Speaker 1:
Welcome to Unpacked Podcast with your host, leadership consultant, Ron Harvey of Global Core Strategies and Consulting.
Ron's delighted to have you join us as he unpacks and shares his leadership experience designed to help you in your leadership journey. Ron believes that leadership is the fundamental driver towards making a difference.
So now, to find out more of what it means to unpack leadership, here's your host, Ron Harvey.
Ron Harvey:
Good morning. This is Ron Harvey. I'm the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Global Core Strategies and Consulting. We are a leadership firm based out of Columbia, South Carolina, and we spend all of our time, quite honestly, around helping leaders develop the skill sets, the emotional intelligence of being able to create a workforce or a culture that people want to be a part of.
How do you take care of your team, especially in today's world where it is very challenging with so many things happening, five generations in the workforce, how do we help leaders be really, really good at taking care of people? And so, we love that and enjoy that.
My wife and I both retired military, Army, and so we wanted to find a way to do something that we learned through the military to give back to leaders and corporations of nonprofits, educational systems, and the gamut goes on. But what we always do is we started a podcast really just to let you hear from leaders that talk real about what the challenges are, what success stories are, what are they thinking, and what are they seeing across the landscape in about 20 minutes. So hopefully you hang on with us for about 20 minutes, have a good time, enjoy the podcast and tell other people about it.
And so, with that being said, I'm excited to have Greg with us. He's joining us out of Detroit. So excited to have you and thank you for saying yes to the podcast.
Greg Williams:
Thank you very much. I'm excited to be here today.
Ron Harvey:
Yes, yes. So I'm going to give Greg an opportunity just to anything you want to share, what you do, who you are, a little background. So always I never introduce people and read a bio. So if you follow my podcast, you know I never read bios. I let people share what they wish, and I don't like long bios myself, but I send them because it's protocol, but I ask people not to read them. So I practice that on this podcast. So Greg, I'm going to hand the microphone to you.
Greg Williams:
Yeah, thank you. Born and raised in the Detroit area of Michigan, actually near Alpaniac and spent most of my life here. I have been working in the software business since I got out of college and ERP software, which is accounting, finance, inventory control type of software. And I've been at Western Computer for 15 years and I've had a number of different roles there as project manager, consultant, and the last 10 years in different management roles and now I'm a vice president there.
Ron Harvey:
Yes, yes. Well, thank you for taking time out of your schedule, and I know it's hectic and it's busy, so I always respect time when someone steps off. And it's good to have someone in an executive position that comes on and talks about you've come up through the ranks throughout the organization, been in the industry for a while, and we talk about leadership and the challenges. You're sitting in a VP's role. Can you think of... For a second, unpack briefly for us, when you first went into the industry and where you are now, have you seen the landscape of leadership change over time?
Greg Williams:
Yes, I believe I have. One of the things I've seen is less leadership over time because, in my opinion, there's not the loyalty between companies and employees that there used to be.
Growing up in Detroit area, people would get a job at General Motors or Ford and work there for life and they'd retire and that would be it. And nowadays, you have people switching jobs all the time. And I think that some people are able to get leadership skills through that because they get more opportunities. But in other cases, I think people lose out on an ability to build the deep relationships needed to become leaders.
Ron Harvey:
Yes, yes. I'm glad you said that, Greg, because I talk about it all the time. If people follow us or follow this podcast or read any books that we have out there or we've even served them, I talk all the time about the value of relationships. And so when you speak to, "Hey, do you lose?" No. So the world is moving. Those days of people hunkering down for 40 years, it's probably not realistic anymore for any corporation to think that someone's going to stay that long.
With that being said, how do you recommend that, if people are changing, that's the world we live in today from job to job, they don't stay 40 years. How do people at your level as a VP still build relationships even though you don't know if they're going to be there two years or 20 years? How do we work on it at your level to build relationships with people in our companies?
Greg Williams:
Well, you have to make an effort to do it. It's not just natural like it used to be. It doesn't just naturally happen over time because you're hanging out by the water cooler or having a beer after work, because now we all work remotely anyways, so you have to make an effort to build relationships with people.
