Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Good day, everyone, and welcome to another edition of let's Be Diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who've supported me through this journey. Those who have left us will always be in our hearts and will never be forgotten. Today we're going to be discussing the importance of investing in soft skills. I am so excited to welcome back to let's Be Diverse the amazing Ashley Cox. Ashley, welcome back to the show. It's so great for you to join us again today.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Andrew, thank you so much. It is always a pleasure to talk with you and an honor to be back on the show.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Oh my God. It's such an honor to have you back here. We want to know, I want to know. The listeners want to know what's going on with Ashley. What's new? Give us the tea, the deets. What? Give us it all. What's happening.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Yeah. So since we last spoke, I've had a little bit of a pivot in my business.
If you recall the episode before, I had a company called Sprout HR and it was providing HR consulting alongside of leadership development, but primarily HR consulting. And this past year I went through a pivot where I stripped out all of the HR consulting pieces just to niche down and focus on specific specifically women's leadership development. I just felt very called in this direction. It's been a passion of mine since I started in HR and leadership development almost 20 years ago now. And I just felt like the world needed more women supporting women stepping into their full leadership power. And so I am thrilled to have rebranded my company. It's now Ashley Cox Leadership Mentoring. And just to be able to leverage that 20 years of leadership experience. I've led teams of 350 employees. I've led teams inside of multi billion dollar organizations. I've helped to develop leaders of small businesses who are just getting started and just hiring their first employees and everything in between. And one thing is, is constant is that we all need leadership support, especially when we're getting started. And I love working with new leaders and leaders who are feeling kind of like they're in that sticky part of their journey where they're like, I know the potential is there, but I don't, don't quite know how to tap into it yet.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: I love that. And for those who don't know, yes, Ashley is coming back on this episode or on let's Be Diverse. Her first episode with me was called how to deal with conflict. So if you haven't checked that out, I definitely recommend that you check that out. It was a sensational conversation and it's so cool to hear that you've rebranded. I always thought of you as a leader as well, seeing that you did that. Not that you were not an HR person, but I just felt like you were a leader in your own mind.
There's many people who resonate to you and there's many people that learn from you, including myself. So I just feel like that was just the perfect rebrand for you. And I just feel like anybody that gets the opportunity to work with you is definitely going to benefit from it.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: Thank you so much, Andrew. That really means a lot to me.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: You're very, very welcome. And that comes from the heart and that comes from the opportunity to work with you as well. So I know how it is hand in hand. I know what it is first off, and I. I can. I can totally say without a shadow of a doubt that it is a bit. It is a benefit, and it is absolutely awesome to work with you for sure.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh, you are making me blush. Thank you so much.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: You're welcome. And to those. And to those who are listening, I am not done with that yet today, Ashley. I'm full of those compliments. You're gonna get your flowers today, that is for sure. But before we begin, I always have a fun, thought provoking question to ask my guests to get things going.
I have a new one for you. Are you ready for yours today, Ashley?
[00:03:59] Speaker A: I'm a little nervous, but I'm so.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: It actually goes hand in hand with what you just told me. What have you learned about yourself in the past year?
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness, what a great question. So much. I would say one of the biggest lessons is just to trust myself. You know, when I made the announcement after I had been working on it behind the scenes for several months, and I started telling people, this is what I'm doing, this is what's coming. Here's the direction I'm taking my business. Every single person said, oh, of course. That makes so much sense for you. But it took me years of mulling over this idea and thinking about it and trying to decide if it was the right direction for me or not. And I could have. I could have saved three years worth of time if I would have allowed myself to trust myself a little bit more, that I knew what I am expecting, exceptionally good at, and what other people have already seen and honored in me. And I think that is a journey that I've been on for my entire lifetime. I continue to get this lesson. It's okay to trust yourself. It's safe to trust yourself. It's the right decision to trust yourself. And, and I think that that's definitely a huge part of my journey this past year and stepping into this, this new envisioned role inside of my own business and inside of my own life.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: I love that lesson.
And I think a lot of listeners are going to gravitate to that answer because we do wonder what we're doing and if people are going to gravitate or resonate with it. So I totally get where you're coming from, and I totally get that you took a little bit of time to do that, and I'm glad that you did that because you don't want to rush in anything. But the one thing that you did said to me that did kind of pique my mind or get my mind going is the fact that you mulled it over. But obviously you learned and you're continuously, continuously learning. And you and I have had so many conversations about stuff, and one of the things that continuously pops up is continuously learning. And I know for myself, I'm always learning. And I think the moment that we decide or say that we've learned it all, that's when we're gonna get ourselves into trouble.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: So if we continue to learn, continue to say, oh, that's new, or hey, can you help me with this stuff? So if you're vulnerable and ask for help and continuously learn, you are going to continue to grow without a question?
