Branding Matters

How to Build a Healthy Corporate Culture with Liane Davey

October 22, 2021 Branding Badass Episode 39
Branding Matters
How to Build a Healthy Corporate Culture with Liane Davey
Show Notes Transcript

My guest today is Dr. Liane Davey - a New York Times Bestselling author, Harvard Business Review contributor and the host of the ChangeYourTeam blog. 

Liane is also the co-founder of 3COze Inc., a company that helps organizations make teams more effective. Some of their clients include Amazon, Walmart, Aviva, TD Bank, and SONY PlayStation. 

I invited Liane to be a guest on my show to discuss the challenges of team building, especially during “The Great Resignation”. I wanted to know what businesses can do to help their teams stay connected while working from home. And I was curious to get her POV on why a healthy corporate culture is important in developing a strong brand.

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Joelly Goodson :

Hi, I'm Joelly your Branding Badass, and welcome to season two of Branding Matters. My guest today is Dr. Leanne Davey, a New York Times bestselling author, Harvard Business Review contributor, and the host of the change your team blog. Leanne is also the co founder of three czone Inc, a company that helps organizations make teams more effective. And some of their clients include Amazon, Walmart, Viva TD Bank, and Sony PlayStation just to name a few. I invited Leanne to be a guest on my show to discuss the challenges of team building, especially during the pandemic. I wanted to know what businesses can do differently to help their team stay connected while working from home. And I was curious to get her point of view on why a healthy corporate culture is so important in developing a strong brand. Leanne, welcome to Branding Matters.

Liane Davey:

Thank you. I'm excited to be here.

Joelly Goodson :

Oh, well, I am super excited to have you here. This is so great. And you know, we both went to UWO which is so funny. We found that out when we first met, what did you study at Western? And did you know what you wanted to do after you graduated?

Liane Davey:

Well, I started out thinking I wanted to go to med school, like 50% of everybody else at Western. And then I flunked calculus, and then I figured out that that wasn't gonna work. So I got into psychology. And the minute that I found organizational psychology, I was completely hooked. So I did know right from the second week of second year, when I found this course that I wanted to do that and wanted to go to grad school. So I was pretty clear. It was at the end of grad school, where I thought I wanted to be a professor, and then had a complete out of left field person, you know, say to me, Hey, you should consider consulting. And so that was where my life took a completely different direction. But out of Western, I was pretty clear. So what was your first job, then after university, I found my way into a job working on employee surveys, because that was all the rage in the late 90s. And so I could do all the data analysis and whiz bang nerd stuff, which is great. And I was willing to do the whiz bang nerd stuff, because it got me access into boardrooms, because the data had to be presented always to the executive team, and sometimes even to the board of directors. So I was 26. And I was getting access to these amazing places inner sanctums of companies because I was the one who could understand and translate the employee survey data. So it was a good call, I didn't want to do it, or ever, but it did teach me and give me access really, really young. So that was very cool.

Joelly Goodson :

That does sound very cool. I really want to focus today on organizational and teams, and how important that is, especially with branding. So when we think of marketing, we usually think of directing it to our customers, but another market, which is just as or if not more important, in my opinion, is your employees, people who make your brand come alive to your customers, why would you say marketing is so important internally?

Liane Davey:

Well, first of all,there's a direct link between what your employees understand and believe and want to fulfill as a promise and what your customer sees, right? So for the most part, although there are certainly organizations where your product speaks for itself, without your employees, for the vast majority, it's your employees who actually transmit those experiences that form the scraps and straws of the brand. So that's really important. So we can think about the employees as having that link there. The link between what we do as leaders and how we behave goes to then how employees show up, which goes to what our customers experience. So there's that indirect model. But the other thing, of course, is that they're calling 2021, the great resignation, as opposed to the Great Recession. So many people have had an experience through the last two years where they're just done, they're done with their employer, they don't believe anymore, they don't think it's worth it. So the brand and the story and the promise and the personality of your organization has a lot to do with your ability to attract, develop and retain the kind of people you need to be successful. So I think we've got sort of the direct it just as an ends in and of itself, it matters what your brand is with employees, but then in the way that employees then transmit many of the experiences that create your company for the customer. They're just as mission critical that way. So it's kind of in every way, it matters a whole lot.

