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Join the Nerds!
Welcome to the funtastic world of the Fabulous Learning Nerds! Scott Schuette and Daniel Coonrod and Zeta Gardner are Learning Executives with over 50 years’ experience between them. Together they share new ideas, learning tools, approaches and technology that increase learner engagement and impact. All while having FUN! To participate in the show and community please contact them at learningnerdscast@gmail.comÂ
The nerds are all about creating a community of learning, innovation and growth amongst educational professionals: Instructors, facilitators, instructional designers, learning and development professionals, trainers, leadership development professionals, learning metric gurus, sales enablement wizards and more. So, if you want to learn, connect, grow and have a good time doing it, The Fabulous Learning Nerds Podcast is for YOU! Â
Scott (00:06.516)
Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of your Fabulous Learning Nerds. I'm Scott Schuette, your host, and with me, you love him, my buddy, Dan Coonrod's in the house.
Daniel (00:20.257)
My buddy, my buddy, my buddy, wherever he goes, I go. That's in there. Thanks, man. Thanks. That lives in my head rent free. You know, I think back to all of like the ads and advertising we heard as kids and the fact that like 20, 30, 40 years on, it's still in there. Like that's gotta constitute brain damage.
Scott (00:20.67)
Dan. Remember that? My buddy and me. Yes!
Scott (00:46.1)
It does, but I do miss those days a lot. I do. Because I have fond memories. Tell me if this is a memory of yours. Waking up Saturday morning to watch Saturday morning cartoons. Do remember those days? They do not exist. People, if you don't remember those days, you had a terrible childhood. I'm telling you, they were the best.
Daniel (01:00.126)
yeah, yeah, yeah, dude, I...
Daniel (01:08.161)
You know, it's one of those things where it's like, I think back to like my youth growing up and then I think to like how my daughter grew up. you know, just the internet and the availability of on demand entertainment has changed so much. Like if my kid, my kid didn't have to wait till Saturday. If my kid wanted to watch cartoons, you know, she'd be like, hey, can...
Can we watch cartoons? Like, yeah, let me get on Netflix or let me get wherever and load this cartoon up. And because like we had these services, she never saw ads. I remember she came home, she was eight years old and she came home, she looked at my wife and I and she was just like, mom, dad, I have to tell you about this great new product. I saw it. I was at a friend's house and I saw it on on their, TV and you can buy it and it keeps your floor super clean and it's easy to use.
We gotta get it. And I'm like, no, no, honey, that's an ad. And she's like, what's that? And I'm like, no, I feel like maybe this is something I should have prepared my kid for.
Scott (02:16.584)
You you bring up a really good point, this whole talk of Saturday morning cartoons, which is still a beautiful memory for me, but what our generations today don't have is this delayed gratification, right? Like that was before VCRs. It was before the internet. I had no choice.
except for one time when on a Friday night they would give the Saturday morning line up those shows. Remember those shows like these are the shows coming and you would watch that with your family and get all hyped up and eat a bowl of sugar. Right. So that was cool. But today you're right. Well, you just go ahead and get what you want. I feel like that might be leading into some of the opportunities we're going to talk about tonight. How about that segue? Yeah, we're going to have a great conversation tonight with a very special guest. I'm super, super excited to
Daniel (02:51.211)
Yeah.
Daniel (03:00.841)
What? Dude, it's so bad. It's good. It's good.
Scott (03:10.92)
talk with this gentleman tonight. by the way, Z girl is sick. So send some positive love to Z girl. We're going to miss her comments, but we're going to go ahead and bring in our special guest everybody. And we're going to learn all about him in a little segment that we call what's your deal.
Scott (03:31.312)
Ross!
Ross Romano (03:33.282)
Awesome. You want to know my deal? Okay. My deal is I have fond memories of the times when I didn't have to wake up on Saturday morning. So no, what you guys are talking about, but I do remember the cartoons. My deal is my name is Ross Romano. I to keep it brief, I am one of my roles as co founder of the B podcast network. So this show is part of the network. And we have a number of different shows dedicated to education.
