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Rethink Culture is the podcast that shines the spotlight on the leaders who are rethinking workplace culture. Virtually all of the business leaders who make headlines today do so because of their company performance. Yet, the people and the culture of a company is at least as important as its performance. It's time that we shine the spotlight on the leaders who are rethinking workplace culture and are putting people and culture at the forefront.
Andreas: Good morning, good afternoon and good evening. Welcome to another episode of Rethink Culture, the podcast that shines the spotlight on businesses, on leaders of businesses that people love to work for. My name is Andreas Konstantinou and I’m your host. I see myself as a micromanager turned servant leader and developed in that process a passion for workplace culture. At Rethink Culture we’re on a mission to help 1 million companies create a healthier culture at work. And our latest project is the Culture Health Score, which is an online service that lets you measure your culture so that you can manage it. Today, I have the pleasure of welcoming Elizabeth Dixon. Elizabeth is many things. She’s an entrepreneur. She’s an ex-triathlete. She’s a speaker. She’s an author of two books, The Power of Customer Experience and The Strength of Purpose. She’s currently serving as president and CEO of Trilith Foundation, which is a nonprofit for artists, and she has children as well as a penny dog. Sorry, has a dog called Penny. And she tells me that her first job was when she was ten-year old as a character in a Disney parade, where she really learned to smile and greet people, and she’ll tell us much more about it. And so very welcome to the Rethink Culture podcast, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth: Thank you. It’s so good to be with you.
Andreas: So, we had a chance to chat before we pressed record, and you told me about all of the things and your businesses and everything else that you do in life. But before we talk about all of that, how can we help the audience get to know you a little better? So how did you, like, where did you grow up? What were your early influences? What led you to the line of work that you do today?
Elizabeth: I grew up in Orlando, Florida, and I wanted my dream, and aspiration was to be a Rockette, which is in New York City, they have a Christmas show and they have a dance program. And I always wanted to be one of the Rockettes in that program. And I wanted to be a wife and a mom. Those were my big early goals in life. I did not become a Rockette. I did eventually become a wife and a mom. But also one of the things that was kind of interesting, when I was about five, my parents gave me a Fisher-Price kitchen set. It had the oven and stove, the refrigerator, and then it had an ironing board. And most little girls would probably use the ironing board as it’s intended to be used. But I would pull it out and I would stand behind it, and I would pretend to preach and speak behind it. And my parents noticed that, and they said, there’s something about her that enjoys speaking. And as I got older and had more experience getting to communicate, it became something I was very passionate about, and it’s a gift now as an adult to get to spend a good amount of my time communicating and speaking and helping audiences be inspired and understand around different topics. So it started when I was teeny tiny and really young. And influential in my life, my parents, my brothers. I have two older brothers. After I got into the career world, there have been a number of people that have been very influential, but one of which is Horst Schulze, the founder of the Ritz-Carlton and then the founder of the Capella Hotel Company. He has been a mentor to me in customer experience and in leadership. Dan Cathy, chairman of Chick-fil-A, is also a huge mentor to me in leadership and in vision casting. And then one of my high school friends, Bo, he, his mom, was an executive at Disney, when I was in high school. And at the time, I don’t know, I guess it’s high schoolers. We don’t really know what our friends’ parents do, but after I graduated and got into the career world, I realized she was a vice president at Disney World, and she has become a huge mentor to me in how to be effective in the workplace and to be an excellent leader. So those are a few that have had a big impact on me.
Andreas: And when did you find your purpose, Elizabeth? And what is your purpose?
Elizabeth: Oof, sadly, I would say, I found it four years ago. I wish that I found it a lot earlier. It would have saved a lot of time and a lot of decisions. But my purpose is to reflect Jesus by galvanizing people and ideas for good. And so I love... The entrepreneurs out there will get that. When you love to come around a good idea and bring it to life, the leaders out there will get that galvanizing people. And you love to come around great people and help lead them and guide them and help elevate them in what they’re doing. And for me, my faith is a really important part and piece to me. So getting to use my gifts in a way that ultimately reflects my Savior is very important to me.
Andreas: And how do you get to practice your purpose every day?
