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This is the Executive Connect Podcast - a show for the new generation of leaders. Join us as we discover unconventional leadership strategies not traditionally associated with executive roles. Our guests include upper-level C-Suite executives charting new ways to grow their organizations, successful entrepreneurs changing the way the world does business, and experts and thought leaders from fields outside of Corporate America that can bring new insights into leadership, prosperity, and personal growth - all while connecting on a human level. No one has all the answers - but by building a community of open-minded and engaged leaders we hope to give you the tools you need to help you find your own path to success.
Melissa Aarskaug (00:01.224)
Welcome to the Executive Connect podcast where we explore innovative leadership ideas and transformative insights. I'm thrilled to introduce Jason Anthoin here today to talk about employee relationships within organizations. Inspired by his father, a former assembly line foreman at a school bus factory, Jason specializes in effective communication with blue collar workers.
He has guided numerous companies in transforming their internal communication strategies to boost workplace culture and enhance business outcomes. Welcome, Jason.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (00:40.548)
Thank you so much, Melissa. I appreciate it. I'm really excited to be here.
Melissa Aarskaug (00:45.416)
We're so excited to have you and as I normally do, we're just gonna jump right in and talk about friction company communication. I know that the big buzzword these days is maintaining frictionless communication amongst different levels within organizations. So from your perspective, let's discuss a little bit about communication challenges that companies are having right now.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (01:09.508)
Well, you know, I love it when people say right now because we're having the same communication challenges now that we always have had and we always will have just because, you know, at least right now there are humans working in all of these organizations and humans are funny. So, you know, some of those challenges typically include leaders who don't think they have the time or the skills or maybe.
you know, a strong enough relationship with their employees to feel comfortable to communicate with them. And then, you know, on the employee side, I'm hard to reach. I'm used to things like, you know, TikTok and Instagram when I'm not at work. And if my communications from the company aren't like that, then they're boring and I don't want to read them or watch them. And so, you know, there's just a ton of things that sort of cause that friction. And there are a lot of ways to reduce that.
overcome that. Some digital, some not digital. But to me, the biggest thing is that you both need to want to. I want to be communicated to, I want to get feedback, I want to know more about what's going on in the company and what I can do to help. And the company also has to feel the same way. It is important for us to communicate and build relationships with all of our employees, not just the ones that are easy to get to just by pushing the email button.
Melissa Aarskaug (02:39.016)
Yeah, absolutely. I think it's like you mentioned, it's a mutually, a mutual want. I know a lot of times I have a high energy, fast pace dialogue when communicating. And a lot of times I've had to re change how I speak to people because they were, I was moving so fast for them that it was hard to understand what I was saying. So just kind of what you were mentioning a bit, can you share some tips and tricks for people on?
what is the best way of communicating? I know a lot of times, you know, we think we're communicating, like you said at the beginning, you're right, it's been a long time. We think we're explaining things clearly and then things come out the wrong way. And as in your experience in the factory, it's important to understand what we need to do because everything builds on top of each other to get to the final product. So any...
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (03:34.5)
Yeah.
Melissa Aarskaug (03:34.792)
I guess the question is any tips you can share with our listeners.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (03:38.084)
Yeah, absolutely. I think the biggest tip is particularly for what we call distributed employees, those who are non -wired, which typically be end up being sort of blue collar types of employees, frontline employees. The biggest thing is to ask them how they want to be communicated with. Most times organizations just kind of skip over that and say, you know, we've got an internet, we've got email, we've got digital signage.
And then, you know, your frontline supervisor might do some team huddles, you know, before or after shift. All of which or none of which might be what your employees want or not. So just ask them what they want because what's important is some people, like you were just saying, well, this is some people learn by listening. Some people learn visually. Some people like a mix of those things.
And so the more you can think about who your audience is and what their preferences are, the easier it is to tailor your communications for them. There's a whole lot of other conversation we can have about what the messages need to be, but the actual delivery of that really should take into account what your employees want and how they want to receive information and how you want to receive information and communication back from them.
So once we establish those things, then we can start building, you know, who's going to do it, when they're going to do it, you know, what are they going to say when they do it. But we have to start with a foundation of what is that literal connection of the communication between one and the other before we can have any of that other stuff even be remotely successful.
Melissa Aarskaug (05:20.424)
In your career, do you have any examples that you can share about maybe some challenges you've had with communication in your career?
