Ep. 64: Appreciate the mourning in growth

Alison Picket | Chief People Officer, Kenect

Can a culture of performance truly be cultivated?

Alison Pickett, Chief People Officer at Kenect, believes it can. In her dynamic approach, Alison shares how she drives a high-performance culture in rapidly growing companies by using what she calls the 'triangle of accountability.' This model ensures every decision made benefits the company, its customers, and its employees equally.

Alison's strategies for managing change are particularly insightful. She highlights the importance of “mourning” past company cultures while embracing future growth, allowing teams to process and adapt. Transparency and proactive communication are key, along with resisting the urge to make knee-jerk reactions.

In this engaging conversation, Alison offers valuable lessons on how to balance employee satisfaction, meet customer needs, and ensure company profitability—all crucial elements for long-term success.

---

Answered on this Episode

• How can a company develop a culture of performance? 

• How can leaders balance the needs of the company with the needs of employees?

• What can companies do to be transparent and earn trust?

• What are some practical ways to measure employee satisfaction?

Advice from Alison

Embrace Change and Acknowledge Loss

Recognizing and mourning the loss of past company culture during growth and change is essential. With every change, such as company expansion, there's an inherent loss of the previous culture. Acknowledging this change openly allows employees to process their feelings and understand that the new culture will be different.

Triangle of Accountability

Schedule regular, personal check-ins and consistent team meetings to build connections and trust in remote teams. Be available and foster psychological safety.

Pause and Reflect Before Reacting

Involve diverse team representatives in developing programs to create invested advocates. Focus on long-term planning and regularly measure progress to maintain engagement and success.

Connect with Alison: LinkedIn

---

Find This Conversation

---

Full Transcript

Raising the Bar on Leadership | Alison Pickett

[00:00:00] Alison: And so when we take performance culture and that accountability seriously, and we figure out how to have it be a win for everybody, we talk about at our company that triangle of accountability has to be good for the company. Has to be good for our customer and it has to be good for our employees. 

[00:00:18] Aaron Levy: Our guest today is Alison Pickett, the chief people officer at Kenect. Alison is a dynamic people leader known for her innovative approach to driving success in both startups and established companies.

She has a wealth of experience in spearheading transformative initiatives. And high growth, fast paced environments from mergers and acquisitions to fostering team growth, to driving a culture of performance. In this conversation, we talk about how do you create a culture of performance? 

Alison shares a little bit about the triangle of accountability that she runs with her team, how they do health checks in each area of that triangle of accountability.

And also the importance of. Just sitting in the discomfort, not making knee jerk reactions and making conscious [00:01:00] choices that you communicate broadly across your team. This was a truly thought provoking conversation. There's a lot of gold in here and I wish more people could lean into a leadership from a performance standpoint that Alison does.

So take a listen, enjoy, have a good one. 

Welcome, Allison. I'm so excited to have you on. 

[00:01:20] Alison: Well, I'm thrilled to be here. 

[00:01:21] Aaron Levy: There are literally 

so many things I want to talk to you about from the deep workbook that you're having your team read to how you think about performance culture to a whole lot. But I guess the first place I'll start is at Kenect, you've been, your company has been one of the fastest growing private companies for what, two, three years in a row now, something like that last three years.

So three years, what I'm wondering is how do you navigate. The culture as the team continues to literally add more members and grow and evolve, how does that culture evolve change or how do you keep it the way you want it? 

[00:01:57] Alison: Yeah. I I've done a ton of MNA in [00:02:00] my career and I found that is really one of the hardest.

Just that whole change management piece , and a lot of people look at change as acquisition or change as new product offering or change as new , maybe target market, and a lot of people forget about the internal change that comes with all of those external changes. . It's really important that before you get geared up for a change.

And I think what's we're in a really interesting time now COVID come and it's forced to change technologies coming and forcing change. And so a lot of people are like, how are we going to be ready for the market? How's our product going to be ready? Are we staffed? Are we this, but a lot of people aren't talking about, are people ready for the change?

And so when talking about change, I always think about it in kind of the buckets of, There is a moment where you almost have to mourn your past culture because you're always going to have the people that look back and they're like, remember the good old days. Remember when we did this? Remember when [00:03:00] we did that?