[00:06:20] Speaker A: Absolutely without a question. Like you said, it's. I think it's. It's one of life's greatest journeys is that continuous learning, not just of collecting knowledge just for knowledge sake, but the continuous learning of who you are, who you are being on this earth, who you want to be and who you want to become. And I think that's such a fun journey to be on. And having owned my business now for almost nine years, which is just wild for me to even think and to say that out loud, it's the biggest personal and professional development experience of my lifetime. I've learned so much more about myself, of my own leadership, of the way I show up in the world, the way I want to show up in the world in the last nine years, than the whole previous 30 years prior to that.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: That is amazing. So, listen, I'm so excited about this conversation. Thank you so much for having fun with me. I love your answer. Today we're going to be Discussing the importance of investing in our soft skills. But before we do that, for those who didn't get a chance to listen, your first episode, how to deal with conflict. Why don't we start off with you telling us a little bit about yourself and your why? I know you did a little bit, but let's dig in deep because I want everybody to know how awesome Ashley is.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate that. So I have A combined almost 20 years of HR and leadership experience and I use that inside of my business. Ashley Cox Leadership Mentoring to support women owned businesses in becoming more confident and courageous leaders. You know, a lot of times I say I work with women who have a team, but no time. And that really strikes a chord with a lot of folks because we think, oh, when I hire people, I'll have more time to focus on the big picture things I want to get done, focus on my philanthropic endeavors, spend time with my family, pick up old hobbies. And what a lot of times I find is that we add all these team members and then it seems like it drains more and more of our time. And so, you know, our goal is really to look at who you have on your team, what they're doing, you're interacting with them, and really help you build that high performance team that you can trust and rely on without constantly chasing people to get things done. Because we don't want you to feel like you're constantly stuck in the weeds or that you're putting out fires all day or that you're running around doing everybody else's jobs. And so that's really what we focus on. And the interesting thing is that through really leaning into to focusing on this work more deeply in the past year, year and a half is that I found that a lot of women like myself were often told that they talk too much when they were growing up. And a lot of times that leads us to hold ourselves back. You know, we don't want to ask for too much. We don't want to be demanding. We don't want to, you know, we have a hard time asking people to do things for us or asking for help. And so I really am helping women to reclaim their voice so that they can ask for what they need, ask for the help that they deserve, and get things done with their team in an effective and efficient way.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: And I'm sure when you talk about asking for what they need, I'm sure you're teaching people there's a way to ask, right? So if we're not asking for it properly or not being clear of what we're looking for. We're going to get answers, but it's not going to answer what we're looking for. And then we're kind of like, okay, well that's not what I wanted to know. And then sometimes we're shy to ask or re ask it again. They just kind of leave it like, okay, well I. It's not what I was looking for. I'm just going to leave it be. But we should ask, we should get clarification, say, hey, listen, this is what I was looking for and originally, or maybe I didn't ask the question or phrase it the way it should be or the way I wanted it to be. Here's what I was looking for.
And I think it's okay to do.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: That a hundred percent. You know, it's really fun. If you just go to Chat GPT or Gemini or cloud or AI platform of choice, and you will learn how good your communication skills are or how poor they are, because whatever you feed into the AI tool, it's going to give you back exactly what you asked for. So if it gives you back a bunch of garbage, you probably weren't very clear. You didn't ask for what you needed, you didn't give it clear instructions, or you didn't, you know, give it any kind of guidance on how to do the thing or what you were expecting from it. And so a lot of times I'll tell people like, hey, plug that prompt into Chat GPT and see what it gives you. And you know, they'll come back and say, oh my gosh, it was like super confused. Or it gave me something that was completely out of line and it didn't even know what I wanted. And so we have to think about talking to our team in that way. Am I being clear? Because one thing I constantly say is if your team is confused, you are confusing. And so we have to step back and we have to look at ourselves and our communication and say, okay, I didn't get the result I was wanting. What role did I play in that? How could I ask for it better? How could I be more clear? How could I make sure I'm sharing the expectations in a way that people can understand and follow through on?