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (05:29.06)
gosh, yes. Just because I'm on here talking about how to do communications really well doesn't mean that I do that really well all the time. Even when I've been on the corporate side and working as head of communications for different organizations, we would get it wrong all the time too. There's some really good examples. All right. One is I worked for a company, we had 60 ,000 employees.
30 ,000 of those we could reach on email, 30 ,000 we could not reach on email. And when I first got there, nobody knew that. So whenever we were sending an email out from the CEO about what's going on with the quarter or how the business is doing, the team would just hit the email button thinking it's going to 60 ,000 people.
It's only going to 30 ,000 people. And so, you know, we're missing half of the organization. And by the way, that half is the one that builds all of our stuff. And so they're not getting any of the information. So that was a, you know, a big miss when we went, you know, when I first arrived at that organization. And so we, you know, we quickly fixed that. Sometimes that means giving everybody access, you know, to email, which sometimes can be a little bit of a, you know,
budget crunch because of licenses and things like that. But other times it's all right, we can reach the managers and supervisors. How can they then take that information and share that in a different way with those employees who aren't reached by email? So, you know, that's one big example. There's tons more. Like a lot of organizations have digital signage. We push out content on digital signage that has QR codes on it. So people don't have time to.
stand there and read the whole thing. So they just see it, click it, and it goes somewhere. Sometimes people forget to put the links in there for where the QR code is supposed to go. So you think you're communicating and people are actually, there's a code and it goes and it's not going anywhere. So there's a lot of little hiccups like that that happen that sometimes get kind of missed in the rush to make sure the bigger things are working and we're trying to, you know.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (07:49.252)
reach everybody as often as we can, but it's easy to kind of overlook some little details like that, which can derail the whole thing.
Melissa Aarskaug (07:58.92)
Yeah, absolutely. I think of communication, like you said, is not just verbal communication. It's like through email, it's our body language, it's how we interact with people. And then, I think there's another layer of it when we look at different cultures and how they communicate and how they work. So kind of peeling back the layer a little bit and looking at culturally, is there, from your perspective, have you seen different communication struggles through different cultures?
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (08:07.3)
Mm -hmm. That's right.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (08:15.044)
100%.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (08:28.996)
Absolutely, that's a really important point about culture, not just the culture of the organization itself and all the different little subcultures that they all have, but also culturally as in where people live on the planet. So what might be appropriate for the US might not be appropriate for APAC, for example. And a great example of that is,
Most of the employees for our clients who live in APAC use WhatsApp to communicate between themselves. It is rarely an official company channel, but that's how they want to communicate. And so there's a bunch of communication going on amongst those employees that A, the company's not aware of, B is kind of off and not, you know, not tucked behind safely behind the server and the firewall. It makes the IT people all nervous, but that, you know, that's how they've
They prefer to communicate. So we have to take that into account culturally from where the people live, but then also the culture of the organization. You may have the kind of culture where it is perfectly normal for the CEO and other senior executives to show up at your facility and walk around and talk and, you know, get to know people. Other places, if the CEO and a bunch of executives show up, it causes panic because
They don't normally do that. And so something must be wrong. And then if you know they're coming a week before that, you know, people are spit shining the whole place. So it is spotless when the CEO gets there. So the culture, I think really kind of helps determine what's going to work and what's not, you know, there are, there are times in certain cultures where short, you know, tick tock style videos work really well because you have that kind of workforce. There are times when that won't work well. Maybe you have.
an older workforce or one that's not quite as digitally connected as you might think they are. Old school posters and bulletin board postings and things like that work just as well. So you always have to take that culture into mind when you're thinking about how to reach them, what's going to work, what feels like us, not, I read this somewhere or I was on a webinar and they said, do this, this is a best practice.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (10:50.468)
best practices are a bunch of hooey. The part about a best practice is the practice part. Anything can be a best practice as long as it's the right thing and you practice it. So just because the industry says do it, that doesn't mean it's necessarily right for your culture.
Melissa Aarskaug (11:05.896)
Yeah, absolutely. I think about the different industries I've worked in and from banking to engineering to casino gaming. And in these industries, it's quick to the point. There's not an hour dialogue of communication on how things are gonna be done. It's very short. Like you mentioned, TikTok videos about what we need to accomplish. And...
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (11:10.404)
Yeah.