Elizabeth: So every week I sit down, and I write out in a workbook that I have, I write out my purpose statement. I write out my top three priorities for that week. If I only got three big things done that week, what would those three be? And then I write out my habits that I need to accomplish those, and everything should align up. And that becomes a guide for my week. I also do that from a quarterly, an annual basis as well. And that’s how I do my goal setting. But then when it comes into the moments of each day, it’s those small decisions of am I going to say yes or no to this opportunity? And I quickly run it through that filter. That’s why to me, having a purpose statement that can be concise enough that you remember it is important because I have to run it through that filter to make sure that I’m putting my YESs and my NOs in the right places and so that it helps me in the moment. And then it helps me in the full week of preparation and then quarterly and annual planning too.
Andreas: And zooming in to culture and people, how do you use or how do you fulfil that purpose when it comes to, like the company you are leading or previous companies or the companies you work with?
Elizabeth: I think a big piece as a leader is making sure that we’re doing the unique role that we can do. And so for me, making sure that I’m helping with the innovation side and then stewarding the people, and how am I helping pour into them to know that they’re in the right seat on the bus, that they feel fulfilled and that they’re contributing well in their work, making sure we have clear plans with what does success look like. So it’s not a guess. Everybody knows what we’re trying to accomplish and what their piece and part in that is. And recognizing that there’s only so much time in the day and so am I truly doing the things I uniquely can do. And I’m not getting distracted by all of the rest that might be, you know, calling my name and calling for my attention, but using practical things for the team when they come and ask my opinion. Well, what do you think? Like, what’s your recommendation? What’s your perspective on this situation? And sometimes that process helps them come to an even better conclusion than they would originally have had. Or maybe even than I would have had. So making sure I’m being the coach that I need to be and not just quickly answering questions or making decisions that maybe I don’t need to make. Maybe it’s an opportunity for them to be able to lead up and to think broader. But it might be the questions that I ask that help them get there.
Andreas: Earlier we talked about this question you heard once, which is if your best friends and your work friends were in the same room, could you be that same person? So can you tell us more in how that question has impacted you?
Elizabeth: Yeah. When I first heard that question, my immediate thought was absolutely not. And I imagined either some of my best friends showing up at work or I imagine the people I worked with showing up at my house at a party, and I thought, no, there would be a conflict in who I show up as at work and who I show up as my friends. And the biggest difference I found was vulnerability. That at work it’s like I felt a pressure that I needed to have everything together. I need to have all the answers. I need to be so prepared. And I can’t just be. I need to do without being. And yet with my friends, I’m more of a human being, not a human doing. It’s about being present and available, interested, curious, supportive. And I thought, why? Why do I feel like at work I need to be this pristine version of myself, and I need to be interesting, and I need to have all these answers? What if I could be more of a human being at work and it changed everything for me?
Andreas: So what were some of the things you started doing differently?
Elizabeth: I started being willing to say, that’s a great question. You know, I don’t. I don’t know the answer off the top of my head, but it does make me think about and then lead us down a process of thinking and asking questions and being curious. It opened up for me this willingness to speak up more and ask more questions. This is a great topic we’re talking about. But, you know, I kind of wonder and presenting a question for the group, it allowed me to be honest with where I make mistakes and failures. And what that did inside me is it released so much pressure to say it’s okay to make a mistake. What you do with that mistake is what matters. You know, make that mistake a second or third time. That’s a problem. But making a mistake probably means that I’m going for something big. It probably means that I’m risking. It probably means I’m stepping into a space I’ve never been, and therefore I’m growing. And so releasing that pressure unlocked for me, this freedom to go for things, for myself. But then everybody around me, it made a difference. They went, oh, we don’t have to have it all together. We don’t have to have all of the answers. We can make mistakes. And that release and the oxygen that comes in the room when things don’t have to be perfect, the stiffness that’s released, people get to be themselves. And when we get to be ourselves, we’re authentically showing up and contributing to work in a way that’s going to make the work better. We’re not cookie cutter versions of each other, but we’re a complementary, be a beautiful conglomeration of personalities and giftings and wirings. And then finally, I think it let me see my unique contribution. Allowed me to recognize what my piece of the pie is, and then to value and appreciate everyone else’s seeing that they’re different than me. Therefore, we could complement each other.