[00:11:20] Speaker B: And I think it goes with stuff like emails. A lot of managers or leaders that I've worked with, you're reading the email and it's like you can hear their voice because how the email is written is how they would speak.
And it's totally like all over the place.
So I can see Totally what you're doing. And I have actually done exactly that. I have actually put stuff in the chat GPT and I've also had to rephrase it to get exactly what I was looking for because it gave me something which I used, but I'm like, okay, I want to go a little bit deeper. So I changed it around and I got a different response.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Yes, yes, you, you're usually typing. No, that's not what I meant at all. This is what I meant. Here's what I'm looking for. And it can help us become better communicators, which is such an important soft skill. I, you know, I always tell people I'm like 95% of the problems that you experience with your team are due to some sort of breakdown in communication. Either communication never happened, or it only partway happened, or it was super unclear. You left something un uncommunicated with your team. And so it's always a good skill to work on, especially as a soft skill, because it literally impacts and affects every other soft skill that, that we have.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: So, Ashley, why does investing in soft skills make business sense?
[00:12:37] Speaker A: So I love this study out of MIT Sloan that came out a few years ago that said that they found a direct correlation with investing in soft skills training. Having a 250 return on your investment. That's unbelievable. And so what we're seeing from these studies that really talk about soft skills training, and just to clarify, soft skills training is that interpersonal training, it's the way that we work together with one another. So things like communication and handling conflict, making decisions, teamwork, collaboration, those are all soft skills. Right. And so if we can get a 250% return on our investment, what does that look like? That looks like increased revenue, it looks like decreased cost, it looks like increased retention, or not losing people, not having people quit the business. It looks like making smarter decisions so you're not wasting as much time. It looks like more efficiency in work, so you're getting things done quicker, you're streamlining your operations. And so soft skills impacts every part of your business that has a metric or a KPI, a key performance indicator tied to it. And so if you're looking to move the needle in any one of those areas, let's take a look at what kind of soft skills make sense for the particular part of business that you need to influence in order to impact those metrics.
[00:14:03] Speaker B: I love the MIT direct correlation, 50% return on investment. That is amazing. Many people that I talk to and leaders that I've spoken to they don't mention that. And even when you read job descriptions or job postings, obviously you're not going to put that in there. But in a job posting, the soft skills should be put in there for sure. As far as I'm concerned, a lot of people are not hiring on soft skills, but in fact, they probably should be looking at it. I'm not talking about high ranking director VP roles, but I'm talking about your everyday role that should be looked at for sure. Because you're not just hiring for work ethic or what they could do. As far as experience you're looking for, is it a fit? Does this person I have your dynamic like you have your dynamic with your business. And if you're putting somebody else new in there, how do they fit into that dynamic? Because they're not only going to be dealing with me, they're going to be dealing with everybody on my team. How are they going to fit into what I've created as a culture in my business?
[00:15:13] Speaker A: Yeah, and I think it's twofold, really. We want to establish our values and cultivate intentional cultures. And I think a lot of times it's also not just about do they fit, but what can they add that we might not have. And so maybe you have somebody you know on your team who's great at following instructions and they're super collaborative and they get along well with other people, but they're not great at decision making. They're not great at taking the lead on things. And so we can also look and see, see what soft skills are missing from our team that we desperately need that we can now add and fill in the gaps so that we have a really robust team that can work more effectively together.