Melissa Aarskaug (11:28.776)
Like you mentioned, APAC and Europe and other areas, they wanna sit down for an hour and have a beer and visit and talk about things and sort through things. And so it's a much slower communication process than I think a lot of times we are in the United States is quick, get things done quick as possible. Do you understand? Good, go. And so the problem with that is a lot of times...
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (11:34.628)
Yeah, that's right.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (11:50.404)
Yeah.
Melissa Aarskaug (11:56.936)
what people are communicated, we think the receiving person understands what we're asking for, but I find that that's not always the case. So a lot of times what I'll do is say, do you understand what you need to do? And I'll ask them to explain it. And then when you hear it back and you understand what they're saying,
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (12:04.164)
Yeah.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (12:22.34)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Melissa Aarskaug (12:25.128)
If it's right, then they can go. If it's not, you can kind of correct it a bit. And so that's kind of how I try to bridge some of the cultural and, you know, just age gaps, race gaps, country gaps, all kinds of different gaps in communication.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (12:30.404)
Yeah.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (12:40.544)
Yeah, it's funny you say that about working in an engineering organization. I've worked in several large manufacturing companies, tons of engineers in there. And so, you know, we have a meeting with just the engineers, senior executives talk about whatever they're going to talk about. And at the end, they say, all right, who has any questions? Engineers hardly ever raise their hands because they're a little bit introverted, which is fine. Most people are to a certain degree and certainly, you know, in a big...
public space like that. And so the there's no question. So the assumption is they get it. We understand it. No. Now they're going to go back. They're going to sit and think about it. They're going to talk with their buddies up and up and down the hall and on Slack and Teams and whatever. And then they're going to have their questions because they're engineers. That's the engineering process. So just because they didn't raise their hand doesn't mean they get it and also doesn't mean they don't have questions. So.
In that type of culture, it's fantastic to wait a few days and then follow up. All right, you all had time to think about it and percolate on it and talk with your buddies. Now what questions do you have? So you're exactly right around really tailoring things to the culture. In a high tech company, that would not fly. They were going to have questions immediately. They won't answer immediately. And then they're off to the next thing.
Melissa Aarskaug (14:02.536)
Yeah, I think about, you know, back in my previous life in engineering, there was a leader who was communicating with the field workers to basically cut out an amounted, right? And they thought they were actually taking out the dirt in an area and moving it to another area, which in heavy equipment, it's not a cheap process to move a giant mountain from one side to the other side. And so,
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (14:28.356)
Right.
Melissa Aarskaug (14:30.856)
They went along and did what they thought that leader wanted them to do, which ended up costing the company a lot of money. And they, because they didn't really understand what they were being told. English wasn't their first language. And the leader that was communicating it was in very impatient, I would say not very friendly personality. And so they just said, yep, got it. We're going. And so I think, you know,
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (14:54.436)
Yeah.
Melissa Aarskaug (14:58.792)
When I think about communication, there's the we need to get the job done. And then there's the difficult conversations. In that example, if they didn't really understand, they should have said, what I hear you saying is this, and clarify before they go and do something. So when I think of difficult conversations, it could be anything like that example, or maybe a...
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (15:16.516)
Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa Aarskaug (15:25.768)
employees not performing well and you have to have that discussion or people are showing up late to work. And so I guess the question for you is in avoiding difficult conversations, it can be really detrimental to anybody's business in any field. And so I want to get from your perspective, the long term impacts of not having these tough conversations with employees.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (15:29.956)
Yeah.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (15:42.852)
Absolutely.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (15:52.804)
There's that's a that's a great question because there's there really is a long term impact. So in the example that you just provided where, you know, a mean leader said go and do this and people like, yeah, something's broken in the relationship there where those people probably didn't feel comfortable to raise their hand and ask a question. I think sometimes both the askers and the answerers confuse asking a question with being questioned.
Melissa Aarskaug (15:55.4)
questions.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (16:22.18)
Like I'm not necessarily questioning the decision or your authority, but I am asking a question about what it is exactly that you want us to do. And so I think that that happens a lot. And so, you know, you're avoiding a difficult conversation there and sometimes you don't even know you're avoiding it because people have just learned to be that way because this is how that leader is and this is how we have to act. So I think you have to be cognizant of that. And then I think the other thing that happens is.