Andreas: And vulnerability, I now realize has this magical property, which is it instantly turns judgment into curiosity because you say, oh, that is actually a person. It’s not someone who, you know, I have an agenda against or someone who said something that hurt me. She’s actually a person. And actually I’d like to meet her. And, you know, then I might change my mind, but you kind of suddenly open up to a whole new world of possibilities, from that, you know, corporate, is this person with an agenda and she’s in the middle, or whatever, to this is actually a human being that I’d like to get to know, and I’m curious to know more about.
Elizabeth: And when we have that kind of a relationship with someone, the people I think about that are very vulnerable and authentic, and they’re great leaders, I feel so safe around them. I feel safe asking questions and learning from them. I want to be under their leadership because I feel like I can push further and go farther and create more value because they’re not judging. They truly are curious. They do care. They want the best for me. And because of that, I want the best for them. I want their role to be elevated. And so creating that safety is so important in our organizations. And sometimes it’s really rare to find that.
Andreas: So let me put you to the test. You talked about vulnerability and leadership mistakes. What were some of your leadership mistakes that you learned from?
Elizabeth: Gosh, I love how you say, which are some of the leadership mistakes that you’ve learned from because some of them, we don’t learn from. We keep making them. So the ones that I have learned from, man, selection is so important. When you have that hesitation as a leader, is this the right person for this role to be willing to go through the whole process again in order to select the right person is so important. I’ve done the opposite, where I’ve thought, oh, I don’t have enough time to go through this again. I will just go for it. And it takes you longer and it costs you more. And it negatively impacts your culture because the rest of your people say, oh, well, she thought that this was a good decision. She thought this person would be good for our culture. But no. So that has been a huge one. And I, I try to be very careful about who is brought into the culture, knowing that it’s going to make a massive difference for our work, our effectiveness, and the culture that everyone is within.
Andreas: How long did it take you to realize?
Elizabeth: Oh, one time, one time, one poor hire.
Andreas: And it took you weeks or months?
Elizabeth: Oh, oh, to realize that they weren’t a fit. It took, it took months to... No. It took weeks to recognize. If I’m being honest, I knew it before I made the decision, but it took months to make the second-best decision.
Andreas: Right. Yeah. I remember we had someone... I was working in the company for a while, and as I became, as I became more sensitive to the culture I wanted to build, I saw that they weren’t a good fit, and I was seeing it come up again and again and again. And it took me nine months to convince their manager and the people and culture person that we need to be black and white regarding, is that person a cultural fit or are they not a cultural fit, and that we should not be making any exceptions to that rule.
Elizabeth: And that takes courage. It takes a lot of courage. That takes someone who cares so much about the health of the organization to lead with that.
Andreas: And it’s our duty. I mean, we have a duty to that person, but we have a duty to everyone else. And, like you said, when a person who is not a cultural fit joins the company, it sends the message that, oh, our manager is changing the way she or he thinks. And, actually, I can see it because, you know, her standards or his standards are changing, and it’s just so damaging because inactions and actions speak equally.
Elizabeth: And some of us as leaders who are hiring for positions, that’s not our gift to see talent quickly. My husband had lunch yesterday with someone who said that is his gift. He can spot talent. And I think it’s our role as leaders that anything that we’re not great at, we need to surround ourselves with people that are great in that. Let them be one of the earliest filters of interviews for the selection process and put processes in place to help supplement what we’re not great at. Don’t just forge forward trying to think we have to be great at everything because we won’t.
Andreas: One of my early lessons is that I should rely on the instinct, the gut feeling of the co-interviewers. So the other person, persons who are also interviewing the candidate. And if one person, one person’s gut instinct is off, and I trust that person, that recruiter, or that, you know, hiring manager or whatever they are, that’s enough to also throw me off. Throw the team off with hiring because we all see a different, keyhole view onto that same person’s universe. And it’s only going to be a keyhole view. So that, you know, if we have more, more eyes, we have a better understanding of the culture of it.
Elizabeth: That’s so good.
Andreas: And moving on to something else. What is one habit in the culture in your companies or the companies that you’ve worked with that you think it’s worth stealing something other people should know about, other people should be practicing?