[00:15:56] Speaker B: So we might have got into this a little bit, but I want to kind of go into this a little bit deeper because I really feel this is super important for our listeners today. Why do you believe soft skills have become more and more important than ever? Because I'm seeing that it is.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, the thing that people need in their businesses are folks who can work together to get things done. Right. And so a lot of what we've seen historically, especially in corporate America, is that and probably in Canada as well. I'm not as familiar with your corporate structure, but you can kind of let me know if this is the same for you guys. But inside of corporate positions you see a lot of siloing. Right. You see like this group does their own thing and that group does their own thing and these People over here don't have any idea what those people over there are doing. And that creates a lot of redundancy in work. It creates a lot of really complex systems. People aren't working together, nobody knows what's going on. And so soft skills are becoming more and more important because we've got to find a way to break out of those silos and work together as cross functional teams. And that works even for small businesses. I've seen small businesses with five or 10 or 20 people who start to segment into these little groups and they start to silo out. And then we're not leveraging the brillian that exists within the context of the whole team, the whole company. And so I think soft skills are going to continue to become really, really important because we've got a more diverse workforce than ever before. We have a very complex workforce, more complex than it's ever been, you know, with the advent of different AI tools and, you know, the globalization of companies. And you've got people from different cultural backgrounds and religious backgrounds and ethnicities all across the world that are working together. And so we, we have to have that ability to appreciate everybody that's on the team as well as what they bring to the team and then use that to our advantage. To say, this person is excellent at leading. I'm going to put them in a project team lead position. This person is excellent at digging into the numbers and getting information. This person's great at bringing everyone together and making everyone feel important and part of the team. And those three people work in different segments of the, of the company, they work in different departments. Maybe they don't have a lot of interaction on a regular basis, but by really focusing on those soft skills and identifying who has what and how do we leverage that to our benefit, but also to their advantage. Because when you are working in your zone of genius, when you are doing the work you were put here on this earth to do, my gosh, the fireworks that ensue are amazing. You see people being more motivated, they're more excited, they've got a greater level of buy in. You're getting that discretionary effort, which is everybody talks about like, I just wish my people would go above and beyond. That's what discretionary effort is. And when we've got people working in the roles that they need to be in, we're going to see greater productivity, we're going to see greater innovation, we're going to have teams that are more collaborative and effective working together. And that's what makes a Powerhouse high performance team.
[00:19:03] Speaker B: Wow. There's so many amazing things that you said there. Yes, I agree with you 100%. Working together is going to get things done. What I am noticing, though, and I think it's changed, when I was younger, there would always be that social aspect of like, oh, it's Friday, let's go for drinks and, and have a bite to eat on Friday after work. 20, 25 of you went. But lately I've seen. Excuse me, that has shifted and it doesn't happen anymore. And I'm wondering if it's because of the pandemic or if it's because we're getting older or because our. We want to spend more time with our. Our families. Not because we don't want to spend time with our co workers, but we're excited at the end of the day to get home and spend time with our loved ones. So. And not because they didn't before. So I don't know if it's age. I don't know if it's that the times have changed, but I am. No, I've definitely noticed a shift in that. For sure.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I think it's probably a little combination of both. I think the pandemic really helped people see what was most important in their lives, and a lot of people refocused on their families. I also think that it probably is our age. I think we're probably about the same age. And most folks our age have kids at home and they've got other responsibilities. They might have volunteer things that they want to do outside of work that they're involved in. And also, we're just tired. Okay.
We're just tired after work, okay, we'll go home, have dinner, sit down. But I think, too, another aspect that we have to take into consideration is the way that workplaces have really embraced remote work. And so we don't have as many people in the office and interacting like we were were five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. And that definitely creates a different dynamic. And that's something I'm always working with my clients on, is how do we give the team that same level of experience to connect? You know, even if they're a totally virtual team, even if they're scattered all across the country or all around the world. And, and we have to be really intentional about that because when everybody is on site working, you're kind of forced to, to kind of connect with each other and to forge relationships or you have more natural avenues to do that that you've Got, you know, everybody stands and talks around the coffee pot, or everybody goes to the break room and has lunch together, or you have these natural meeting places that happen. And so we have to be more intentional about the way that we cultivate that to create connection so that our team members can find out who they work with, learn their personality quirks, learn what they're really good at, learn how they might be able to support one another. And that's an important part of. Of soft skills development as well, is creating the opportunity for people to have those interpersonal connections that you said that.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: I have a friend of mine who works from home, and her company is really good at what you said as far as gathering people together. So every year they have at Halloween, this is one of the things that they do is they pick a. A show or a theme, and they dress up in that theme. So this year was the show the Office.
So everybody dressed up as a character on the office, and then they got together on. On teams and they did a video so that they could all see their costumes and stuff, and they had lunch together. It was so cool that when I heard that, I'm like, what a great idea. Because they are working from home. So it kind of gave them that office dynamic and that closeness. So they're very, very close. In the morning, they're all on teams, and they send good morning to everybody. And when somebody is doing something or when they're teasing somebody, they. They do a lot of gifts. So they send a lot of gifts to each other and stuff. Stuff. And throughout the day, so it kind of. They're working, but they're doing these things. So it kind of makes the day go by so much better because you're getting that team dynamic, and they enjoy each other's company. So when you're seeing the gifts, she said, my gosh, like, I laugh all day at some of the gifts that people come up with. It's so. It's so fun.