The longer you avoid those difficult conversations, the more friction begins to build and build on top of it and build on top of it. And then different kinds of frictions kind of show up so that, you know, over time things are getting worse. I, you know, I watch a lot of YouTube videos about physics and things like that and things, once they're perfect, they will not stay that way. They will tend to become unperfect and even more unperfect over time. So if they're already not,
perfect, they're going to get worse. Nothing hardly ever gets better on its own. So it applies in physics, it applies here as well. And so the longer you let that kind of stuff linger, the more difficult things become. So as a leader, I think it's important for you to initiate those conversations yourself. There might be a lot of reasons why your employees aren't comfortable doing that. But if you initiate the conversation and it's very conversational,
Not necessarily, hey, let's meet at 3 to 320 on Thursday and hammer out some things that I don't think you understand. That's the wrong approach. Just drop by wherever it is they are and say, all right, here's what we talked about. Let me know what you think about that. Is that going to work or not? I mean, you're the ones doing it. So does this work? Does it not work? So sometimes it'll take the leader having to initiate that. Sometimes leaders are a little bit reluctant to do it because they're like...
I told them what to do, I don't know why I have to explain it again, but you do. Humans are humans. But the point is, the longer you avoid any sort of those kind of friction -feeling conversations, the worse they're going to get. So just tackle them head on. Just head on. So if you're a leader, initiate that conversation. If you're an employee that has a question, ask your question. Because undoubtedly, 50 other people standing around you have the same question.
Melissa Aarskaug (18:48.008)
Yeah, well said. And I think the other thing for senior leaders, if your people are silenced and they're not giving feedback and they're not communicating, that should be an immediate red flag that maybe either needs to be escalated or maybe pulling aside one on one and better understand why an employee that's been verbal for a long time has gone silent. And I think that's something we all.
you know, like you mentioned at the beginning, it's something we're all working on is better communication. And I think, you know, effectively communicating to your employees is key and making sure that they're, they feel safe to give you feedback and tell you things like, Hey, I can't come in at eight because I got to drop my kid off now. Can I come in at eight 15? So do they feel safe to tell you that? Or do they just show up at eight 15, hoping and praying that you're not going to say anything. So I think creating.
you know, an open dialogue and with your employees and the people that you interact with, your friends, your spouses, your children, creating a safe and comfortable space for them to come to you and talk, I think is really key in communication these days.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (20:01.316)
Absolutely it is. So many companies talk about employee engagement surveys and things like that. Our engagement score is 75 % and that's really good, but they still have high turnover. It's because of stuff like that. You send out the engagement survey and people go, yes, absolutely it's good. I'm telling you it's good because I don't want you to ask me any more questions. I'm just going to tell you what you want to hear.
And I may be engaged not because I love this place, but because I've got three kids and a mortgage and I don't want to lose this job. So engagement number can be so tricky to understand and to your point, I might feel engaged this hour, this afternoon after somebody's made me mad, I might not feel engaged at all. So, you know, that whole idea around that engagement score really does sort of hinge on not the communication as much as what...
what the communication creates, which is a stronger relationship between the leaders and the employees. Communication can help you do that. Without it, no, you're not going to have it. But with it, you have the opportunity to have it, plus a whole bunch of other things that go into creating that relationship. But if you're not really focused on building those relationships, then you as a leader, employees in their careers, and the company as a whole,
just aren't gonna get to where you need to get to be successful. Can't.
Melissa Aarskaug (21:29.064)
Yeah, I think about the engagement survey. A lot of times I hear people say, my gosh, we have 90 % of our employees are so happy. We have the most happiest employees. And like you mentioned, key people are leaving the company. But a lot of times I feel like the engagement survey people and employees know that they're being seen and what they put in those surveys. If they say, you know,
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (21:44.964)
That's right.
Melissa Aarskaug (21:55.912)
You know, one, I don't like my boss. They're afraid for retaliation and other things. So they, you know, they score up things. And so I, I find those surveys really interesting, in companies that say they have really high retention, but there are, excuse me, scores, but they don't have high retention.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (21:58.148)
Mm -hmm. Sure.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (22:03.972)
That's right.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (22:09.86)
Yeah.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (22:13.54)
That's right. And I think too, you know, there's nothing wrong with engagement surveys. I don't want to pick on them, but you know, that's just one data point. So, you know, in what you just explained, let's get the survey back. Let's look now. Let's go out and just talk with a select group of employees and say, generally, everybody ranked this question as a three. How do you feel about that? Why or why not? What's important? What's not important? So that you can get some.