Elizabeth: One of my favourites that I’ve experienced and has become very important for me in our culture, is a culture of celebration. Honestly, I am not the best at it because I’ll spend more of my time thinking about what’s next, and where we’re going, and everything else we’re going to do. And that brings me a lot of excitement. But to just pause and take a moment when we get recognized for the contributions that we’re making, when we get celebrated just for our birthdays or work anniversaries or great work that we’ve done, that celebration means so much because we feel appreciated, we feel valued, we feel like we belong in that culture. We feel seen. And so having a culture of celebration is really, really important to me. And I have to put systems in place. I have to have the team that I work with. You know, Jordan is incredible at selecting gifts. And so Jordan, can you help pick out the gifts for this person’s birthday? And she’s so detailed and good at it. And Mikelin is so organized. Okay. Can you make sure we know everyone’s birthday and which team meeting we’re celebrating who’s birthday? Like having the people that are great at the things they’re great at, they then are getting to contribute to it. And it probably wouldn’t happen without them. And that feels really good, when you’re a part of something like that. And it also helps us be consistent and do that really well. We made a mistake. Oh, Andreas, we made a mistake. We had a new person join our team. And her birthday was seven days after her start day. And in the onboarding process, we forgot to ask her for her birthday, all the details. And so we had a team meeting, and we celebrated one of the girls on her team, her birthday. Come to find out the new hire, Laura, her first day. I mean, not her first day. That day was her birthday. Oh, I was mortified. Are you kidding? We just celebrated Hannah’s birthday. That’s a week from now. And it’s actually Laura’s birthday. Today? We went into hyper mode. We got her a gift. We sent a card around. Everyone signed it. She was across the street. Four of us got on bikes, rode our bikes across the street and pulled up. And her face, like, she just had the biggest smile on her face. And she said, I will never forget this memory of y’all pulling up on bikes, bringing a gift, singing Happy birthday to her. Like, it was an epic fail for us. How did we miss this? But somehow being willing to go, oh no, let’s make this as right as we can. And to create that for her, she acted as though it was more meaningful to her that we’d paused everything we were doing that morning to make that a priority than if we had done the process the way we wanted to do it originally. So we’re going to make mistakes, we’re going to miss things, but we don’t need to hide under a rock about it or feel dumb about it. Like, move on. Like, let’s go make it right. And sometimes that ends up being more meaningful than if we hadn’t made a mistake in the first place.
Andreas: And also the number of times we celebrate with small things. I’ve stolen one of the habits from Simon Sinek. He uses it with his team, which is high five. So at the beginning of the team call, he has a very quick, you know, two-minute high five. Who wants to high five someone else in the team for something they did to help them to, you know, maybe slightly went out of the way to get their colleague to get, you know, the finished work sooner, whatever it is. I mean, that as a habit, it’s very powerful because it gets people to recognize, you know, recognize each other and make each other feel seen and heard.
Elizabeth: I’m a big Simon Sinek fan, and I have not absorbed that idea yet. And I’m going to. I think that that is fantastic, because if we do it in the small things, it’ll make its way into some of the big things.
Andreas: Exactly. Exactly. Elizabeth, you also mentioned before we hit record about how leaders get what they model, create and allow, which I really loved as a sentence. So tell us more about it.