[00:23:07] Speaker A: I love it. I love it. And that's the thing, you know, work gets to be fun. And I think sometimes we have a tendency to suck all the fun out of it because we're so focused and we're so. So, you know, driven or we're so ambitious, and we got the next goal and the next milestone and the next thing to, you know, just check off our list that we forget that we get to have fun, and we get to create radically different workplace cultures than the ones that we perhaps experienced in the past. And if you come from a really toxic workplace culture, you come from one where it was always, you know, drive, drive, drive, more, more, more, faster, faster, faster. It's easy to bring that over into your own business, business and to create that same type of experience. Or if you're working within a corporate structure, you know, you can create fun within your own team as well. You know, even if the rest of the company is drive, drive, drive, yes, we still want to drive. Yes, we still want to grow and, you know, meet our revenue goals and hit our marks and all the things like that. And we can have gif wars in, you know, in the team's chat or in the Slack channel or wherever it is. Like, you can do some really fun things that don't cost any money, that take minimal amounts of time and that people thoroughly enjoy.
[00:24:17] Speaker B: So we talked a little bit about soft skills earlier, but what I want to kind of get your opinion on is why soft skills are so important when it comes to employability in the future. What is it going to look like in the future?
[00:24:33] Speaker A: I think companies are going to really be focusing a lot more on collaborative teamwork and being able to be someone who can come in and leave your ego at the door and be able to sit at a table with people from all different backgrounds to have a conversation around. What is the best way that we can come up with collectively to tackle this project, to complete this assignment, to hit this milestone or hit this goal is going to be so, so critical. It's going to continue to be critical. It's important now, and I think it's just going to continue to be that much more important in the future. We need people to come in and check their egos at the door. Gone are the days where you get to be the person that just makes all the decisions. And honestly, as a leader, you don't need to make all the decisions. You don't have to make all the decisions. That's why we have teams. That's one of the greatest benefits and so we can leverage the collective brilliance that's sitting in that room and, and the various experiences. You know, that's what allows us to be more innovative, to be more creative, to get to market faster, to serve a wider audience, because we have, you know, a diverse set of voices in the room making decisions. And it's not just, just a silo. It's not just an individual sitting in the room. It's not. I mean, even when I worked by myself in my business, when I was starting all by myself, I didn't just rely on only the ideas. I came out with. I talked to fellow friends who had businesses and bounced ideas off of them. I talked to people that I wanted to work with to get their feedback and input. For me, it's always been a collective building of my business. It's never just been the Ashley show. Even though my business is now named after me. I had had a hard time with that. But, but you know, I got feedback from my clients saying what should I call this new business? And they resoundedly said we want to see your name on the business because we want to see a woman owning her voice and showing up for other women. And I was like, wow, that is powerful. I wouldn't have named the business after myself, but this is what I consistently heard from my audience. So I was like, okay. And so to me it's anytime I hear something like oh, a self made this or that, I'm like, like I don't think so. Because we're all the culmination of the people who pour into us and the people who are on our teams and the people that we get advice and feedback from. And to me it's never going to be about me. It is about the collective we. And I think that's the direction that we are heading in business, in business. And that we've got to really focus on those soft skills so that we have good communication, we're able to work together effectively as a team. We know how to collaborate and we know how to make decisions and those are all soft skills that are so, so critical.
[00:27:10] Speaker B: I want to piggyback on the word collaborative. I am such a firm believer on that because you don't have to work in somebody's business or work with in the same company as them. I could send a message to anybody, including you, and say, hey, what do you think of this? What is your thoughts on this? This is what I'm thinking of doing. Hey, have you ever done this before? Because I'm trying to figure this out, out. Do you have any advice or feedback on that? For me I might get a, hey, I'm just doing something right now. If you give me a little bit, I'll look into it and I'll get back to you. But I know that I'm going to get a response and I'm going to get a very good response on that and I think that's super important. When you have that collaborative mindset, it is so powerful. And then if you can get it within your business or with your team, it's so powerful.