And sometimes it's taking a pause and being willing to mourn the change. That is no longer who we are stating it out loud, being willing. To state it out loud is so important, but also as you're navigating that change, mourning the loss of what it was when it was a hundred people and you knew everybody's name and we're greeted at the door with everybody cheering for you.

 But then being willing to say, here's the non negotiables. Here's what we're not going to do. going to let change. And those should be your values and who your employees are at the core. During the hiring cycle , it's really important. You know that you're hiring people for the long term.

And so one of the really important things we can do is people leaders. It's really make sure that knowing who at the core, the values, those core characteristics, it'll take you through recruiting processes. It'll take you through change management processes. It'll take you through all sorts of evolution.

So I would to condense that into a statement is mourn the loss of where you were, get excited and plan the future, and then be [00:04:00] really clear about who you are. 

[00:04:01] Aaron Levy: We run a session on change management and we talk about the importance of with every change comes loss. Like you bought that new house that you want to move into.

You've been renting for so many years. You bought that new house. What'd you lose? Right. You lost the neighbors. You lost this, that, and the other, like with every change comes loss. And I think that is such an insightful perspective that you just shared. Just acknowledging that our culture is going to be different.

Inherently, it can't be the same when we go from 100 to 200, 200 to 300, it's impossible for it to be the same because it's a different combination of people. It's not going to be exactly the same. And so what you said is, Hey, let's acknowledge that it's going to change. And I see so many organizations pretend.

Yeah. Our culture is the same. We've just been, we have a really strong culture. It's the same as it's not, even if it's. It's close. It's not the same. And so I think that's such a crucial part for team members who, as you said, are going to say, well, back when the good old days, well, it's not like that anymore.

Either we don't all come to the office space is bigger or [00:05:00] it's different or it's tighter. There's more, whatever it is, acknowledge that change, let people mourn the loss. That is, I don't know, I feel like that is such a lesson in life in so many different ways of anytime we're excited, we don't take the time to, to acknowledge what's different, but to mourn what we're losing.

In good or bad changes. 

[00:05:20] Alison: Well, and it's okay to get angry. It's okay to get frustrated. It's okay to go through the cycles because sometimes businesses are moving so fast and we don't even realize that it's changing and then it changes and we have employees going through this huge, it's a whole range of emotions.

And sometimes we don't realize what we're leaving behind is something we don't want to leave behind either. So if you don't take like that process to grieve and have the moment of this, I mean, the company I work for now. We've been on the eight five hundred fastest growing companies and five thousand lists the last three years.

I joke I've been here two years and probably had four different jobs and worked for four different companies in the span of that two years. And if we don't take a moment [00:06:00] and say. Gosh man, like what was so good about the good old days? We might just be moving along and realize we could have brought that along with us.

And so we could keep it still where we're at. Or we can say, hey, we're gonna be really honest. That's not who we are anymore. We've changed. You changed. Everybody might get to make a different decision now, and that's okay. It doesn't make, someone good or bad. It's acknowledging the change and then being willing to have a conversation of what makes sense today?

Because there's nothing worse than trying to force an employee into a role that they're no longer aligned to and not have that honest conversation. Conversation. It's like in a, being in a crippling, painful relationship that you can't get out of without anybody ever acknowledging it. And so sometimes we can bring people along.

Sometimes we can't, but being willing to have. 

[00:06:46] Aaron Levy: Yeah. I mean, it's just like holding on to what you thought was the case. And so it's harder to have that internal conversation as employee to say, Hey, I actually don't want to be here. And I love that you talk about this. We talk about it as [00:07:00] a. Every day you work as a choice every day.

I show up to do this job, even though I'm the CEO and the founder, it's a choice. I'm choosing to do this work. And everybody on my team is choosing to do this work in response for that choice, right? You're getting paid. There is a, there's a contract component to it. It's not a choice , to go work for free, but let's acknowledge that there's a choice that people are either choosing to show up or choosing not to.

And so what you're saying is, Hey, let's actually give them the information so that they can make the choice as opposed to when we hear this, like quiet quitting. And I'm not, I don't love that word, but I think there's something true to people just disengage and say, well, f*** it, whatever. Like I'll just.