Ron Harvey:
Thank you so much. So when you think about it, Greg, we are working remotely. How do leaders stay connected being that we are remote? Used to be a time where everybody was in the office. We had these major buildings. You went from one chair at your house to the chair in the office building doing the same job, and we said we couldn't get it done. We've proven that we can get it done. But there has been a struggle or a challenge to stay connected in this remote world. What have you practiced or what have you seen leaders doing to stay connected in this virtual world?
Greg Williams:
What I do personally is I take time to connect with people in a phone call or an online meeting and just chat a little bit about other things outside of work. I think that's really important. We get this mindset that because we're on a Zoom call or a Teams meeting, has to be all business. And I see nothing wrong with in a meeting like that to have five or 10 minutes of just catching up on personal stuff with the group and telling some jokes and things like that. That helps quite a bit.
Ron Harvey:
Yes, yes. And I'm glad you're saying it because we do show up sometimes it's, hey, we got 10 minutes in this meeting and it's all business, and we off to the next meeting, which has been a challenge because now we can do 10 or 15 meetings where before we can only do two or three meetings because so much travel and commuting took up that time. But now we'll go right from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting without reflecting and being connected.
So if you're listening and you're watching, don't lose the opportunity to be connected, even though it's virtual. You look at Greg, we talked a little bit before we started this podcast where he's at, where I'm at, what I do, and you want to make sure... I think the analogy I use for most people, Greg, is it's like having a cell phone and how strong is your signal? If you don't have a strong signal, you can have the best phone in the world, there's no transfer of data. And I think that's true in leadership. You got to have a good connection with your people or there's no transfer of development or even goals and vision. So staying connected is really, really important.
What are some challenges that you're noticing with us being able to take care of the workforce now that we're virtual?
Greg Williams:
Well, where do I start?
Ron Harvey:
Yeah, there's a ton of....
Greg Williams:
Yeah, there's a lot of them. I think making sure that people are getting what they need to do their job. I don't think that many people are inherently lazy. They have remote work. But if they don't have anything to do or they have a blocker that stops them from being able to start on a task, they can waste a lot of time. And they can't just walk in the next office and ask a quick question. So creating a space where people can either have self-service access to the resources they need or feel like they can reach out to somebody and ask them for help without, quote, unquote, "bothering them" is a very important culture to have.
Ron Harvey:
Wow. Go ahead, Greg. You're good. You're dropping some good nuggets. Hopefully y'all are jotting this down because this is real. How do you make sure that you're providing what your workforce needs, which is a space? They can't walk next door and get the feedback they normally will get in a space. So Greg is dropping some things that are super important. So if you're listening, I hope you're documenting and taking notes.
Go ahead, Greg.
Greg Williams:
So there's a few things. One is to be very conscious of your manners when you're speaking to people over messaging apps or email. Hello, good morning, please and thank you, all the things that your grandmother taught you.
Ron Harvey:
Yes.
Greg Williams:
You pull out those manners because these are impersonal communication methods and things can be taken the wrong way. I know it's a small thing, but starting every email with hello, hope you had a good weekend, and then get into what you need is everything. Because you wouldn't just walk up to someone at the water cooler and say, "I need that report now." You would say, "Hey, how you doing? Can I get that report?" So do the same thing over email and messaging apps and a lot of people don't.
Ron Harvey:
Yeah, I love it, Greg. In my head, as you're talking, the business before the business and the business has to be the person. So I love it. Go back to the manners. I feel as though we've gotten away from this thing of being kind and it's appropriate to be kind in the workforce. It's almost as though because you pay people, you got deadlines, short deadlines and demands that you forget that it's important to be kind so you can meet your objectives a lot sooner. So I love the idea of the business before the business, be kind. Start there. And especially in this communication where you're not in front of them, it goes sideways really fast.
Greg Williams:
Yeah, exactly.
Ron Harvey:
One word will disengage an employee really quick.
Greg Williams:
Yep. And there's another thing we do is we assign every new employee a buddy that's a peer typically in their department, but maybe not, maybe a complimentary department. And they go to them for all the unofficial questions. How do I do this? How do I do that? Things that aren't in the SOPs. And so, that's worked well for us too, to make people feel more comfortable as we onboard them.