Joelly Goodson :

Oh, yeah, definitely. I read somewhere a statistics that content share by employees get eight times more engagement than content shared by brand channels. I love that. Yeah. So it sort of goes a bit on what you were saying. Why do you think employees make the best brand advocates?

Liane Davey:

I think we're getting pretty savvy about being kind of sold a bill of goods because we're being sold to everywhere you know, you can't do anything anymore. I'm trying to watch just a fun YouTube video at night. And if there's being bombarded with ads, it's everywhere and it's feels so inauthentic sometimes and it just feels pushy. And we all know what they're in it for. They just want to sell us stuff. So all of a sudden, when we see something posted by a human and they have a face, and they're not writing in some slick jargon, not everything rhymes, or is punchy, or catchy, but there's authentically talking about what matters to them, what they're seeing their experiences that's compelling. This is really interesting. Because I experienced this when I worked in a consulting firm some things they would want to publish my ideas under the corporate banner or in some fancy white paper, and that got way less uptake and was a waitlist interested people. I think they kind of put their shields up when they see that stuff. Like oh, here comes some consulting bump. versus what and actually I just posted something on LinkedIn today where I used my computer to take a picture that was just very unflattering and very, like showing myself being very frustrated and I put it on LinkedIn just with text, not a link not an article just texts about I know this is gonna be controversial but and I put out a point saying that I think meetings shouldn't be used to make decisions. I have never had as much engagement on a LinkedIn post in my life as when is a picture of me in a crappy t shirt. You haven't done my hair, no makeup, nothing, just being very authentic. So I think that's the difference is we're tired, we're fatigued of all these honed, beautiful crafted coercive, you know, somebody's telling us how to feel, instead of just somebody telling us how they feel, this is my reality, this is what I feel does that resonate with you and I find it much more resonant to CEO, a real employee feels about something as opposed to what the marketing department wants me to believe or consume.

Joelly Goodson :

You know, I totally agree with you. And just to elaborate on that, too. I think one of the reasons boys are a great brand advocates is because they're behind the scenes, and they are buying into, you know, what the brand stands behind and what the brand is all about. And they're going out and sharing it to the world. As a consumer as an audience, you're looking around, like they don't just walk the walk, or they don't just walk the walk, right. And if you're buying it internally, when I look online, you know, you talk about LinkedIn. And when I see people employees and they're like showing about you know, they've got this cool mug or this great gift, I think often employees with their logo, and like I work for the best company, they just gave us this cool swag bag.Swag is my business right?

Liane Davey:

So that they feel appreciated, they love being there. And they're sharing about their internal experience with the world. And so and then promoting the company at the end of the day, because your true enthusiasts and genuine enthusiasm is infectious. Not the false I had to do this post because it was my daily post in our marketing campaign and I had to push it through thing that drops to social at the right hours of the day. That stuff we're so overwhelmed and bombarded with that. So when you just see like, Oh, look at this cool swag I got Yeah, we just want to feel someone's enthusiasm.

Joelly Goodson :

Yeah, for sure. I totally agree with you. Let's talk about what or let's talk about company culture. Because I know your that's your expertise. So what are some key elements of a strong culture?

Liane Davey:

It's interesting, I actually think that it's not the elements that matter. It's the strength that I have worked with companies from a tiny group of radiologists in Toronto to Amazon leaders in Seattle. And those cultures are radically different from one another, you know, a radiologist is quite risk averse. You want that you don't want them doing procedures that are unsafe, you don't want them you know being like well I read your you know, I read your mammogram, I think this is right, you know you don't do you want the culture of that organization to be conservative to be like, certainly innovative, but things have to be tried and true and tested before we bring them in, you know, your Amazon, you can afford to be like, yeah, let's spend 100 million bucks and try this and see how it goes. Right? So it's not the content of the culture that great organizations have in common. In fact, I would say the more differentiated your culture can be, the better. It's the strength of it. And when I say strength, it's how visible is it? How aligned is everything you do so is the way you hire aligned with your culture is the way you pay is the you know, the way you do formal things in your organization like is your budgeting process or do all of these things point to the same values to the same things that matter? And if it does, culture will be an asset to you culture is also an asset in the sense that it tells people who doesn't belong some employees may and I actually did this when I was a We were talking about graduating from university when when I came out of university, I went to interview at a very, very well known consulting firm, a big global firm, and I walked in, and they gave me this visitor's badge. And the visitor's badge was very high tech, it was one piece of sticky stuff. And then you wrote your name on another sticker, and they put it on top. And after a certain amount of time, the ink on the bottom one, bled through and said, expired in red ink. And it was a very clear connection to their culture, a very security oriented culture, and all these sorts of things. And as I'm sitting talking to the recruiter, and watching this ink bleed through that makes me look like an illegal alien. I just thought, like, you know what, I actually don't think I fit here. And they were saying things like, Okay, well, the great thing here is that you fly out on Sundays to whatever location you're working in. But the great thing is, you get to come home Thursdays, and work from your home city office on Fridays. And I was like, that's the perk is that I get to like, be away from my family, but only for four and a half days a week. And I literally took my resume. And I said, thank you so much for your candor, I'm gonna withdraw my application. And it was good. But you know what, it was a great conversation, because it's a very strong culture. It's a very successful organization. And it was very clear to me that it's not where I want it to be. And if I had gone in there, and they had trained me and I had turned over, that would have been really costly, it would have meant interrupting client relationships. So the best thing was that their culture spoke loudly. And to me said, like, warning, like run, but to most other people says like, Wow, this is awesome. So that's, to me, the important thing, I don't dictate what's a great culture, what's the right values to have? What are the right things to care about or pay attention to. But I get really preachy, when I see organizations that espouse a certain set of values, and then everything about them says, that's not actually what matters, what really matters is these other things. So to me, it's the strength of your culture, the alignment of your behaviors, and your practices and everything else to those values. That's what really gets me excited. And sometimes I'm just as excited by a place that really turns me off, because I'm like, well, there is a potent culture good on them. And that's better and more interesting to me than a place that I'm well, they don't have much of a culture it's it's kind of a vacuum.

Joelly Goodson :

You know, that's amazing that you did that. First of all that you would surely I've never heard that before. That's great go for it was quite something,

Liane Davey:

I kept the expired badge just because it was so like, shocking.

Joelly Goodson :

Yeah, that's wild. I haven't seen that before. The other thing too, when I when you were talking is when you think about culture, and you know, you want to attract employees, so people, people want to attract obviously, good employees, and I've had this conversation with people, you have to make sure that you know, back to the branding thing, that you have a strong culture, and that your brand is strong as well. So you're going to attract the type of employees that you want, but that are also going to want to work in that culture, right? Because I've talked to people where they want to hire the best of the best, but their culture and their brand internally sucks. Not that it's a bad company, but the way they position themselves. Yeah, isn't really doing them justice to attract the type of talent they want. So what do you say about that?

Liane Davey:

Yeah, absolutely. This is all that people know of you. We're talking about universities, but universities are the same students in high school, they come up with some sense of which universities are cool in which they want to go to, on very little data. But universities have very strong brands, very, very strong brands. And so the kids know which ones feel like a fit and which ones don't. And they gather that from, you know, sure, sometimes from magazine rankings, how other kids who went to their high school, talk about their alma mater, what they put on Instagram, which has the best parties, which students go on to the best graduate, like whatever. But there's no one right University, there are students that fit all these different universities. But if you aren't making it clear, which kind of students are going to be super happy at your organization, you are completely missing an opportunity. So same if you're an employer, again, I would rather be the number one choice of 10% of candidates than the number 10 choice of 100% of candidates. I think that's the opportunity that so many myths, they just try and be this vanilla. We're just great on every dimension. No BS. Nobody's great. Yeah, right. Yeah. It's just terrible.

Joelly Goodson :

It becomes self defeating. I always say to people, branding is a way to motivate or inspire people to fall in love with your brand.