Scott (03:35.762)
Yes I do, what's your deal my friend?
Daniel (03:35.913)
Hahaha!
Ross Romano (04:02.938)
formal and informal across the spectrum from K -12 up to the corporate L &D world. So a lot of things out there for folks to listen to, I host a couple of shows, one called The Authority, where I interview authors in the leadership space from the Wall Street Journal bestseller types to education and focused authors. And I have another one called Sideline Sessions, in which I talk to coaches from, I've talked to coaches from the NFL, NBA, Olympics, NCAA.
high school sports, youth programs, with just their advice and tips for what coaches at high school and youth levels can learn, right, to help their athletes succeed, their student athletes. And I also have a consulting firm called September Strategies, in which I work with companies in the ed tech, publishing, curriculum space, kind of all across the education world on overall strategy, content marketing, sales enablement.
brand messaging and I also do some performance coaching there as well.
Scott (05:04.83)
Well, you do a lot, my friend. We need to update your Wiki page after you're on the show for sure. That'd be great. But help our audience understand, you didn't just wake up one day and start doing all this stuff. Help us understand your journey. Like, what got you started into podcasting? Or did that come after consulting? Kind of give us a little broader scope of your journey,
Daniel (05:11.903)
He
Ross Romano (05:28.568)
Yeah, I mean, that's what you think, No, I, yeah, it's definitely, it's been a journey and I think, know, and consistent with a lot of the themes of this show, right? It's been a journey of consistently aggregating skills, right? Getting new experiences, learning new things, doing different projects and then learning how to combine them and recombine them.
Daniel (05:31.2)
Hahaha!
Ross Romano (05:55.254)
in different ways to be able to do something new. So I started actually the earliest part of my career doing both communications and then operations things in pro baseball. And then I, that was not super long lasting. I moved into the education world, you know, relatively early on started in communications roles, started evolving that into more content marketing, started evolving that into
full stack marketing. I then, you know, ran a marketing and communications agency, and did the math by the time I was leaving there a couple of years ago to start my own firm, that we had, I had done some type of project with 100 different companies. So that could have been anything from, you know, developing a branded podcast series for them, which I may have hosted, or I may have coached their CEO on how to host it, right? It may have been
writing a white paper, it might've been a retainer contract, but having that amount of exposure to that many different companies at stages from the very earliest of bootstrap startups to companies that are listed on the stock exchange just gives so many different insights, right, into what are the common challenges that every company faces, what are the things that we immediately have to become aware of.
What are the opportunities out there and some of the tipping points to say, okay, once we can get to this point, then we know that we have certainty that we can get to the next point. So then I was able to take all of that and start my own consultancy and understand that I knew how to go a little bit deeper and not be a little more on the periphery like you are in a typical agency and get really more into the problem solving that one -on -one time with founders.
really helping them to determine their overall vision and strategy. The way I phrase it in all of our stuff is that we help leaders and organizations on the journey from vision to decision. That point of understanding and being able to articulate what is our vision here, what's our mission, what do we stand for, what are we doing, and then make the strategic decisions that help you move in that direction. So that's really what everything's focused on. And that's kind of what brought me to this point is
Ross Romano (08:17.026)
not only the skills, but the relationships that you develop along the way and figuring out new things that you can do to collaborate with those people. And it's exciting when you kind of know people, right? That you have something that you say, I would really love to do this kind of project with that person one day. And then when you're in the opportunity to actually put that idea out there and say, hey, do you want to work on this?
So it's lot of doing and a lot of interest and we'll see what's next.
Scott (08:51.418)
Absolutely. That's great. That's really, really awesome. again, super excited to dive into this topic. Kind of hinted at it a little bit. So folks, without further ado, let's go ahead and get into our topic of the week.
Scott (09:11.122)
All right, this week we are talking about how leaders and employees can collaborate for better talent growth. That word collaboration, really important. Sometimes I wonder where it is. Where's the collaboration? how do we work better together? Because at the end of the day, at least for me, I want the best ideas and that does require it. But I do have a question for you, Ross.