Elizabeth: A friend of mine had said that to me before, so I can’t take credit for crafting it. But it’s really true. As leaders, the culture is going to become, we will get the things that we model, behaviours and words, the things that we create, where we’re going to prioritize and incentivize, and then the things we allow. And a few stories that stand out to me about this is when we think about what we model, the two major ways we model is behaviour and word. And Dan Cathy, who’s chairman of Chick-Fil-A, one of the behaviours that he consistently models is picking up trash. And he said how he learned that when he was a young boy and his dad had the restaurant, it started as the Dwarf House and then eventually became Chick-Fil-A. But as a young boy, his dad taught him that a piece of trash was like his ticket into the restaurant. And so it became a normal behaviour. And he picks up trash everywhere he goes. And he doesn’t ever ask you to pick up trash. He doesn’t teach you how to bend down and pick something up and throw it away. He doesn’t instruct you, he just does it. And by the act of doing it, everyone within the culture starts to do that. They model it. They see it’s important to him. Therefore, it can be important and probably should be important to me. And then our words, our words are so important. One of my friends hired a consultant to come in and help him with his organization, and one of the segments that they were looking at was around culture and leadership. And he asked a question to my friend, he said, what’s most important to you in your culture and in your business, even? What’s most important to you in your business? He said, my people, my people are most important to me and my business. He said, very good. And he went and spent time with his team and asked them, what is most important to your leader in this business? And he gathered their answers and went back to my friend, and he said, well, I’ve heard from all of your team. And when I ask them this question of what is most important to you in the business, their answer differed from yours. And my friend was curious. You know, what did they say? Maybe it was a different version of what I said, you know, and he said they unanimously said labour costs. And my friend was devastated. Like, what do you mean labour costs? Why would that be most important to me? And the consultant said something very important. He said, because it’s what you talk about most. And the things that we talk about most, the people around us attribute to be the most important, whether it’s at home, whether it’s at work, it’s in our community. The things that we spend the most time talking about, other people perceive that’s what’s most important to them. So we get what we model in the behaviours that we do and in the words that we say, what we talk about most of the time. We get what we create. We talked about fun and celebration. Whatever we want our culture to be and to become, we have to prioritize it. We have to create space for it. And we oftentimes we need to incentivize it and create ways, whether it’s a high five system, whether it is a compensation system. However we’re going to incentivize these certain behaviours, we have to create it. And then the last one, my dad often said, it’s the second decision that counts. And when we do select somebody who’s not a great fit, it’s the second decision that counts. Are we going to do something about it to make it right? When we make a mistake, are we going to do something about it to make it right when we, you know, when we make a choice that doesn’t turn out the way that we want it to, are we going to be open and honest and talk about that with our team? So it’s what we allow in the organization that ultimately those three become the kind of culture that we get.
Andreas: I love that phrase. I’m thinking, for my children, it’s something that I think they will very readily understand because, you know, especially as you grow up, you make mistakes. The question is, it’s what you do about them? You realize them. Now, what? Turn that discomfort into action.
Elizabeth: Yes. And the freedom that comes with that. I don’t know what age it is that we start to live in the box, and we colour in the lines, and we just have to be all together. Whereas younger children have this curiosity and this willingness to go try stuff. And I wonder if I can run up that. I wonder if I could climb that. I wonder if I could do that. I’m going to go try it. And somewhere along the way, many of us get boxed in and constrained in, like we have to do it right the first time. And that fear and that risk aversion holds us back from doing big, meaningful work. And so taking some of that pressure out, bringing a little bit of oxygen in to say no, you don’t need to get it perfect the first time. Like if you make a mistake and fail, you’re trying. You’re going for something. Just what you said. It’s what you do with it that counts.
Andreas: Elizabeth, you mentioned about the Chick-Fil-A founder and the Ritz-Carlton CEO being both big influences for you. And we heard the story about Chick-Fil-A. How about Ritz-Carlton? Was there something that you’ve learned from their culture that stands out for you?
Elizabeth: Oh, so much. Horst often talks... He has a great book. It’s called Excellence Wins. And he has an incredible way of taking complex elements around hospitality and customer experience and making them very simple and actionable. He’s incredibly gifted at that. But, man, there’s so many things. He talks so much about selection and onboarding and how to align people into the organizational purpose. And he would personally do the onboarding for Ritz-Carlton. And he often said, he said he learned this in books and writing from John Adams from a long, long time ago, that people do not relate to orders and direction. They relate to mission and objective. Orders and direction get our brain, but mission and objective gets our heart. And so he would spend those first eight hours of the first day of a new employee at the Ritz-Carlton, and he would orient them to mission and objective. And their motto was, we are ladies and gentlemen, serving ladies and gentlemen. And he would talk about excellence and being known as the best. And he would ask questions, in your role, what would that look like? And he would say, people on the housekeeping team would list out details of their job that he wouldn’t even want to tell them they had to do. But they would think of it. We would have to act in this certain way. We would have to remember every detail is just right, if we want to be excellent. He would orient them to that mission, and it aligned not just their head, but it aligned their heart into their work. And we were at an event. We were walking through; I think it was a Hilton. We were walking through a Hilton, and we had numerous people coming up to him saying, Mr. Schulze, in 1992, I worked for you at this location. Oh, Mr. Schulze, it’s so good to see you. You impacted me because you taught me. Like, person after person coming up to him, not talking about the incredible business he created, but how he impacted their life and taught them how to be excellent and great at their craft and at what they do. And I think that that kind of leadership and that kind of model for all of us, it makes such a difference. And it clearly permeated the organization of the Ritz-Carlton to, at that time, be the best hotel in the industry.