Liane Davey:

Yeah, how are you doing that? Right, but you can't fall in love with everything or every brand, right? So truly falling in love. We're back to the get 10% of the people having you as the number one choice. That's Way better approach than trying to compromise on so many things or even watering down your employee value proposition. It's like our comp is okay and our benefits are okay and our This is okay and everything's okay because we did everything instead of saying, you know what, we suck on this dimension. But that's because people who want to work here don't care that much about that one. They care a lot about this. And so we are top of the pack on that one, even making tough trade offs and being willing to say, some people are going to be turned off if we don't have that. There's so little of that courage in leadership anymore. Everybody just vanillas it down to the fact that it's just myth for everybody. And it's such a lost opportunity.

Joelly Goodson :

That's so true. So let's talk a little bit more

Liane Davey:

Oh, we got it. We got to keep it more current about team building. You said a quote and I love this. You said we've got to get away from team building exercises where we go zip lining, or playing paintball. I love that because how many times here if anyone was out there listening? Have they done team building where it's like, let's do paper? right before the pandemic. We haven't done any team building in a while. But before the pandemic, it was all axe throwing.

Joelly Goodson :

Oh, yes, yes, you're right. Sorry, so what's your take on team building? And what are some better alternatives? And why do you disagree with those team building activities?

Liane Davey:

So I love fun activities with teams. I haven't done axe throwing yet. But I've done many of them. And they're really fun. But let's be clear that if there is anything on which your team needs to get better, doing a fun exercise is not going to get you there. And if there's any trust issues, or any concerns in your team, giving people knives or axes, as we see often with cooking classes, and extra rowing is a really bad idea. Especially because those normally are mingled with alcohol. So but Are you being serious? Are

Joelly Goodson :

you being sarcastic?

Liane Davey:

Well, I'm being totally serious, like, this is what happens, people will come to me and No they'll say, we're really having some issues in our team, you know, so and so and so and so we're always at each other's throats. And so we've decided to go to Niagara Falls, and we're going to go to a vineyard, and we're going to do a cooking class, like wow, okay, so there's no trust, you're gonna get them liquored up and hand them knives. Okay, good. That's an interest. And that's like every word of the truth. I have done that multiple times, I have a collection of aprons from the cooking schools in Niagara Falls that I've gone to right with teams. So now I just say, Okay, if your team is healthy, great, go have fun, go have shared experience, those kinds of activities are really fun for creating shared language and inside jokes. I think in 2021, it's becoming harder and harder and harder to choose good activities, though, because, you know, we have situations where people have physical limitations that they can't participate in x throwing the way everyone else can. We have situations with diversity on teams where people don't feel safe, where there are power differentials, that mean that a lot of these activities are really uncomfortable for people. And the other thing is that some people on your team may be in a situation where they can't be away overnight, they have people that they care for that they don't have backup. So I think a lot of those team building activities are starting to be a nice to have that is just not something you should count on on your team. For a lot of different reasons. What we do need is we need ways to help teams that are in some trouble are struggling with trust issues. And to me that's not avoiding the issue by you know, going zip lining, it's actually finding somebody who knows what they're doing to help your team talk through those issues. And the vast majority of times when things present as trust issues on your team, my experience is that they actually all stem from misalignment that you haven't done enough to make clear whose role is who's who owns what decisions, what your priorities are, how those priorities mash up with one another. So a lot of trust issues on teams can be fixed by doing a better job of getting back to what are we here to do? What's our purpose as a team, what are our shared priorities, those sorts of issues. That's why I don't love I didn't like team building, even before I understood some of the uncomfortable dynamics that can create because of people who have diverse experiences in life. And now I like it even less. There's just too many pitfalls in some of those things. If you are going to try and have casual time together, try wherever you can to make it during the workday so people already have arrangements and it's part of their routine to be away from their families. Try to avoid physical things that are going to make people feel embarrassed or feel that they're not you know, as vigorous or whatever else is some people on the team that stuff can just get really unhealthy really quickly.