Scott (09:42.92)
Yeah, so what? why is this idea of collaboration important?
Ross Romano (09:48.132)
Yeah, I mean, and this idea has been kind of developing and iterating in my mind, especially over the past year or two, as I've been doing direct performance coaching with a lot of mid -career professionals, in addition to kind of the strategic work with founders, right? And then applying things that I experienced over the course of my own career to say, one of the factors that is most determinative of an organization's ability to grow
is whether or not the people who are part of that organization are growing, Or that didn't they do have proactive processes to help to grow their talent, to advance people into new opportunities and to be able to sustain, you know, continuity as they progress and not have to constantly be backfilling, be able to hire for potential rather than for need, right? And on the flip side, it's something that...
a very high percentage of professionals struggle with is how do I maximize my growth? I actually just today was volunteering at a career fair at my alma mater, George Washington University, and chatting with some of the people that work in the career services department there and saying, what are some of the things you're typically helping students with? Because honestly, when I was in college, I didn't even know this existed. I never talked to these people. And so much of it is
You know, there's resume help and things like that, but there's also how to negotiate and offer things that a lot of people who have been in the workforce for 20 years still don't totally feel comfortable with. And understanding, okay, when we can, as individuals, have a better idea of how to advocate for ourselves, how do you kind of set goals and be able to communicate them to our supervisors, to organizations, and when organizations proactively want to engage in that and we work for it together.
better for the individual, better for the organization, and a lot less of what we see, all the challenges that are happening right now, where even in an economy with lower unemployment, with a lot of growing companies and things, there still are a lot of people looking for positions and trying to figure out how to make it happen, because I think there's just not a lot of...
Ross Romano (12:08.676)
consistency across the board, right? And so I think the more that everybody is operating from a similar playbook, the better it is for each of us.
Scott (12:24.712)
Yeah, totally, totally great. So you know what, let's start at the ground level. Let's talk a little bit about the employee experience, right? So when you think about collaboration and whatnot, how can employees position themselves for better growth outcomes?
Ross Romano (12:41.902)
Yeah, I mean, step one is you have to take the time to really know what you want. You're never going to get what you want unless you know it, right? And that applies even if you already have what you want, right? You still have to understand and define, OK, you know, this is where I want to be. But so step one is for each employee and each individual in workforce to take responsibility for really thinking about their own career.
how it fits into the context of their life and their goals outside of work as well, and really receive clarity about where they want to be, what they want to move forward towards. So I want to get this promotion. I want to make a certain amount of money. want to whatever the case may be, right? Once they can understand that, then it is a matter of really going to the powers of being your direct supervisor, however your organization is constructed and
beginning a dialogue and really putting that out front and being able to communicate, look, here's where I am, here's what I'm trying to get to. And what I want to do is for us to establish how do we make that happen and really begin the process of establishing agreements. And there's this concept of expectations versus agreements that kind of exists in coaching. And it applies to all areas of life, marriage as well as work things, but it's about most of leadership operates off of
expectations, which could be implicit. We've probably all been here where you're kind of trying to guess, okay, I think my boss wants me to do this or this is what I think I'm supposed to do. So if I do a good job with this, then I'll probably get the promotion I want, or they'll probably be half of my performance. Maybe you guess right. And even if you do, then it's just kind of taken for granted, right? Well, yeah, that's what I wanted to happen. And it happened. And, and maybe you guess wrong. But even if it's explicit,
And it's a supervisor says, here's what I expect you to do. But it's not mutually co -created. We don't have a chance to really talk about, well, what are the timelines? What are the resources needed to make that happen? And really dialogue about it. It just more often than not doesn't work. So it's to the benefit of leadership to have these agreements because then they're more often going to get the results they want.