I'll just show up and do, I don't have to put in that many hours in any way. And I can just hop on zoom whenever I need to hop on zoom and do just the bare minimum versus saying, Hey, this is who we are. This is what we're going to be. Do you want to be a part of this or not? And either way is 

[00:07:52] Alison: totally 

[00:07:52] Aaron Levy: okay.

[00:07:53] Alison: Well, and if and B yeah, it's totally okay. Nobody has to be wrong or right. Nobody's good. Nobody's bad, but being [00:08:00] willing to say, we may no longer serve your needs instead of trying to pretend to trying to add more snacks to the kitchen, trying to guess what everybody wants, like engaging in that open dialogue.

And, we've been talking at the organization I'm at now about where we're going. And I work for a SAS tech company and, Anybody who's not talking about AI and the influence that's having on our business. And we just had a leadership offsite and our CFO brought up this amazing moment that we were all a little said he was watching Moneyball over the weekend.

And it was that moment where they were discussing that they couldn't buy players anymore that they had to decide how they were going to buy a win. Not just by the players. And we've been thinking about, like, how do we do business different? How can we show up in a different way? Are we trying to use a formula that everybody else is trying?

And are we having a tough competitive moment because we're trying to compete with companies much larger like ours, like Adobe. And in our [00:09:00] attempt to It just doesn't feel true to who we are. So like, how do we show up in something that's really true to us as a business? How do we change the way we're doing business?

And then how do we be really honest about it? So we can buy the win, not just focus on something kind of ancillary and out. And it's been a really interesting process for us as we've really started to dive into that discussion. 

[00:09:23] Aaron Levy: We need to constantly, we need to constantly be rethinking what we're doing.

And so a lot of. Oh, a lot of companies approach it to say, okay, here's the change we're making. Get on board. Let's go versus, Hey, here's where we're leaving. Here's why we're making the change. Cause if we don't evolve, we're not going to be around in the same way. You're not going to be able, as you said, we're not going to be able to compete with those companies that we're trying to compete with.

And here's the invitation, right? If this is a fit for you, great. And I just, throughout this of what you're sharing, I'm , keep coming back to the word fit. It's are you a fit for this? Or not, and fit is a both ends thing, right? It's a, is this a [00:10:00] fit for you and your life and what you're looking for?

And are you a fit for us? And I guess one of the things we had an awesome conversation a few weeks ago and you, we had this conversation where you gave me, and I might be butchering some of the language, but you said, Hey here's the organization to just think about making it a, like a good culture versus a performance culture.

And I'm curious can you share a little bit about that distinction of, for someone who's listening, what the heck's the difference between a good culture and a performance culture? 

[00:10:27] Alison: Yes. Well, I think they can be the same, but I also think they're really different. I always joke that you could argue I'm the HR person.

That's like A bucket of cold water a little bit and not so much anymore, but maybe 10 years ago, certainly where HR is very much the like parties that I'm going to tell, you no, and I'm going to write all the policies and I'm going to tell you what you can and can't do. And that was just not a good match for me.

And I knew there had to be a better way. And recently I spoke at a conference and I was sitting waiting for my [00:11:00] turn and There was all this discussion around culture, and it really boiled down to there's a lot of H. R. Practitioners and professionals and all whatever you'd like to call them that believe in the culture cake that there's a recipe where it's two scoops of love, three scoops of opportunity and a dash of career development, right?

And one of the speakers of the event had talked about how imposed the question to the audience of like 1000 people was how many people have worked for a company with a great culture and then ended up having to do layoffs? And I was like, Oh, that one hurts my soul because I would argue that if your company's having to do layoffs, there's something wrong with your culture.

If your culture does not drive business results , there's a misalignment and that misalignment has like really heavy consequences. And it's our job as leaders and in people experience professionals such as myself to make sure that , if those [00:12:00] business results are true and we're in a push for profitability and if our businesses aren't having, aren't profitable, but we're having so much fun, what are we even doing?

We're not preserving jobs. We're not innovating. We're not allowing for people to show up as their best selves. We're not an accountability culture. And Ultimately, the people who are here and showing up ready to work are the ones that are going to suffer. Our customers are going to suffer. Our investors are going to suffer.