Joelly Goodson :

I love that especially what you said about doing it on work time and not on free time because we all have such limited free time and how many times if someone says Oh, I got to go to this team building thing on Saturday afternoon when you know I get in my kids taking care of or whatever. I love that. So what would be some alternatives and that you would suggest?

Liane Davey:

Well, so one of the ones that is replacing some of the frivolous things is can we do some kind of a community project together? So if we could take one workday, and we could go clean up a park. So first of all, if it's during the day, and cleaning up a park, for most people, for most teams should be physically within people's limits, and should be no problem. So you know, can we do something, give something back? Can we go learn something together? Is there an event we could go to? Could we go get some new information, those sorts of things? And then if there actually is an issue on the team, I highly recommend, can we bring someone in to help us talk through these issues? Can we use some kind of a style tool to understand our different personalities and how we come at issues differently and get more awareness and empathy about that. So there's lots that you can do, and there are so many people out there who do that kind of work, but substantive work, not just frivolous? Most of us just don't have time for frivolous anymore. And it's certainly not going to fix some underlying trust issue.

Joelly Goodson :

Hmm, that's interesting. So let's talk about toxic teams. Because you know, we're sort of talking about teams, and you're saying it's okay to do the team building, quote, unquote, no one can see me but it's healthy, but not and there's issues and when it's toxic, so what makes a team toxic? And then what are some tips that you can offer to make them healthier?

Liane Davey:

There are a variety of different ways. So in my book, you first I actually go through a series of different toxic teams. So I talked about a team I call the crisis junkies. And that's a team usually with weak leadership. And so they aren't aligned on what matters. They start to have silos and infighting, and it's just not pleasant. And the crisis junkie part of the title is that they kind of get nothing done until there's some giant emergency. And then in the emergency, it's like, Okay, well, now it's an emergency. So everybody kind of tucks into their role and resources become Unlimited, and all that sort of thing. So it kind of forces alignment, as opposed to having achieved alignment, because you actually worked for it. There's a team I call the Royal Rumble team, which is when usually when IQ is higher than EQ, so smart people who just want to convince other people of how great their idea is. So that's really an issue around the team dynamic. There's not a lot of trust or confidence in one another, that sort of thing. Lots of passive aggressive teams, that's very common. I call them the bleeding back team because somebody walks away, and you can see all the nine. So there's a wide variety, I think the interesting thing now is some of what makes teams toxic, that's not toxic, like a noxious gas that's going to kill you. But that's toxic, kind of like the BPA that was in our water bottles killing us slowly. And that's really teams were I call them the bobbleheads. So it kind of looks like bobblehead dolls. Everybody just is constantly Oh, yeah, Oh Ha Ha, ha, ha, it's all agreements, they don't realize that they're leaving so much risk inherent and things. And then I also talked about the spectator team where everybody's kind of eating popcorn, while the boss has a series of one on one meetings, and there's no actual teamwork. So in you first, I go through all these different types of toxic teams. And it's usually a breakdown of either alignment or trust. And one of those two things is what goes wrong, and sometimes both. So the thing is to always start by working on alignment, what are we here to do? What is the business counting on us to do? How is the world changing? And how does that change require us to show up differently, or pay attention to different things, or add different value or any of that kind of stuff. So focusing on your alignment first, and what we have to do differently, is the best approach because if you go straight into like, so we don't trust each other, right? Like, people are just gonna clam up, and they're gonna, you know, be very uncomfortable or, and then somebody is gonna, like, launch a grenade into the conversation that's gonna be like, Oh, man, how do we recover from this? So always start with improving the alignment, getting clear on what you're there to do as a team. And slowly, you'll be able to get at some of the issues that have eroded trust.