Ron Harvey:
Yes, yes. Someone that you can go to that doesn't make it feel like you're incompetent and looking at you like, why don't you know that? Because oftentimes you come on board, you don't want to be the new employee asking stuff that they think you should know or they hope that you didn't know, and it puts you in an awkward position. And you'll spend months just trying to figure it out on your own because it's not safe enough to ask. So it sounds like you've created a space where it's safe enough to ask this person whatever you need to ask so you can get on board properly and you can be a part of the team a little quicker.
Greg Williams:
Yeah. And then, finally, have fun in your meetings. We use Teams with the online chat going through our meetings and Beesler posting memes of jokes, and they're trying to outdo each other of who can come up with the funniest meme during the meeting. And we have fun with that as well.
Ron Harvey:
Yes. And you're hearing this from the VP, so please, please, as you're listening here, get over yourself. You can have fun regardless of your title. Sometimes we let titles get in the way of being human. So if you're listening to this, don't take yourself so serious in every meeting that you can't relax and have fun and let people see that there's a lighter side to you. And we're not saying it's a trade-off for you being professional or for you getting results, but you'll be amazed, if you could create an environment where you can have fun and you can laugh, that people get to relax and it's not so serious and tense all the time.
Greg Williams:
Yes. And I've seen even executives at large companies that we consult for, they appreciate that as well.
Ron Harvey:
Yes. People want to relax. I don't want to be in a tense environment all the time. I'm sure there are moments for it, but I don't want it to be every day, all day because this is a part of it sounds like, how much have you guys at your level begin to pay attention to mental health wellness? It's a big topic. People talking about it. We're paying more attention and we're more respectful of it. How are you doing when it comes to taking care of the mental health for even at your level as a VP? How do you do it well?
Greg Williams:
I'm not an expert in this area, and I probably have something to learn here. I think one of the things that we watch out for, especially with our HR department, is making sure that people aren't overworking. If you see people logged in and working every night, all weekend, check in on them. And that's something in the consulting business that we've watched for years. We used to watch if people were traveling every week in a row. If you got up to six weeks in a row, it's like, "Hey, this guy's got to get off the road. Otherwise, he's going to burn out." Because when people burn out is when you start to see the unprofessional behaviors.
Ron Harvey:
Yes. Yeah. I love that you're paying attention to six weeks on the road, either burn out or not home enough, and you may have marital problems and people don't want to talk about that because, at some point, you don't want the other parent to be almost like a single parent even though they're married because the spouse is traveling so much. And you're looking at like, I love that you're talking about [inaudible 00:12:24], like we look at [inaudible 00:12:25]. Are you responding at two a.m. in the morning and are you doing it on Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays, and you never really do the work-life integration is what I call it? Are you working... Because it's easy to get stuck behind this computer and do 10 meetings in one day because you don't have to travel anymore.
Greg Williams:
Yes. It's really interesting that you said that. When the pandemic first happened, I read a business article with the CEO of Ford here in Detroit, and he said he had people, they all sent them home from the office and everyone thought, oh, well, when you're home, you can attend all the meetings and they're a global operation. They had people on meetings at two a.m. with China and five a.m. with people in France and so on. They were all burning out doing way too many meetings.
Ron Harvey:
Yes, yes. And because that's what it meant. It is like, hey, well you are available all the time. And at least when we were in person, they know you couldn't make every meeting. So it was almost like they understood it better. But now it's like, hey, all you got to do is jump off one meeting and jump into another.
I'll tell everyone that's listening, you actually need time from meeting to meeting, build it in, bake it in, and don't go back to back with meetings. I know sometimes it's not possible, but most times it is possible for you to have a 10 or 15, 20 minute break in between meetings. And I think we're just bumping them right behind each other and not having any dead space on our calendars. So I'll tell you, as a leader, I even have to say, "Hey, when's the next one?" And I build that in so you can go get some water, you can refresh, you can go walk, you can stand up, you can do something other than sit in that chair from eight o'clock in the morning to eight o'clock at night. That becom