[00:28:02] Speaker A: Percent well, we just collaborated recently. You asked me A question. I sent you some feedback, and I even sent you three examples of something I had done in my business and said, hey, take a look at this. See if this might be helpful. This is something that I developed when I got some feedback from my clients. And so I think, you know, it's. It's an opportunity for us to all build better businesses. Whether we're. Whether we own a business or we work inside of a company, we all get the chance to build better businesses together. And honestly, I feel like we owe that to ourselves. We owe that to our team. We owe that to the world. To be able to have these businesses that are collaborative and they see the whole person and they value the person that's coming to work because they're not machines, they're not cogs in a wheel. You know, these are each individual people that come with their own ideas, their own background, their own experience, their own expertise and brilliance. And everyone can contribute. Contribute. Every single person on your team can contribute in some way.
[00:29:01] Speaker B: Ashley, you talked a little bit about diversity earlier in the episode here.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: Is.
[00:29:07] Speaker B: Is appreciating diversity a soft skill?
[00:29:09] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And it's. It's a necessary skill. I think that when we don't appreciate diversity, we lose out on the myriad of voices that can add to the conversation. We can also miss really big important things in business. There were. Was with Target, I don't know, it was maybe five, six years ago, they had a T shirt come out that was incredibly offensive to a certain population. And it makes you wonder, with a company that size, how did you miss that? Who was missing in that room? That could add context to the conversation to say, you know what? That's not a good idea. We shouldn't do that. And so in order to really be the best business that we can be for the people on this planet, we have to appreciate diversity. And. And that comes from not just, you know, racial diversity, but it comes from the ways that our brains work. It comes from the way that we were raised. It comes from our socioeconomic backgrounds. It comes from religious backgrounds. It comes from just the way that maybe our parents raised us, you know, where we were born versus somebody else on the other side of the world or in another country or, you know, wherever. And so, you know, it even comes down to, you know, disability. You know, if you have a disability, you're going to experience life very differently than somebody who doesn't have a disability. And so all of these perspectives matter, and they make our businesses so much better. And there's study after Study after study that has been shown that diverse companies outperform non diverse companies significantly. And so it's also again, making a business case. If you don't want to do it because it's the right thing to do, then take a look at the numbers. It's also the business savvy thing to do. But I think we can live in a world where both get to be true. We can do it because it is the right thing and we can do it because it helps us to create profitable, successful businesses that are able to impact the world.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: Data doesn't lie. I firmly believe that being a quality assessment rep and having experience in that data does not lie. Data can tell you so much about something. You gave us a percentage earlier in the episode and I firmly believe that. Didn't always believe that, but I can definitely say in the last five, six years I see it, that it does not lie. It shows so much information. And you can definitely get more information from data for sure. So you, you're absolutely right. If we, if we did data, if we asked people in an organization, do you believe in everybody's thoughts and ideas? I wonder what the data would be on that. I wonder what the percentages would be on, on what people's thoughts on that. Because I would be interesting to see how people thought and as far as their experiences go.
And maybe it's somebody that worked at another company and they, and now they see it differently than they did before.
[00:31:56] Speaker A: I think a lot of times too, what we see is that when they do these studies, sometimes you'll see the discrepancy between what leadership thinks they're doing and what the employees feel like they're doing. And so I don't know the stats on this, but I would venture to guess that executives probably think they are open to new ideas and different voices and different perspectives way more than employees actually feel valued and heard and seen and respected in their work. I don't have the data on that, but that is my sneaking, that is my sneaking suspicion because I think that we do a lot of good lip service to things. But you gotta follow through. You gotta follow through. If you say that you value someone's opinion, voice, perspective, idea, whatever, but then you never do anything with it, you never take the next step, then that demonstrates through your actions that you don't. And so we have to be really mindful. You know, we can't take every idea and run with it. Some of the ideas really just aren't very good ones. But we also have to be willing to Go back and say, hey, I really appreciate you sharing this idea with me. Here's where I'm having trouble seeing this as a viable option. Xyz. Do you have any other ideas you want to share? Because that's going to teach the person how to have the right kind of ideas within the context of the bigger picture. You know, maybe that idea is ridiculously out of budget. We can't spend. Spend $15 million on this idea. Like, we don't have the budget for that. But is there something else we could do that's kind of in line with this? That's not as expensive. And so that's us being able to teach people that their ideas matter and that we also have to work within the parameters of the business because we do have constraints. And sometimes every idea isn't going to be one that has legs. But we can't shoot people's ideas down and just be like, well, that's a dumb idea. We gotta help people along a little bit.