Joelly Goodson :

So you talk about trust. I mean, how many times have you been in a meeting? Or is anyone out there listening, but in a meeting where they sit there and they listen, and like you said, they're the bobble heads? And they Yeah. And the meetings over and then the leader says, Okay, any questions, any feedback? And nobody is like, Oh, it's so painful and so painful, right? And yeah, and that happens more times than not, I suspect. Oh, yeah. When I think about that, I think talked about trust is feeling that you're in a place or an environment or your team environment where you feel safe, you feel that you're actually going to be heard and valued. And what you're going to say is going to be taken to heart and not just blown off. Yeah, so one of the exercises that we do with teams is to help every single person around the room understand what's unique about their role and their contribution. We actually go around the table and how can you say, okay, what's the unique value you bring and your role brings? And then the second question we ask is okay, and what stakeholders are you thinking about and advocating for more so than anybody else at the table? And because of that, what tensions are you obligated to put on the deliberations? And when you go through this exercise, you'll realize that everyone at the table has something unique that they're bringing to the conversation. And once they understand that nobody can look at this issue with the same lens as you, then all of a sudden it's not Does anyone have any questions? It's Hey, Julie, okay, you're looking at this from the perspective of somebody creating the promotional materials, how are you thinking differently about it, I love this campaign. And you may be like, Well, you know, it's okay. But a, it's way too many words, it's not gonna pop on any swag, or B, it's fine, but it doesn't translate to Spanish well, and we have like two thirds of the people we need to get this to, it needs to be in Spanish. Once everyone understands what their unique contribution is around the table, there's a lot less silence, because it's actually Okay, I get that if I don't share how this comes across. From my perspective, nobody's gonna know that. And then if nobody says anything, the person standing at the front of the room can actually invite the feedback. Hey, you're thinking about this from our procurement perspective? What aren't we thinking about if we're trying to procure this? What are some of the supply chain issues right now? That's a great example right? supply chains have like, gone to hell in a handbasket, which are the things that we can get right now? What can't we get? What should we stay away from a know everyone's unique value around the table? B, hold yourself accountable for adding that value and see if people don't, then invite them into the conversation with specific comment to why you need their unique lens on the issue, you'll get a lot further than just any questions. That is brilliant. I love that. That is great advice. And I hope anybody out there who's listening, especially any leaders is amazing advice. I love it. So let's talk about COVID. Because there's Yeah, obviously COVID has impacted culture, and especially teams and everything, everything, but you know, keeping teams connected, right? So how would you say COVID has directly impacted team culture,

Liane Davey:

it's interesting, we just have some brand new data. So Microsoft has been analyzing all of its metadata from communications between its own employees. And it's really, really valuable because it allows us to see what's going on and looks like through the pandemic teams themselves, the trust levels on teams, the interaction, the cohesiveness on teams has held pretty well. So intact teams seem to be doing pretty well through this, people are engaging with one another, you're trying to take care of one another, it's been pretty good. What's really suffered is the inter team communication. So people that you would bump into in the cafeteria, who you didn't necessarily have a meeting with. But it's nice to hear what they're working on the collisions at the photocopier, those sorts of things are what's disappearing, what one of my clients referred to, as I want to have the conversations I don't want to have. And what he meant by that is, you know, if I want to talk to somebody, I can still set up a zoom and talk to them. But what's interesting in an office is all the conversations you have that you weren't planning to have or you didn't need to have or whatever else. And he said, that's what I really miss. I want to talk to the people I didn't know I wanted to talk to. Well, this one came Yes. conversation. Yeah. So the the Microsoft data seem to be reinforcing that. So I'm really worried about how do those cross department conversations support the effective operation of an organization? How do they affect innovation and that sort of thing. So those are the long term costs that I think we don't yet know how big those costs have been. And we need to find mechanisms to have people still interacting and colliding with people in different teams, even if we're going to stay, you know, lots of people are going to stay virtual after this. So we need some new ways of operating.

Joelly Goodson :

So do you have any advice or any tips that you could recommend?

Liane Davey:

One tip I have is that don't do a hybrid meeting. So the worst of the worst is to have a bunch of people together in a room and they have the video conferencing on and then a bunch of people sitting at their desks at home who are each a square so you've got like six squares that are people at home and then you've got one square that six people crammed in, you kind of can't see one of the people that sound is terrible, then all of a sudden they're whispering to each other and you don't know what they're whispering about. So what we've been doing in situations like that is we've been saying okay, you can have the speakerphone on in the room, and then turn off the audio on your computer, but everybody looks into a laptop. And so that way, every single person is a square in the call and you can't have their computer audio on or the feedback is truly painful. But if you turn off their computer audio, let them talk with a speakerphone, but present and show up visually in the box. It's way, way, way, way better. So So that's a tip that anybody can, that's a great tip that works really well.