Melissa Aarskaug (22:21.96)
Yeah.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (22:40.548)
emotional context around why they answered the way they did to go with those rational numbers that show up in the engagement survey results themselves. The rational is okay, but without the emotional context around that, you're only getting half the story.
Melissa Aarskaug (22:59.4)
Yeah, absolutely. So in the world where we're all on our phone all the time and always sending emails and not communicating verbally, is there some tips that you can share with our listeners on ways they can become a better communicator and maybe even listener when they're leading people?
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (23:07.652)
Bye.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (23:20.964)
Yeah. And that really has become, not that it never was, but it's become even more important now since the pandemic, mostly because almost every organization just through any kind of platform that their employees that they could to connect to them, Teams and Slack and Zoom and WebEx and whatever else like, all right, some of you aren't going to be working in this building anymore. That's fine. You can fight that or not in any way, but that's the reality.
Some of you will never have the opportunity because you're working on an assembly line and that's just not an option for folks like you. So what we've done is just throw a bunch of digital tools at everybody. And we've done a pretty good job of connecting to them, but we've kind of forgotten about the main point of that, which is to connect with them. So the more you can use digital tools to have that feel like a true connection.
You know, it's a high tech approach to help deliver this high touch feeling. so an example of that, so most leaders, I'm going to make it up. So most leaders like, all right, we're going to have a team meeting on Mondays and Thursdays. And so they send out the invite and everybody shows up and then we go through this thing for an hour and people are doing other stuff while they're supposed to be paying attention. And on Thursday, we're going to repeat that.
That's the only time the leader really kind of connects with to their employees. So Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday are wonderful times to just schedule one -off meetings with any of your employees individually, small groups, or collectively. And you talk about anything but work. Like what's going on? How are things going in your life? You know, people want to have conversations about things, particularly with their managers and leaders.
that don't necessarily have to do with work. And the more you understand them as people, the better you'll understand them as your people. And so what can we do to have more connections that talk about what if versus all of the what is that everybody has to deal with and focus on every day? And that's just an easy thing to do, particularly, you know, if you've got people connected digitally like that. If you don't,
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (25:46.98)
then the old school management by walking around concept still applies. You're going to have shift change meetings, you're going to do monthly or quarterly town halls, and that's how you primarily connect with your employees who aren't digitally connected. Great. In between that, get out there and talk with folks. You eat your lunch in the break room. You hang around in the parking lot like they hang around in the parking lot. All these things are opportunities for you to insert yourself into.
their lives. It's very hard for them to insert themselves into your life just because of the roles and the dynamics and the politics of what happens inside most workplaces. But it's easy for you to do that. So do more of that. That takes everybody's guard down and then you will get more honest feedback. Then you will get more questions. Then you will get more ideas because now people see you as not, now he sits in there and every time he comes out here it's because something screwed up and it's probably my fault.
If I have a conversation and a relationship with that leader on a more regular basis, then it's perfectly acceptable for that person to come up to me and start a conversation. Because then I'm not panicked that I've messed up.
Melissa Aarskaug (27:00.168)
Yeah, absolutely. A lot of times I hear people say, Jason, whether, well, I'm not, I'm just not social. I'm a non -social person. I like to come to work and do my job and, you know, and eat my lunch and then go home and see my family. And I think, you know, if you're not social and you're not comfortable starting dialogue with people, simple things like, wow, it's hot outside. Wow. Can you believe it?
It's snowing as much as it did last night. How was your weekend? I think those are teeny ways to start dialogue. I know a lot of times when I worked in engineering, people would just walk. There'd be 20 people in a room, and they're all kind of circling and walking around each other getting stuff done, and nobody's talking to each other. And I would stop and say, hey.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (27:26.612)
Right, whatever, exactly.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (27:49.444)
That's right.
Melissa Aarskaug (27:53.448)
How was your weekend? How was your kid's ballet? And people would look at me kind of like, why is she asking? And I think that's the other side of what you were saying with these meetings is we're all here to do a job no matter what, whether if you're an owner of a company or a W2 employee, everybody has something to get done. But I think the human factor is really important in any teams or any business that you're running and really understanding.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (28:05.828)
Yeah.