Ross Romano (15:04.718)
And certainly it's to the benefit of that employee to have total clarity. I know exactly what needs to happen for me to prove my ability for me to get what I need to, where I need to get to. And at the end of the year, when they're, when we're doing performance reviews and they're telling people about the raises they got or the promotion, I don't need to wait until then to find out because I already know, I know did I do the things I was supposed to do or not. And
But it really, as much as I will definitely talk about that organizations should put better processes in place to make sure that happens, employees need to take the responsibility as well and say, look, if I don't make clear what I want and the growth I'm looking for and what my ambitions are here, I can't expect somebody to just make it happen for me, right? They don't know what I want. They might.
think they're doing the right thing and giving me opportunities and they're not the opportunities I'm looking for. So that's where it all starts. And then there's of course a lot of other pieces of it.
Daniel (16:08.491)
You know, I love that because I have had the opportunity and privilege to be on both sides of that equation. When I was an employee with a company, I'd been with them for a few years. And finally I was like, man, like I'm not moving anywhere. I need to tell them like I want to move. And I remember I was on the fence. I was trying to decide whether or I was going to move on to the next thing. And I was like, I don't know what to do. And so I had the opportunity like, you know, like
One of my leaders was available. I said, hey, like, this is where I want to be. So I want to be in like a year. This is where I want to be in like five years. Can you help me lay out the track that gets me there? And in just a super real honest moment that like, at the moment I was upset, but I can't tell you this person did me just the biggest favor of my life. They were like, I don't have any plans for you in any of those roles. And man, I like, I was so mad.
that I remember I went home and got another job. Within two weeks I was gone. All right, cool, good. That was that thing that I needed to hear, because I wasn't happy and I thought that, if I jump roles, if I move up, if I promote, that'll be the thing, and it wouldn't have been. I can say that pretty securely now. But also from the other side, once I was a leader and people would come to me and like, hey, you know, like,
Ross Romano (17:26.777)
Yeah.
Daniel (17:33.759)
you how do I promote? How do I get to lead a team? How do I do this? And it's like, man, I'm so glad you asked. Let's talk about a few things. Like, let me help you build a path. I can't make this promise, but I can tell you the things to do to set you up for success on the way to get there. And so, no, a hundred percent. Like I love that. I love that thought. And I love just being upfront and real about that all the time.
Scott (18:01.886)
You know, it's really interesting. think about my experiences on both sides of that conversation as well. So it's very similar to Dan's. I made it a point when I became a young people leader, when I knew, I still got the peanuts on me, right? We brushing them off and had that first one -on -one with someone. I'm like, so tell me what, what do you want to do? And I got the.
crickets, like in shock. think they were in general shock, like that anybody had ever asked them about what their career path was going to be like and was serious about it. If you're genuine with that question about, Hey, what is it you want to do? You're doing this now, you're doing a job, help me understand where you want to go. And then that follow -up question around, Hey, what do you need from me in order for us to get there? Really is that baseline of collaboration, right? So you're right. I got to own my own career development.
but I also have to have that relationship, that trust -built relationship with the people that I serve, my boss most importantly, so that we can work on that together. Because if that relationship doesn't exist, I don't care how many times you have that conversation of, think I want to do this or I want to do that. If that relationship, that symbiotic collaboration relationship between you and your boss doesn't exist, it isn't going to happen.
Ross Romano (19:23.054)
Yeah. Yeah. And what you're describing is you need to get other people invested in your success, right? Particularly people who are in positions of influence. So once somebody comes to you as their boss and says, look, this is really where I'm hoping to go and can you help me get there? Now you have an investment in it. You want to see it happen as well. And you're going to use the position you have in your knowledge and your influence to support that journey. That's something that
Again, like when companies don't make it explicit what their goals are around that, I think it leads to a lot of people to assume that it would be in some way like antagonistic toward their supervisor's goals, Like, you know, I want you to just be in the position you're in to serve me versus my job as a leader is to serve you to serve the organization. if...
everybody is feeling like they're in dynamic opportunities to do the things that work for them. And by the way, for some people, is, it's a totally fine goal. If your goal is to be in the role you are and to master that, It doesn't mean everybody's goal has to be the same thing, but it's having clarity on that and having somebody else who has that personal investment, that emotional investment in, okay, I want to use my role here to support this person in what they're doing. It's a
makes you much more likely to get it.