Our team is going to suffer. And so when we take performance culture and that accountability seriously, and we figure out how to have it be a win for everybody, we talk about at our company that triangle of accountability has to be good for the company. Has to be good for our customer and it has to be good for our employees.

So we talk often is if it, and if it skews too much. So if we make bad decisions and it starts skewing that something suffers and then the formula is off and that's when you get into financial [00:13:00] trouble. It's when your employees start hating working there and it's when your customers don't feel invested in anymore and that's the recipe for disaster.

So we use, Those as our guiding principles, as opposed to more of a culture recipe, if you will to make sure that we're aiming in the right direction. 

[00:13:15] Aaron Levy: I feel as human beings, we love boxes and we love like this, not that. And it's, the world is very black and white. And I think, as I, as a coach myself, I learned that in my early years of getting trained as a coach and doing coaching is there's a whole lot of gray in between, and if I think back to, two decades ago, it was customer first customer's always right.

Right. And the last decade has been. The employee is always right. Take care of the employee. And what you just shared is it's. Not just one or the other it's yes. And it's there's multiple stakeholders involved. And so I love that triangle of, the, you said, I tell me if I got this wrong, the company, the customer and the employee.

And those are all different stakeholders who hopefully you can look like [00:14:00] if you're working on all of those, I was gonna ask, how do you build a culture of performance? And it sounds like you focus on all three of these elements weighted equally versus customer's always right. Or. Maximize shareholder value, which we all know that can cause some severe issues along so many lines.

We don't need to talk about, the short term nature of maximizing shareholder value for one quarter versus, for the longterm for a business and the employee. And I'm hearing like that. That level of balance creates performance, creates focus. 

[00:14:31] Alison: It does. Well, it's one of those, like our employees, are always asking you, whenever you ask the question, like who's satisfied with how much they're making?

No one is going to raise their hand, right? Because everybody wants more money. And so we talk about this with our managers all the time. Like we have to be really responsible and we have to be responsible in a way that allows our employees to feel invested in. And that could be dollars, benefits, career development, opportunities, training the [00:15:00] ability to do cross functional projects all of those things, public recognition, whatever their thing is.

And we can support and build. But if I were to go and give everybody a blanket 10 percent increase, it would actually really hurt the company because the company wouldn't be profitable anymore. And if the company is not profitable anymore, we stop investing in our product. We stop investing in our product and stop being able to hire and hire effectively than our customer.

Gets hurt. And if our customer gets hurt, then we have a retention problem. And so you can go through almost every scenario of how does it affect all of those groups? And most of the time it gets pretty clear. And then, of course, then it requires us as leaders to have strategic conversations and understand the impact of the decisions we're making and what the outputs are.

But it forces us To be conscious about those decisions, right? And we're like this one's going to hurt this person a little bit more, but we're willing to take the risk. But you have to have the conversation. And that, requires you to not do knee jerk [00:16:00] reactions. And in some cases, it's even deciding a customer is not a good match anymore and being willing to say, are we a product market fit still?

And if we're not a product market fit is that a problem? Is there something we need to do to become a product market fit? And I think that's one thing that as people leaders, we have a really cool opportunity to do now is before a lot of people didn't really care what HR had to say about that.

And now we get to go in and I feel like there is a new business world where we can come in and say, let us talk about that product market fit. Do we have the people to do what we say we're going to do? Are those people trained appropriately? Or do we have product innovation happening? And are we doing the, our good work?

To make sure our employees are learning what they need to for that new innovation so that we can make sure that we're evolving with our customers. And also then not doing a knee jerk reaction when our customers ask for something and we can't do it. So it's being willing to be honest with ourselves about all of those.

I feel like we 

[00:16:57] Aaron Levy: need to clone you and send you to a couple other [00:17:00] organizations because it's so interesting, the language that you're It's not Oh, we got this engagement survey. We're trying this new people things. And I'm sure you're doing a probably very innovative people thing. Yeah, I'm sure you're doing all that stuff.

But when you're talking about leadership, you're, when you're talking about culture, you're talking about, Hey, like, how does it match with what our clients need? How does it match with what our clients are asking for with the product? How does it match our profitability? this is what gets me excited about the people function is like, how do we enhance the effectiveness of the business, right?