Melissa Aarskaug (28:22.184)
who's working for you, what they're focusing on, and just understanding outside of just doing the job. I think the more that you include that human factor in your dialogue, I think it will benefit everyone both in their personal and professional lives.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (28:40.324)
Gosh, you nailed it there. And the thing that's a mystery to me, and you tell me if you've experienced this too, let's pretend, all right, whoever the leaders are, they're sitting up here and then everybody else is down here. At some point, they were down here and their leaders are up there. So they started out wherever it is they started out doing, whatever it is they were doing. And then somehow they made it up to here. And then when they were down here, they were like, when I get up there, I'm not gonna do it.
Now they're up there and now they're doing it that way. So what happens between here's where I started and here's where I am now? Because a lot of what you just described to me feels like they've forgotten what it's like to be where they themselves used to be. And when they were there, they craved that, they wanted that, they needed that. And now that they're the person that can deliver that, they somehow have forgotten the importance of that.
for the folks who need that. It's just a mystery to me. And that's just, that's not being a leader, that's just being a human. And so to your point, the more human you can be and build those connections like that easily with stuff, the more they can identify you. And the more you can identify with them because, hey, you used to do that job too.
Melissa Aarskaug (29:45.768)
Yeah.
Melissa Aarskaug (29:58.6)
Yeah, absolutely. I think from my experience, the higher up you get, the more you have to do, the more you have on your mind. And you're really moving from task to task to this to that, to this to that. And so, you know, I call it the fight or flight way, right? And I know even myself, I get stuck in meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (30:16.076)
Yeah.
Melissa Aarskaug (30:23.496)
And what I've started to do that's really helped Jason is not being reactionary to every email and every call and everything that happens to me and really focus on have I touched base with the people that are important to touch base with? Do I understand what's going on that's pertinent to their job and pertinent to them, right? If they have a child's graduation, I've had some people with child graduations coming up and friends and.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (30:33.732)
Amen.
Melissa Aarskaug (30:52.264)
I had to take some time off and do I have, do I understand the human side so they can do the work side? And I think the higher you get, the more pressure that's on you to get things done and your, your high level building strategy and visions and making sure you're hitting the mark with the financials and everything. So I think the one thing I would say that if you aren't like you mentioned, if you're not doing it now,
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (30:53.988)
Exactly.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (31:14.052)
Yeah, sure.
Melissa Aarskaug (31:21.512)
calendar it on your calendar for yourself. In a week, have I spent five to 10 minutes with somebody that's important to me. It could be your spouse, it could be your children, it could be your boss, and really just connect. It doesn't have to be about the job. And if you're not doing it, calendar it for yourself.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (31:23.812)
Amen.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (31:39.204)
Right. That's such an important point because you know, you've said the higher you get in the organization, you know, the more senior you are, quote, the more you have to do. But the flip side of that is, is that now you have the luxury to actually own your calendar. You own it. So if you're complaining, like, I don't have time to do that because my whole day is filled with all these meetings. Don't go to all of them. It's your calendar.
decline those things. Like if it's not important and I'm just kind of there to be there, I don't need, I'm not going. Like you own your own calendar. So, you know, take control of it and build some, you know, take back some of your time and build some time in to do the kinds of things you just described. And the point you made earlier, I think is an important one, particularly when managers and leaders say, you know, I'm a little more introverted. I'm just not the kind of person who's going to do that kind of thing. I'm sorry. You don't have that luxury as a leader.
You don't have that luxury as a leader. What you have to understand is that communication is leadership responsibility, not a department down the hall. You don't have to be a rock star at it, but you do have to try. And even if you're not that good at it, just trying will get you halfway there with the people that you're trying with. And so you just, you just got to have a different mindset. The more people that you have reporting to you because that, that sole thing.
help them to lead them, not manage them, that's a totally different thing. But helping to lead them is what's gonna help things be more successful for them, for you, for the organization. And if you shrug off that responsibility, you are missing out both on being effective and having a much more enjoyable career to make.
Melissa Aarskaug (33:21.864)
Yeah, I think, you know, if you have a company with 10 employees, you have more available time to call the 10 employees. If you have a company like you mentioned at the beginning with 60 ,000, it's going to be really hard for a CEO to call all 60 ,000 of his people in a year. But could they use technology and AI? For example, you know everybody's birthday in your company. Could you send them a birthday card and their email? And...
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (33:44.772)
That's right.