Scott (20:55.806)
Totally agree. One of the things that I've always recommended to my direct reports is to get a mentor who can speak to you or speak of you when I'm not in the room. Right? So if you're always getting the same feedback from me, that really limits your growth. And that mentor was always someone, a skip level above me, sometimes two skip levels above me. Right? So strategically, from a leadership perspective, to be thinking about
who would be best served to mentor this person so that they can get additional information, additional guidance, additional goals or whatever, so that they can move forward. Again, so in that moment where I'm not in the room, but somebody else is, or the skip levels are beaten and they're having a conversation and then doing the nine box, right? Which we love, they're doing the nine box. They can talk about my direct report with some confidence.
Which really brings to a really good conversational question around, what do you think are some of those foundations? We talk about the employee and the boss relationship or that skip level relationship. What are some of the foundations that can lead to more productive relationships? If you think about the relationship that I have either with my boss or my boss's boss, what are some things that would make that more productive and things that I should be actively thinking about working on?
Ross Romano (22:22.606)
Yeah, I mean, it all begins with communication, right? And it's an active dialogue. It's once we talk about having that initial conversation of, okay, here are my goals, here's, do you circle back on it? Do you check, you know, does it continue on regularly? Are we talking about that once a month or something and talking about where we are? What are we struggling with? What's going well? What opportunities haven't you had here that you might be interested in?
I, you know, one of the things that I believe, again, going back, super beneficial for individuals and for organizations is introducing cross functional, you know, cross departmental opportunities to say, okay, how about you go and work on this project with this other unit? And it gives that individual access to learning, getting a better understanding of how the organization works.
because I'm seeing how a different part of the company does what they do and what thought goes into that. I'm getting to showcase my skills and abilities to another unit. I'm getting to be an ambassador and an advocate for my unit, right? And what we do and talk to them a little bit so they're getting more educated on how we work. And I'm putting new skills on my resume and saying, okay, when it's time for me to try to go into my next opportunity, whether it's
motion here, sometimes it's moving to a different role, and it could be outgrowing an organization. I have new things that I have acquired as I've been here, but supervisors are usually in a really good position to be able to identify and then advocate for those opportunities, Like department heads talking to one another and saying, can we, how can our units collaborate better? And how can we cross pollinate here? And, and that
creates great opportunities, certainly checking back on the communications, having that accountability to showing the things that you're doing, having a lot of, a high degree of transparency around the things that are happening at the organization level and really talking about your thought processes and your strategies and why you're making decisions that you're making.
Ross Romano (24:45.06)
creates a higher degree of trust because you have people not having to guess, well, I wonder why they're doing this or they're not saying anything. So there must be hiding something, right? So then you have that distrust and people are wondering what's going to happen next. But also it makes them better at what they do because now I have a better understanding of strategy and now I can make better decisions in the work that I'm doing because I know how it fits into that. And that's something that
I think a lot of times it just doesn't happen because it doesn't. We're all busy and we're trying to serve a bunch of different needs. And it might not seem to have an immediate practical application of, okay, I can tell people about this, but it's not immediately related to the project they're working on today. So is it worth spending my time on it? But understanding the long -term benefits of.
once people have much better insight into that and how it enables them to work more confidently and to really understand how all the pieces fit together, right, is kind of immeasurable.
Daniel (25:55.871)
I love that. you know, so often I think folks, they get into their role and they, pretty quickly find the boundaries, you know, of their role. Like, okay, this is, you know, this is the shape of my role. This is where the edges of it, this is what I do. This is the things that happen in my role. And then they go, yep, there I am. And then like, they're never, they like, I don't know if they're afraid, but they, they, they don't ever want to reach out of that role. They don't ever want to like,
climb up and look down to get like a top level view. I can't tell you how many times I've, you know, like when I've worked with young folks and I've just been like, hey, like, and they're like, I want to grow. want to grow. just, I'm ready. I'm ready. And I'm just like, Ooh, real quick. Like what does, what do you think my role does? You know, and they'll be like, well does this, this, that, and this. Like, yeah, that is definitely a piece of it. What do you think the role above me does? Well, I don't know.