Like our role as people leaders is to help the business succeed. And in doing that, like we have to inherently help employees succeed. , I'll go back to the triangle of accountability, I guess. I'm just, as you can see, very excited and in love with the way you're talking about it and thinking about it.

I think this is the future that I hope and wish for people teams. I think you're right that we have an opportunity and people leaders have an opportunity to start to use that language. And they say, well, how do you defend the ROI? Well, you don't [00:18:00] need to defend the ROI. You need to connect what you're doing to connect what you're doing to what the business objectives are.

And. It's like, how does sales defend the ROI of what they're doing? Well, they say, Hey, it's going to help us increase this number. So connect to the numbers that are, you're trying to increase within the business. I guess what I'm wondering is this triangle of accountability, the customer, the employee, the company, how do you foster that feeling within the company?

How do you foster that understanding within the company? 

[00:18:30] Alison: Well, first we talk about it a lot, especially with our leadership team. We're a startup. We were still feel very startupy. We're not a startup, but we felt, well, some would argue we still are because we're growing so quick, but we still feel we're very scrappy.

We run very lean. And it's something that we've decided this year, we are going to double down on our management team. There's a lot of things we can't do right now. And so we were like, what can we do? How do we play this game a little bit different? If I can't pay more than everybody in the market, [00:19:00] what can I do?

And so we decided we were going to make the best. People leaders we could make. We were going to double down. We were going to do off sites. We were going to invest. We were going to make sure our people leaders knew that they mattered. And by doing that investment, we know it's already paying off in dividends with our employees because we have employees going Oh, my gosh, I just had a, one on one agenda that like blew my mind.

And so we know that even something as simple as that matters to our employees. And we're seeing that there's results happening with our customers because the employees are getting better information and feedback in their one on ones, which now they're showing up to their customer meetings in a better, stronger, more profound way, which ultimately makes good things for the company happening.

And so we talk about it all the time and make sure that is a regular dialogue. We'll be really honest. If there's something we can't do because of it, we have biweekly or twice a month company meetings and we'll even talk about what makes sense and doesn't make sense or why we made decisions and didn't make different decisions.

We're fairly [00:20:00] transparent. We could have a conversation about transparency all day long, but ultimately we go on offense. We go tell them what we did, and we tell them how good we did it.

So if we commit to something around that triangle, when we do it, we go on offense. I think a lot of times as companies, especially in this temperature, we're all running on defense. Like, how do we make our employees not bash us on Glassdoor? How do we make our employees not be mad at us and gossip? How do we, and we're trying so hard to control our employees.

And they're gonna it's and it's okay for them not to be happy with what's happening. We are making that okay. It's okay to change. It's okay for not everybody to love everything that's happening. I am not the happiness and joy police. And so my job, I don't view my job as a core function of my job is to have happy employees.

 We are invested in their success. We are invested in pushing them to be the best that they can be. We're invested in their development. We're invested that if they want to develop in their career, we're going to show up , for them. We're invested in making sure we run a good business so [00:21:00] they don't have to wonder if they're going to have a job tomorrow or not, I'm really invested in those things.

And so we talk about it. We go on offense. We make sure after we do employee satisfaction surveys that we go and show all the things we did to have influence on it. And it we go on offense we talk about it. I love 

[00:21:18] Aaron Levy: It's so funny because when you think about why people leave organizations, it's number one the manager Right.

Like that's the key one, right? You're like, Hey, that's a given, that's a given. Let's talk number two and number three, but it's, it's anecdotally the ones that I hear often are when somebody is trying to take the next step in their career and not that they can't do it within the company, but that they don't trust the decision making of the leadership team or they don't trust the business is a good business.

So am I going to invest another five or 10 years here? Or do I go do something? Like I literally had that conversation with a friend the other day over lunch and I just don't trust that leadership team. So I don't. There's a level that you're not giving. I love that. You said the we got to tell the story of what we're doing and how we're working, tell that story of the future.

And also, for anybody [00:22:00] that's listened to this before, you've probably heard me share this, but any people issue with an organization comes down to either a lack of clarity, a lack of context or lack of safety to speak up. And what you just said is we are clear and we give the context of why we make a decision.