Joelly Goodson :

But ideally, would you recommend not doing the higher so when teams get together, let's say, you know, you have a team meeting once a month or once a week, whatever? Are you suggesting that it's better to do it in person?

Liane Davey:

The meetings about so if it's a meeting that's about that needs rich communication, so it's complex, it's information that could be equivocal. Some people could interpret it in different ways. There's high emotional content, it's ambiguous or a place we haven't gone before. Yes, use your one day in the office in the month to have that meeting. If it's a team meeting, where you're actually working on a plan, a rollout plan, an implementation plan, you're opening a new store and know the data now say the best thing to do there is to have everyone jump on collaboration software, share the screen, so that everybody's looking at the Gantt chart with all the pieces. This is when we whatever put the thing in the newspaper, and this is the flyer and this one, we put out the balloons so that everybody's looking at the same screen, but turn the video off. For that kind of a meeting. No, use one of your, you know, one of your days when everybody's remote for that. So it's really about making your communication fit for purpose, the in person meeting days are going to be the most precious time so we only want to put the most valuable content in those.

Joelly Goodson :

Yeah, that's great advice. I love that. What's your take on zoom in the sense that for a company, so for myself, for example, I worked for national company, and we have offices all over Canada, right? Because of COVID, we started doing monthly meetings, sometimes we do them a bit more and more everybody gets on. And sometimes we break it into smaller teams. Yeah. And I've been with the company 20 years, and I have not seen everybody as much believe it or not your COVID better for COVID. Because before COVID, we have a big national sales meeting once a year where everybody would get together and then there'd be something else. Well, maybe we'd see each other twice a year, everybody. And now it's more rigorous. So in my in that sense, it's almost created more connection. I love it. So yeah, I love your point,

Liane Davey:

I'm a big fan, I'm really a big fan, I have noticed that using breakouts is really valuable. There are just people if there's 30 people on the call, who just aren't going to say anything. But if you have a quick 10 minutes in the meeting, when you put it down to groups of four, it's really hard for anybody not to chime in if it's a group of four. So you know, it gives you the functionality. And as somebody who used to facilitate large meetings used to be you decide you needed a breakout, you wanted to create a more intimate conversation where everybody's participating. Well, that meant, first of all, you had to have the space, it was expensive. And then you had to have the time, which was because just to get them to the breakout room. And then you'd say the breakout is over and they stop and they get an extra coffee and somebody's like, I'm just going to check my messages, oh, I have a message from the office, I'm going to call in, when you're doing it on zoom, you press a button, and everybody goes. And then there they are back in your meeting. It's very efficient. So you know, we're certainly going to keep using zoom for lots of things. And then really using that in person face to face time for just the most precious things that need really rich conversation.

Joelly Goodson :

Mm hmm. What about you hear people that say they're all zoomed out and like no zoom call? And how do you avoid, I guess burnout,

Liane Davey:

I would limit the number of hours a day, we know that the video processing body language over video does seem to tax people more so than it does doing it in person. So the data the research on it is that you only need about 10 or 15 minutes off of a zoom call to go back to re levels. So I would say have as a default that no meeting is longer than 45 minutes. So just make sure there's 15 minutes between any calls, everybody gets that natural time for their eyes to rest time for their brain to rest, I would limit the number of zooms in any given day, what people don't want is to start at 8am and go to 5pm have staring at the screen all day. That's just it's hard on your butt. It's it's just bad. So I absolutely love this functionality of all these collaboration tools. But understand that we still need time for people to do their own production, their own work. And that should be at least 50% of the day for most people. So if all of a sudden zooms taking I think we're zoomed out a because we're trying to zoom all day every day and be because we're just having the same craptacular meetings we had in person but on zoom and they just feel more painful. So make sure it's a meeting that is something where we actually need to add value. We need the outcome to be something different than what came into the meeting. If you have good meetings and if you have a relatively few number of them in a day or in a week. I think people will will be able to do this for the long haul.