You have to start thinking, like you got to start thinking about like what the shape of these things are past just you and the shape of your brand outside of just you. And I think too often people, like I said, they just get focused in on like the nine to five. This is what I do. This is the shape of it. Da da da da da da da. Why does nobody ever talk to me? Why do I never get promoted? Why do the opportunities never happen? And yeah, that's, totally agree.
Scott (27:23.86)
So let's talk a little bit about how things might need to change as businesses evolve. I believe we're in a particular unique place in time where a lot of change in leadership is happening very rapidly. I think the pandemic really put us into places to start thinking about things differently. And those organizations, by the way, that have picked up on that and have run with that are doing
much better than organizations that don't. So if you think about that, what are some of the cultural and mind shift, shifting that needs to get done to help us achieve the kind of collaboration that we've been talking about today?
Ross Romano (28:08.894)
One is, as you said at the beginning with the question, what's the what of this or the why, it's really thinking through why you do things the way that you do and having a good reason for it. One of the big things right now, and certainly over the past few years, has been decisions around remote hybrid in -person work, right? Just as something that everybody's experienced.
whatever decisions are made around that, what are the reasons for it and what are the benefits and the drawbacks, right? Just as a simple example. And that happens, of course, in a lot of different areas. another, I think, is this point of trying to anticipate opportunity, hiring for
for potential and opportunity rather than need. And that requires getting ahead of it. If you wait until you're in a bind, I just need the quickest person who has the most obvious resume who can do exactly what we need right now. And that person may or may not have a future there or have growth potential. But if you can get ahead of it, if you can even make part of your interview process more of an
a time to get to know that person's goals and where they wanna be and try to get a picture of, okay, once they're here, how might we grow them or how might we even change our expectations of this position? Because it's more about who the person is that we hire versus what the job description is, right? Once you've hired somebody, you should have a different understanding of what the role is at that point, because it's a real person.
versus whatever you wrote on paper. And making those kinds of decisions at the beginning are foundational to having a culture where there is that continuous growth, where you're not having to have it happen just at certain times of the year or in certain phases, but it's a continuous process. it...
Ross Romano (30:30.222)
I think makes people look at those opportunities differently. One of the things that I believe, I don't have data on this, but I'd be surprised if I'm wrong. That relates to some of the ways the job market functions right now. Definitely one of the things is the number of roles that are remote -friendly.
Right. So you have people applying from, from all over the country for a job that's in a certain city where in the past you would have had just local applicants. So you're having way more come in. Okay. That's part of it. But I also think what that kind of incentivizes is people who are always applying. Right. We've all probably know people like this who no matter if they just got hired into a job.
But if they see something else posted next week, they're submitting an application. They're just doing it all the time, no matter what they're currently focused on. The way to disincentivize that is to have people really feel confident that they're going someplace where they are, right? That they're on the right track, that people are invested in their growth, that their organization is that they really believe that the people who know me the best are the ones who are going to give me the best opportunities.
Daniel (31:29.052)
Ha ha ha.
Ross Romano (31:50.41)
versus I have to always be leaving where I am. But you know, when you're don't have commutes and things like that, that are being disrupted by moving jobs, there are fewer things that are going to convince you that you want that they want to invest in their employer the same way we're investing people but but it has to be clear and there has to be evidence of that. I have to see that people who work at this company
that there's clear evidence that they're growing while they're there and that we're having more of those conversations before I even come in. So those are some of the things that I've noticed that I believe are newly important. They've always been important, but with the dynamics of how things work now in the virtual environment and the post -COVID environment, there's even more need for it because...
Yeah, there's just, there's a lot fewer reasons for people to feel like they have to stay where they are if they determine at any point that it might not be the place for them or that they're not confident that it's totally the place for
Scott (33:05.46)
I was listening to On Leadership with Scott Miller. don't know if you listen to that show and then you were talking about this exact thing with one of his guests. can't remember, but it was about, you know, your Gen Z's in the office. They don't live in a world where, I'm going to stay at this organization and be completely loyal to it. And they're going to give me loyalty and I'm going to stay there for 30 years and get my golden watch.