Here's what we did or didn't do. Here's why we didn't or didn't do it. And that is, it's simple. We don't have to pacify people just because they complain or ask for something. But what we do need to do is treat them like adults and say, here's, you're like brilliant adults, right? Who are smart and it can be taking our roles in any, anytime soon.

And what you're saying is. Here's what you asked for. Here's what we didn't do. Here's why we didn't do it. And here's what we did. Here's what we 

[00:22:38] Alison: did do. And here's why we did it. This is why we're, this is why we're investing where we're investing. It's it helps people feel a part of it.

And when you get real clear like that, there's people who don't want to be a part of it and you've got to be okay with that. Some people don't like the directiveness. They like the smoke and mirrors. We added a value at our company about over the last year, which is be direct [00:23:00] and it's not be a jerk, not be an asshole, not be the mean guy, but clear as Brené Brown says clear is kind.

And so we work really hard. To be clear. It's still something we struggle and wrestle with. We still have times where they're like, that was too clear, and we still have times where they're like, that's not clear enough. But that's where we strive to be because clear is kind and people are so smart and talented.

They can make decisions and we know they can and we know they have options and we're going to treat them and hold them accountable and support them and cheer for them. And we're going to build something amazing together if they want to be here. And it's great if they don't, 

[00:23:38] Aaron Levy: we 

[00:23:41] Alison: love you on your journey.

You sit down with any employee at 

[00:23:43] Aaron Levy: any company and you'll hear within 20 minutes of talking to them is they treat me like a fricking idiot. And let's not treat our people like idiots because they're not. And right. And it's not that you're attempting to treat them like an idiot by not giving the context, right.

Cause we, as executives, we say, Oh, well, here's what we're doing and we [00:24:00] don't have time. So let's just go do it. Or we'll share quickly and all hands. But what you're saying is, It only takes an extra minute or two minutes to say, Hey, by the way, here's what we decide to do based on that. And here's why we decide to do it.

And that's 30 more seconds. Yeah. Hope 

[00:24:17] Alison: you love it too. We 

[00:24:18] Aaron Levy: hope you love it. And if you don't love it, we can talk about it later, but it is, it's not this whole big thing. It is. It is. It's an extra 30 seconds to give clarity and give context. And so it's, uh, so incredibly valuable. I love there's so much more I want to dig in here.

I'm trying to think of where best to go, but I guess, how do you measure this? How do you know if you're doing this? Well, what are the ways in which you think about this triangle of accountability? 

[00:24:44] Alison: Yeah, well, one thing we always look at is where we from a profitability standpoint.

Our results actually happening Is there a business so you have to look at all of them, right? So if you're gonna have a triangle of accountability, then you have to go and have a measurement for all of it We have ESAT for our [00:25:00] employee. We have quarterly check ins so that we're having regular dialogue with our employees We're soliciting feedback at it should be every week every employee should be meeting with their manager every week.

We have more formal check ins every quarter. So there should be some formalized moment. We encourage all of our managers to make sure that there's a regular feedback loop and there's actually a subject on their agenda that is soliciting feedback from their employees. So we try to set up that regular cadence .

Of course we do the annual ESAT. We look at turnover. We look at the promotability within the organization. How many people are we promoting? How many people are we bringing along the way? We look at employee referrals. We look at all of the statistics that in HR you need to look at to make sure that we've got a health check, if you will.

Then we look at our customer. What's happening with retention? What's happening with our NPS? What is happening in the market? How are we feeling about the trade shows we're showing up to? What is the customer feedback that we're getting? We have a barometer of customer health and then we've got the financials for the company.

How's the company doing? Are we off? Are we [00:26:00] on? Do we have a future? Do we know where we're going? Are we being profitable? Are we spending? Spending in excess. Are we having to create policies to try to manage people or people stepping up and managing themselves? And , it's just taking a look at all sides of that triangle and making sure that you're doing.

I think 

[00:26:16] Aaron Levy: that actually simplifies it because when you look at every single department in a business, you could say, okay, here's the mark. You could say there's, 15 different departments or 10 different departments and here are all the metrics and there's 50 metrics. But what you're saying is, Hey, .

Let's pick these three buckets and I'll probably cross over from different departments and whatnot, but let's not lose the forest for the trees through the trees. Let's look at it and say, Hey, 

[00:26:37] Alison: what's our 

[00:26:37] Aaron Levy: employee health? What's our company health? What's our customer health? I love that simplicity, even though it's complex within it, right?