Andreas: Is that where you got your food for thought and experience, for The Power of Customer Experience book?
Elizabeth: Part of it. Some of the tension for the book came from the number of companies, when I was leading hospitality for Chick-fil-A, and at that time, Horst was a mentor for me. There were so many companies that would come and say, what’s the training module that Chick-fil-A does that makes the restaurants so great? And I thought, oh no, like that, that’s important and it’s great, but there’s so much that precedes that. It’s about mindset. It’s about culture. It’s about knowing the customer. It’s about pursuing innovation. It’s about defining what differentiates you. Those are the things that are so critically important. And Horst was a huge inspiration to me. I mean, I went from human resources in the leading hospitality, so my learning curve was very steep, and he helped teach me the timeless, simple principles that can show up for any organization and be critical, in order to be excellent.
Andreas: And what were the lessons you distilled into the book? What were the key takeaways? What’s 2 or 3 things we should keep from your experience?
Elizabeth: From my experience, from... I mean, I’ve gotten to work with incredible organizations as well, like, Zappos, you mentioned, and Southwest Airlines and Drury Hotels. We had a group that would meet once a quarter from these organizations because we all were top in our industries, but we always wanted to get even better and stay even scrappier. So we would come together and compare notes. What are y’all doing that’s working? What are we doing that’s working? Because we knew that iron would sharpen iron, and it would help us all improve and get better. So I think a top lesson from across all of that learning. One of them would be, one of them would be it starts with mindset. Our mindset determines what we get and whether that’s in our personal life, whether that’s at work. It’s that narrative that’s in our head that is going to determine how we show up, how we act, and ultimately the results we get. So spending more time thinking on our thinking is really important. We think on our work, we work on our work. But if we can spend more time thinking on our thinking that that will, that will impact and change so much. I also think truly knowing what our customer wants and values and how often our customers will articulate their wants but being able to identify what the value is underneath that, is really important, because it will help us unlock innovation and how we can pursue what’s next for our customer. And then one that I’ve learned, in the past two years that I think is really important, is the purpose piece and really understanding that if we don’t have a personal purpose, then often we’re going to extract our purpose from our work instead of bringing our purpose to our work. And that can be a dangerous equation. And so being able to know what our personal purpose is and then as leaders, being able to have a very clear and compelling organizational purpose is really, really critical in order to be most effective in the workplace.
Andreas: And, also, I wanted to hear, like, a very quick summary or the framework you use in your book The Power of Customer Experience. It’s how I met you. Because you were in the... you were teaching the Entrepreneur Masterclass, a master’s program that I was attending. What can we learn about the power of experience? What’s your thesis?
Elizabeth: So my thesis is the power of the experience, it happens between the frontline employee and the customer. Like we can have our theories and strategies. And that was my role at Chick-Fil-A. But where the magic really happens is what happens between that frontline employee and the customer. So I wrote the book to that employee. And leaders love it too. But it’s really written to that frontline employee. I think the outcome, that’s where it happens, the outcome is impact. It’s impact on people’s lives. And ultimately that impact, it drives business success. The framework to get there is to choose your mindset, create your culture, know your customer, define your differentiator, and pursue innovation and iteration. And those are not things we do once, we set them, we’re good and now we’re going to do something else. They’re continual. Culture is living, it’s people. It’s lives. It’s humans. We have to continually keep it alive. Our mindset, having more of a fixed mindset or a growth mindset, such great content out there now about that, we have to continually evaluate our mindset and think on our thinking. Knowing our customer. Needs are changing. Competitors are changing the landscape. We have to constantly stay connected. What differentiates us today might not be what differentiates us ten years from now. So how are we staying ahead and how are we stepping into that space of iterations that lead to the bigger innovations that are going to keep our brands and organizations healthy and cutting edge in the future? So those five things I found when we do really, really well and we can communicate them and inspire them to the front line of the organization, ultimately it leads to impact in culture and our business outcomes.