[00:33:43] Speaker B: I would definitely say that persistency is, is definitely a soft skill. And if you're persistent and you're giving ideas and they're being shot down. I love the way that you put that. I've said that so many times. Exactly. What you said before about the way you give feedback to the individual who's giving the ideas is super important because if you shoot it down right away, you're going to lose their engagement of their, of them being persistent.
And then they're gonna, then they're gonna say, well, hey, if I don't have a seat at this table, well, then I'm gonna go and I'm gonna find another seat. I'm gonna find another table to sit at. So that is, that is the mindset of people. So when you do it the way that you said before of like, I love your idea, I love your, your enthusiasm, and I love you being persistent.
But here's what I, or even you don't have to say the word, but just go, I've, you know, looked at it. Would you, would you be open to some feedback here, here's what I would suggest.
And then we, we can make this work, but let's just do a little bit of tinkering here and let's work. But let's work together. Because I do feel that this is a great idea and I do think we can make it work.
[00:34:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And sometimes you might be able to use parts of the idea. Right. So don't just shoot down the whole thing, but are there parts or pieces of it that you can say, you know what? We can absolutely do this, this, and this part. This part's going to be a little too costly, so let's find something else to do there instead.
But let's go ahead and get started. Let's get these other three ideas, like, implemented and run with them. So it is. It's all about the way that we talk to people. It's all about the way that we share that feedback. It's all about the intent behind our conversations. And, you know, am I going into this conversation to make this person feel small and stupid and less than. Or am I going into this conversation saying, wow, they tried.
They brought some ideas forward, and I really respect that. You know, it's a whole different. Whole different vibe.
[00:35:36] Speaker B: It certainly is closing. Ashley, what's one takeaway do you like you'd want our audience to get from this episode?
[00:35:42] Speaker A: That's a great question. I think the takeaway for me would be soft skills aren't a nice to have. They're an essential to have with your team. And I say that because we can teach people most of the hard skills that they need to do a job. But somebody has to be willing to learn. They have to be willing to collaborate. They have to be able to work together as a team and not just be egocentric and think that they're the greatest thing that came along since sliced bread. And so we have to really look at those skills. And can you teach soft skills? Absolutely.
And we can also hire for soft skills so that we can have folks that are on our team a little bit further ahead, and then we can continue to invest in them and nurture those soft skills and build those soft skills so that they can develop even more robust interpersonal skills and capabilities. But it's not just a nice to have. It absolutely is an essential. And I think that we've really talked about that today and how important it can be in businesses, whether large or small, in the return on investment that you get.
[00:36:44] Speaker B: My call to action today would be. First off, if you have not had a chance to listen to Ashley's first episode with me, how to Deal with conflict, I definitely suggest you go back and have a listen to that as well. It was such a great conversation. And. And just like this one, it's. It's dynamic. So I definitely suggest that you do that. I ask that you all, like, share and follow this episode. I want as many people as we can, especially leaders, to get out there and listen to this episode. And I feel that if you're open to feedback this is a great conversation to listen to, for sure. I also want to take the time to thank you, Ashley, for coming on today. It's the second time that we've done this, and it was just as exciting for me to have it as it was the first time. You are just such a dynamic individual. I just admire everything that you do and everything that you stand for. I am super honored and flattered to have you, not just on my network, but we always talk about us being friends. And I am definitely so honored to have you as a friend as well and a collaborative individual. It's so important for me to have that and it's so important to have. Have amazing people like you in my life. So thank you so, so much for coming on again today, and I look forward to all the future collaborative stuff that you and I get to do together.
[00:38:05] Speaker A: Absolutely. It's always a pleasure to talk with you, work with you, collaborate with you, and I appreciate you having me on the show again. I hope that listeners get some value from our conversation today, that they walk away feeling inspired, or maybe they walk away with a new perspective that they can take back into their businesses and say, wow, you know, let me try this, or let me think about this a little bit differently than maybe I did before our conversation. But, Andrew, you are the true superstar when it comes to relationship building and. And really collaborating with people and welcoming new ideas and perspectives, and I just appreciate you so much for creating that space here on the let's Be Diverse podcast.
[00:38:44] Speaker B: Thank you so much for your kind words. I. I appreciate them and I take them. Thank you so much. On behalf of myself and my guest, Ashley, I'd like to thank you all for listening today. And until next time, be safe. And remember, everyone, that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything.
[00:39:02] Speaker A: You have been listening to let's Be Diverse with Andrew Stout. To stay up to date with future content, hit Subscribe.