There's simplicity of does this fit in one of our health checks in our barometer 

[00:26:48] Alison: Well, it's one of those things that like we're, ours are off all the time. We're a startup, everything's changing. And so part of it is just letting it be bad and then figuring it out. Letting your employees tell you they're [00:27:00] frustrated about something and being okay with that.

You don't have to be perfect. You can have your customers frustrated with you about something. Okay, then let's go figure out what the problem is and then react. There's just such a knee jerk reaction. I think it's, some of it is how we're all raised in the trauma and trying to like. The amazing and number one.

And so we, we get really reactive and health checks allow you to also figure out preventative care, similar to going to the doctor. So are there preventative things you can do? Is it something, do we need to amputate? Probably not. So let's all calm down and find out what a sound business decision is here.

And sometimes it's sitting with the uncomfortableness. Sometimes our employees are mad at us. And like sometimes we have to sit with that uncomfortableness and really figure out why because sometimes they think they know why they're mad at you or frustrated with you as an employer. And frankly, once you start figuring it out, it was something different.

 So if we would have been panicked and tried to go fix the problem with something, we would have been fixing the wrong problem. So it's understanding and knowing that we're in a [00:28:00] relationship with all these people and relationships aren't good all the time. And that's okay. But it's what you do when they're not okay, which is where you build those bonds.

And sometimes people opt out during that sometimes. And but what we found is people really want to opt in because they like it. 

[00:28:17] Aaron Levy: I think you just, such, such a good life lesson. It's pause, sit with the discomfort. 

[00:28:22] Alison: Yeah, it's okay to, it's okay to be uncomfortable. It's okay for it to not feel good for a minute.

Cause most of the time when we react, it's not good. 

[00:28:29] Aaron Levy: Yeah, sit with it. I mean, that's a lesson I learned early in my career cause I have this desire to get shit done and move fast. I'm a problem solver, just do it, and I and when I reflected on any big fuck ups that I had, or all the big fuck ups that I had came from I'm moving too fast.

Panic moving to sending that email from my phone when I could have sat down on my computer and written it out or right. Trying to do something in five minutes when I needed to sit and sleep on it and do it tomorrow. [00:29:00] And so I think that's just such a wonderful lesson for all of us. And especially for people leaders to not have that knee jerk reaction of, one voice might be the loudest voice or a handful of voices might be the loudest voice, but they might not be the most important voices or they might not.

, give you the full perspective of the business or whatever it is. And so it's, sit, pause. You don't need to make everybody happy at every single moment. That's not what your job is. 

[00:29:21] Alison: Well, and it's one of those things is though is if you start panic responding then there's an expectation You're gonna panic respond and then you just sunk your battleship, man. If any time you are so panicked that you are like panicking that you got to send an email back You've got a relationship problem because you don't have any trust, right, and people only panic, most people will panic when they're worried about a breach of trust or they're worried about whether somebody cares about them or doesn't care about them or somebody's mad at them or not mad at them.

And so we set the tone. If we start panic responding and start acting crazy, they're going to be like, who the heck is even in charge in here, right? And it [00:30:00] doesn't build trust and it doesn't build confidence that there's people who know how to figure this out, trying to figure it out. 

[00:30:09] Aaron Levy: If leaders in general could just be more conscious of the decisions that we make, like pause, reflect, make a conscious choice, 

[00:30:17] Alison: the world would be in 

[00:30:18] Aaron Levy: a lot better place.

I'm so grateful that you've come on and shared your perspective and your experience. It's helped me think about how I can sit a little bit more versus having to do. So thank you so much. This was just wonderful. I'm so grateful that you came on.

[00:30:34] Alison: Well, thank you so much for having me. It's just really cool that people are engaging in dialogue with people who are in it every day. And I love that there can be a variety of opinions and you can pick and choose what works for you and doesn't work for you. 

Thank you so much for just having an avenue for people to share. Sometimes we don't, we're so in it, we don't take a pause and having a place where you can take a pause and hear some great feedback and suggestions is awesome. So thanks for even just having this forum.

Yeah. Thank you.