Andreas: So, what are these five things again, if we can summarize them?
Elizabeth: Yeah, for sure. It’s to choose your mindset. We get to choose it. It’s to create your culture. It’s an active creation of culture. It is to know your customer, who they are, what they value, what they want next. It’s to define your differentiator. What makes you unique in the marketplace. And it’s to pursue innovation and iteration.
Andreas: And, Elizabeth, as we come to wrap up the podcast, what is one thing you think leaders need to rethink?
Elizabeth: I think...
Andreas: What’s one thing we often ignore as leaders?
Elizabeth: I think this is something for myself at least, and something that I’m really focusing on. And it’s related to what we talked about earlier, and it’s talking about mistakes and talking about failure. And I think as leaders, I’ve experienced the more responsibility you have, the more pressure you feel, the more perfect you think you need to be. And I just had a situation the other day. I had a document that I needed to sign, and I thought, oh, I need to know everything it says and make sure I know what I’m signing. And the young gentleman, Harrison, who brought me the document to sign, I thought, you know what? Harrison knows way more about this document than I do. I’m just going to ask him. And I said, Harrison, when you look at this 54-page document, what do you look at that’s most important? And he spent five minutes telling me the three most important things that he would look at. And I don’t know for sure, but I think he enjoyed that moment of getting to be the expert in the room at that. I learned a ton, because I didn’t have to go through 54 pages to figure out the three things that I should look at, and now I know, so I can take that forward with me, but I think this idea of not feeling this pressure that we have to have everything figured out, we just need to know the role that we need to play. And sometimes it’s not having the answers, it’s finding the answers, and it’s bringing people along in the process to get to that conclusion and in that vulnerability, being willing to talk about where we make mistakes, where we’ve failed, where we’re learning, where we’re growing, where we’re aspiring toward. And I think it creates a whole lot more humanity and vulnerability around us. So I think I often overlook it, and I see the benefit when I create that space for myself and the space for those that I work with. So it’s something that I’m learning to do more of the time.
Andreas: Elizabeth, where can people find out more about you?
Elizabeth: Well, there’s a website, elizabethdixonspeaks.com, and that’s where there’s great speaking resources for events that folks have coming up. Speaking on customer experience and then also speaking on purpose, knowing our purpose in life and knowing our organization’s purpose in business, and the power, when purpose-driven people work for purpose-driven organizations, they outperform the rest. Also on Instagram and LinkedIn @ElizabethDixonSpeaks or /ElizabethDixonSpeaks.
Andreas: And any parting words or any book you’d like to recommend or anything else you’d like to leave us with?
Elizabeth: I think, a favourite book over the past few years has been Warren Berger’s, A More Powerful, A More Powerful Question, I think it is? I’m blanking on the title right now. And then his second book, A Book of Questions, those are awesome to help expand curiosity in question-asking. And then a final thought, a fun thing I told you about, our sleepwear business for ladies, helping them look cute and be super comfortable. Slumber Sleepwear is the fun, gift-giving opportunity for guys, for the women and ladies that you love. And then for ladies and leaders out there, you’re doing so much in the day that sleeping well is really important to living brilliantly. So slumbersleepwear.com is a great resource too.
Andreas: That’s a great idea. Nice, nice niche. So, Elizabeth, thank you for your humility, your vulnerability, and for being so purposefully, not... purposeful not just, you know, for yourself, but helping others find purpose. And I know you really believe in that. And to everyone else that’s been listening to us, thank you for giving us your undivided attention for the last 40 or so minutes. And if you enjoyed the show as much as I did, speaking here with Elizabeth, then do leave a five-star rating wherever you listen to your podcasts. And while you’re there, you can also subscribe. And you can also check out YouTube, where you can see us and not just listen to us. And if you want to find out more about how you can measure your culture so you can better understand your culture and where it excels and where it can be improved, you can just go to rethinkculture.co. And like I love to say at the end of the podcasts, keep on creating a happier, healthier workplace for you and especially for those around you.
Elizabeth: Awesome. Thank you.