Melissa Aarskaug (33:47.4)
If you're the bottom of the food, the bottom of the company and you have, you know, a task where you'll never engage the CEO, getting a card from a CEO and you have, you're not an executive, it matters. It means something. And I know that those little teeny tiny things, although they seem like they're a lot of work, there's tools out there where they can automatically be done for you and you can touch all your employees.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (34:13.396)
And that is such a great idea. And to me, the power of that thing is that if it's a card that you've personally signed and it gets mailed and sent to the employees home, nothing is more powerful than an analog thing like that in a digital world. You know, it's just a powerful way to deliver a message that has to do with work, but you're receiving it at home and.
Your family always wants to know more about what you're doing. You're proud of what you do. And that is getting recognized in front of your family inside your own home. And there's nothing more powerful than that.
Melissa Aarskaug (34:55.24)
Absolutely. I'll tell you a quick story. I had an employee about four years ago who I didn't directly manage but I had spent some time helping them with some things they were struggling with at the company and this employee left the company and had sent me a letter like you mentioned a handwritten letter about how much it meant that I saw them and I spent time with them and I
I'll tell you, I didn't do a ton of meetings or anything. It was just a very simple meeting to help them sort through some things and really just to be a sounding board. But to one person, that was everything. And they took the time to send me a thank you. And for me, I was blown away and it really impacted me and how I lead people based off this letter that I received from somebody years and years ago.
but I just challenge all the leaders out there to, to figure out what works. If, if your time poor and you have a hundred thousand employees and you can't touch everyone. Like you mentioned, Jason, could you handwrite a card or handwrite a bunch of cards and have somebody mail them for you? Or could you do, you know, a round table with all your employees and just casually connect with them once a quarter or once a month and no specific.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (35:53.86)
That's a great, yeah.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (36:11.652)
Right.
Melissa Aarskaug (36:22.952)
reason just to connect with the people that work in your organization.
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (36:25.892)
Yeah. I love that thought about those notes. You know, a lot of times people are like, I'll just fire off an email. We've all gotten those kinds of emails before, but like, where do they go? Like I got an email 10 years ago from my leader at the company I worked for. Where's that? I don't have that anymore. But I keep this right at my desk. Somebody took the time to write me a note and say, hey, you did this and it meant something to me. Thank you very much. It is right here in front of me and it will be here till I go out of this house feet first.
because it matters. I don't know where the other emails are, but that is right there. And when I'm having not a very good day, I like to read that and that gets me going.
Melissa Aarskaug (37:04.072)
Yep, well said. In closing here, I want to remind you all of the time, any final thoughts or anything you want to share with our listeners that we didn't touch on here today?
Jason Anthoine | Employee Experienced (37:15.172)
Well, I think, you know, we touched on so much like you were saying you and your friends do in the short amount of time. You cover a lot of things that like we did too. But, you know, I just, I just really want to emphasize the fact that, you know, particularly with AI and automation and, you know, factories and manufacturing sites becoming so full of technology and all that is great. And we need to be moving in that direction, certainly as a society, as a culture, as a whole, but.
As that gets to be more and more and more, the personal human analog things will mean more and more and more. And so, you know, are there ways that you can do things digitally that will help you connect with two folks? Yes, there are plenty of that and you're already doing that. But the idea is to use those things to connect with them. And the more as a leader,
The more as a manager, even if you're just a frontline supervisor, it doesn't matter. You've got people who are relying on you, who are looking to you. The best way to connect with them is to have that feel as human as possible. Face -to -face, ideal, video, second to that, anything analog you can send them. It just creates a special connection that there's just no way digital stuff can ever do. And if you haven't done it and are scared to do it, don't be scared.
It will be well received. You can misspell every word in there and have the worst handwriting. They won't care. They got a note from their boss and that matters. So, you know, you talk about what engagement means. That's what it means. That's exactly what it means. Not, I can't wait to wake up and get more earnings per share. Nobody thinks that. I can't wait to wake up and go to a place where I feel appreciated and I get to do my best work and I get recognized for that. That's what engagement is. And if that's what everybody wants, then...
leaders, managers, supervisors, it's in your hands to do it.
Melissa Aarskaug (39:11.88)
Yep, absolutely well said. Jason, thank you so much for being here with us today on the Executive Connect podcast and sharing all your knowledge in this space. That's it for us today on the Executive Connect podcast.