt is a mobile app that instantly connects homeowners (in real time) to hundreds of home service providers, like electricians and plumbers, saving both parties time and money. Driven by original thought, interpersonal skills, and technology orientation, and with an extensive background in marketing, sales, and project management, Christian possesses a unique talent for integrated marketing and brand voice development. He devises strategic initiatives, builds efficient and cohesive teams, and inspires progress using a modern, hands-off leadership style. 2:00 How did Christian come up with the name JonnyOnIt? What’s his background? 5:00 How has the business done so far? How has putting the customer first impacted that? How does Christian see himself compared to serial entrepreneurs and how much does he need to learn? 7:00 Is there more to successful startups than the big three—great dea, funding, and ability to tell a story? How important is it to articulate your message well? How hard is it to work with investor audiences? Should you expect particularly difficult questions when telling your stories? 10:00 How did the concept of having perspective from actual realtors impact investors? Why is it so important to show investors more than just a good product? Why do you need to first understand your customer? 12:30 Why should you look forward in an investor pitch more than tell them what you’ve done already? How should new startup founders limit explaining their track records? 14:00 Should you tell the same story to investors as customers? Should you focus on everybody? 17:00 How has Christian’s story changed over time? How did it progress from “how” to its current, engaging form? 24:00 Stories that are remembered and repeated are the most powerful. What is Christian’s experience with this regarding investors, large audience speeches, and other entrepreneurial events? 29:30 What’s ahead for 2019? Who is involved in Christian’s team? /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/9340139

Understanding the Why Behind the What with Kermit Randa 03/28/2019

Understanding the Why Behind the What with Kermit Randa Today, we’re going to be chatting with Kermit Randa about the power of story and the struggles leaders must endure during the first 90 days at a new company. How do leaders settle into their roles and what sorts of pressures do they feel? What strategies are most important to implement in the first three months? As Chief Executive Officer of Kaufman Hall’s Software division, Kermit Randa oversees all product development, sales, implementation, training, and support functions for the firm’s Axiom and Peak Software products. Kermit has more than 20 years of experience spanning healthcare and software. His areas of expertise include enterprise software insights and adoption, business transformation and innovation, strategic partnership cultivation and management, and risk identification, monitoring, and mitigation. Prior to Kaufman Hall, he served as Chief Growth Officer with Waystar, and Chief Executive Officer for PeopleAdmin. Kermit received his M.H.A. from Xavier University. He completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School and is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives. Kermit is a strong supporter of data gathering and utilizing information to guide decision-making processes. In today’s episode, Kermit will explain that power behind surveys and offer us a glimpse into how he and his team sorted nearly 90k data points into condensed, actionable intelligence. How do top leaders utilize modern technology and fast communication? Find out more on today’s episode. 3:25 How did Kermit get started? What was most important to learn about the business? How did surveys play into this discovery process? 8:30 Learn to listen and be disciplined in what you’re listening for. Are leaders asking the same things throughout their information collection process? Why does it matter? 11:35 How did Kermit and his team break down more than 89k data points into actionable information in under three months? Which facets of business have been guided by this information? 14:00 How did Kermit take all of the information he gathered then synthesize it into what he wanted to say to employees? 24:09 How do leaders determine how much context to give to employees? How do you offer them clarity? Kermit asks himself, “What does this sound like at the kitchen table?” 27:25 How has Kermit personalized himself to his employees through the power of story? Kermit tells his story and explains how he knows this story works. “Opportunity doesn’t come from a thing… Opportunity comes from a person.” /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/9159680

Engaging Employees with Experiences with Tim Minahan of Citrix 03/19/2019

Engaging Employees with Experiences with Tim Minahan of Citrix We all accept what we’ve been told about the generic marketing and sales cycle, but should we? Why are stories and experiences just as important, if not more important, to sell than your product? How do you stand out in today’s saturated world, and how much do the experiences of your employees impact your customers? Today, we’ll find out all of this and more with our special guest, Tim Minahan. Tim Minahan is the Executive Vice President, Business Strategy And Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Citrix where he has a proactive role in helping to drive focused strategic initiatives and the company’s overall business strategy. In addition, he leads global marketing strategy and operations for the company’s vision of securely delivering the world’s most important apps and data to enable people and businesses to work better. A technology industry veteran who specializes in defining new markets and positioning companies to own them, Minahan has served in a broad range of business leadership roles at leading enterprise software, cloud, and services firms. He most recently spearheaded SAP’s successful transition to the cloud as CMO of the company’s Cloud and Line of Business unit. Minahan joined SAP when the company acquired Ariba, where he was SVP of Business Network Strategy and global CMO. At Ariba, Minahan led the commercial strategy for the Ariba Network, the world’s largest and most global business network, and oversaw the design and execution of go-to-market programs and marketing initiatives to fuel its growth as a leading cloud company. Previously, Minahan was senior vice president of marketing at Procuri Inc., where he helped drive the company’s strategic direction and emergence as one of the fastest growing Software as a Service (SaaS) application providers. He also served as chief services and research officer at Aberdeen Group, a leading independent market research firm, and held several leadership roles at Reed Business Information. Minahan is on the board of Made in a Free World, a non-profit technology company that is using the power of networks and big data to detect and mitigate forced labor from global supply chains. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Boston College and completed the CMO Program at Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management. Find out more about Tim Minahan and learn his tricks for telling engaging and useful stories on today’s podcast episode, “Why You Should Sell a Story and an Experience, Not Just a Product With Tim Minahan of Citrix.” Why is the current model of business not working? How great is the shortage of mid and high-level talent going to be in 2020? Why don’t centralized work hubs work? Tim explains why you need to be able to develop the talent you have with new skills, even though the majority of talent you do have is largely disengaged at work. Why are employees so frustrated at work? Why are we using so many applications, yet utilizing only 10-15% of their functionality? Experience, balance, and choice—how does a company provide a superior experience for employees and customers, balance it with an increasing need for security, and do all of this without limiting employee choice of cloud, device, etc.? What stories make their way back to Tim, verifying their function? What stories are most compelling, and why must it reach beyond the generic—faster / better / cheaper / simpler? The CIO & CHRO must engage in a true partnership in order to create a solution via the convergence of three things: digital workspace, physical workplace, and culture. What tools do employees use? Is there openness and collaboration but still room for privacy and mindfulness? How does Tim leverage customer stories in order to illustrate his story? Tim brings to life what he does through a story about Red Bull’s Formula One racing and their use of Citrix. /episode/index/show/sallywilliamsonassociates/id/8972816

What's Your Story: How Leaders Tell Stories to Influence and Connect with Audiences

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