Joelly Goodson :

Great advice. I love that and I agree with you I actually really like zoom meetings now I do the more than phone calls because I like I find that you can connect with Someone when you can see them, you know, and I really liked that. So just like we're doing right now people we're on to again, actually,

Liane Davey:

it's funny because I've done a couple podcasts where there hasn't been video and it does feel so different. Yeah, I think your listeners can probably feel that we have video on that we're connecting like, feels like we're making eye contact. They can probably sense that in the conversation, even though they can't see it. So yeah, there's big benefits. Oh, I

Joelly Goodson :

Totally agree. Okay, so I know we have to go here. But I'm really curious about this. I've heard you say your mantra is get comfortable getting uncomfortable. And I love that because I love getting uncomfortable. Yeah, so can you elaborate on that?

Liane Davey:

Yeah, I just have learned that all of the most important things in life are on the other side of discomfort. So one of the articles I wrote recently that has had a lot of traction is I wrote an article about psychological safety. And we keep hearing this line about psychological safety. And people need psychological safety in the workplace, or else they won't speak up and they won't contribute and the whole conversation seems to be about why bosses and organizations need to make people safe. And while that's one piece of the picture, I think it completely misses how much we have to take ownership of our own perceptions of psychological safety. And if you're telling yourself a story that well I'm not going to say this because they may not like my idea, or they may not like me if I say that it's so much of this is not about us being in danger, if you think about the word safety, but just the thought of us being in discomfort. Yeah, they may criticize your work would that be unsafe? No. Would it be uncomfortable? Yep. And so really getting to the point where we can understand that if we're willing to be uncomfortable you know, we get to the other side of conflict, we learn how to advocate for ourselves, you know, just so many good things lie on the other side of discomfort. And once you just go Oh, okay, this is going to be uncomfortable and you keep going, then nothing scares you anymore. It's amazing and then you find your real like, relationships get stronger because people like people who are willing to be uncomfortable to make things better and you get to a better place so it's something you have to just have as a mantra like it's really my mantra it's like that'll be uncomfortable Yep.

Joelly Goodson :

And you're gonna do it anyway and I love that I'm very much the same way you know, I read somewhere that you should try to do something step outside your comfort zone once a day and I try you know, and I just think it does it makes you feel alive and it makes you feel like you're accomplishing things and I think it builds character and confidence at the same time. So yeah, I love that Banshee. Thank you for sharing that with me. Wow, I can't believe where the time has gone!

Liane Davey:

Too much fun having me on.

Joelly Goodson :

It's been so great talking to you. So people want to learn more about you and about Rico's what's the best way for them to connect with you. Are you Yeah,

Unknown:

Probably just lianedavey.com. LinkedIn is kind of where I hang out. You'll find me having deep discussions on LinkedIn. So come find me there for sure. And LianeDavey.com So Liane is L i a n e, and Davey is d A v ey.

Joelly Goodson :

I know a lot of the ends and the you're the first one that spells it that way.

Liane Davey:

So yeah, I was like 16 before I met another one. But now one of my partners in business is Leanne the same way so they apparently it's French. Oh, is French. Sounds so much better that way.

Joelly Goodson :

Thank you again, so much. I really appreciate it and I'll connect with you on LinkedIn. So we'll chat again.

Liane Davey:

We'll have deep discussions about branding.

Joelly Goodson :

Exactly. Thanks again.

Liane Davey:

Thanks so much. Really. Bye. Hey, bye.

Joelly Goodson :

There you have it. I hope you enjoyed the conversation and maybe learned a few things to help you with your branding. But most of all, I hope you had some fun. This show is a work in progress. So please remember to rate and review on whatever platform you listen to podcasts. And if you want to learn more about me and what I do to help my clients with their branding, feel free to reach out to me on any of the social channels under you guessed it, branding, branding matters was produced, edited and hosted by Joelly. Goodson awesome. So thanks again and until next time, here's to all you bad asses out there.