Like that's just not happening. Tenure, four, Gen Zs and Alphas as well, 18 months on average, right? So that's statistically what we're looking at. From a leadership perspective, when you're hiring talent, we have to consider the fact that, they're probably going to be here two, maybe three years and then they're gone. Which in my humble opinion, everything you've talked about, this idea of building that relationship and not only having them have an understanding of this is what I expect from you at work.
But we're going to go ahead and grow you up so you can deliver more faster is so important because otherwise you're just going to spin your wheels and it's going to be revolving door of adequacy or even less than that. Dare I say mediocrity. And I feel like those leaders that can build that relationship with their people and really start to, dare I say, water them from the get so that they can grow. Okay, they still may leave in three years, but how much more are you going to get out?
of that individual, that individual performer within that three year period of time. And then sometimes you might get lucky and they may actually grow into something that you never thought possible and be in a position where maybe they're even leading people like yourself. I say these are really cool. As we begin to wrap things up, I wanted to give you an opportunity to kind of like summarize what you think the important things are both from an employee and an employer standpoint when it comes to this idea of collaboration.
Ross Romano (34:44.846)
Yeah.
Scott (34:56.434)
talent growth.
Ross Romano (34:58.2)
Yeah, on the employee side, knowing what you want, clearly communicating it, getting clarity on what will demonstrate that to your organization or your supervisor, and then choosing the right opportunities that you can demonstrate those skills, right? Something that some people ask me about a lot is, I, I have this person in my department who's out and should I volunteer to take on some of their work to show them a team player?
And I say, well, what is that work? Is it just doing more of the things that everybody already knows you know how to do? Or is it new types of projects that you can demonstrate a new skill, right? Because on the one hand, you run the risk of, do you make yourself irreplaceable in your role? Where your company's afraid to move you into a new role because we can't lose them where they are. Not that companies should do that, but it does happen, right? Or...
Is it things where you're clearly should? So really saying, okay, if I take this on, if I volunteer for this, or if I get involved in this, is that showing that I am prepared for the opportunity I want? Or is it just going to frustrate me because I'm taking on extra work and I'm not moving? On the organizational side, you know, a lot of the same things, right? Creating real clarity with your employees around what the growth plans are. Having...
making sure that managers are focusing on that, having those conversations, having those cross -departmental conversations, and really prioritizing that growth and understanding that any fears that we have around, if people grow too much, they're just gonna leave us. If somebody feels like they're growing, they're not gonna wanna leave. And if they choose to, it just means that they came up with an opportunity that's good for them.
and you can't prevent that. But the quickest way to make somebody feel like they want to leave is I've done everything I can do here. I'm not going anywhere. And I'm going to guess I've definitely been part of the organization. I'm going to guess you guys have been part of organizations as well, where people were in one role. They left the company. They came back five years later at a higher level because the easiest way to get into a better position was to be hired from the outside versus to get promoted internally. Right. And
Daniel (37:22.954)
True.
Scott (37:23.273)
Mm
Ross Romano (37:23.862)
As organizations, like we don't really want that to be happening because in the meantime, what production could we have gotten from that person if they were here the whole time versus they felt like they had to leave before they could come back?
Scott (37:42.066)
Great wisdom, great stuff for us. appreciate you being on and talking about some really important things. Could you do us a favor? Could you let our audience know how we could connect with you?
Ross Romano (37:52.756)
Yeah, I'm always happy for anybody to reach out on LinkedIn. It's Ross Romano and also my email is Ross at SeptemberStrat .com. Don't hesitate there. The website is SeptemberStrat .com as that would indicate. And if you're interested in my podcast, the Authority Podcast, wherever you're listening to this, you can listen to that also or sideline sessions. So yeah, feel free to connect in any way.
Scott (38:21.542)
Awesome go check Ross out everybody's got some good stuff doing good work really appreciate you being on the show