‘The changes that work best either percolate up from the actual employees who need them and then there might be a negotiation process with the management, or if they’re coming down, they come down slowly enough with ongoing communication.’
Are you interested in making effective, lasting changes in your organization? Listen to Liz Kislik, a management consultant and executive coach that helps high-performing leaders solve their trickiest problems. She also contributes to the Harvard Business Review and Forbes.
‘It’s very important in any planned change or organizational response to unplanned change to anchor it in the context of where is the company going, what are the company’s purposes, what is the purpose and value of any individual’s work, and therefore what will the change mean to them.’
Liz has worked with many organizations and found that good leadership attentive to its constituents is what drives meaningful and lasting change. Developing leadership character is so important to the success of an organization. Running a team or being a business owner doesn’t automatically make you a leader. Get more of Liz’s thoughts on leadership in this episode.
Learn more about Liz and her work:
Personal website: https://lizkislik.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizkislik/
John: Thank you! for listening to the business sphere, don’t forget to share this episode and subscribe, my guest today is Liz Kislik, she is a management consultant and executive coach that helps high performance leaders solve their trickiest problems, Liz also contributes to the Harvard business review and Forbes, thank for being on the show today Liz!
Liz: So happy to be with you John!
John: Yeah just like I spoke to you about before we got on this call I did watch your tedx video and it really you know refined what I was doing in my organization because I’m trying to work on the business, trying to harvest good traits, work principles, life principles and try to understand the root of it all, how humans interact, why people are challenged or not challenged and aspire to be who they are, so its sounds like we’re in alignment because I love what you talked about but I would love for you to share with the listeners a little about your backstory, go as far as you would like and then let people know what’s your true expertise today.
Liz: Okay, that’s a very generous question so, I will, where will I start? Let me start with coming out of college most of my friends went to grad school but I wanted to work because I felt like that’s where the action happens and I liked seeing what people did and figuring out what you could do with people and business seemed the right place for that, so I went to work for a company where I had worked two summers before it was a small privately held marketing agency and I had done phone work for them and then the second summer I created the equivalent of a human resources department they didn’t really have one and I get back there because I got a better offer, they knew me already than I could get as a young stranger in other places and I was supposed to start as an account executive and I showed up for work the first day and learned that instead I would be the interim manager for a department of two dozen women the department was called statistical and tabulation and this was before there was a computer on every desk, you know this was old school counting papers and I had to learn what their work was and then I had to get those women to be willing to have me be responsible for them, it was totally terrifying I was not at all prepared for it, they were very gracious to me and in this company, one of the advantages of a privately held firm is often there are opportunities that are not formally specified and I just kept looking for more things to do and every six months I got promoted because there were so many things to do and by the time I was 23 I was a vice president and running a 300 person call center, which is a little crazy actually if you think about it, and I learned that I didn’t like being responsible for so many people and for so many problems that you couldn’t actually get fixed all at once. And in that experienced John I had to figure out how to manage myself so that I wouldn’t fall apart from the stress of you know 300 people’s problems and the problems of the executives that wanted stuff from the call center and the clients and all this different things, and it was an incredibly developmental experience and part of what I learned was that it was truly fascinating to me to observe what was going on with people and try to figure out what the real story was and not just what it looked like on the surface.
John: That’s amazing, I mean at such an early age you were thrown or I guess you were promoted because they saw something in you that they weren’t able to find within or exterior right? From the outside and it seemed like you, you aspired to hit a really good position at such a young age, what happened afterwards?
Liz: So, I worked there for a total of 8 years I think and the owner died and there wasn’t a good succession plan, a lot of things were a little disrupted. I was by then I was actually executive vice president, the widow of the owner promoted me to that role and I was responsible for basically everything that happened inside the company and she brought in an outside guy to run it and at the time I was crushed, I could not understand why she couldn’t let me run it I had been running so much of the organizaton already. I was 30 and she felt I wasn’t seasoned enough and I’m so lucky to that, that was her perception, I mean we know I was able to figure out things I wasn’t really prepared for all along the way but what a break it was that I did not try to make that work I ended up leaving because I was not happy with the direction, the new guy took the company in and I was also pregnant at the time. So, when I left because I had been very active in the direct marketing industry and in the direct marketing trade association the DMA, a lot of people knew me and in less than a week a variety of consultants had subcontracted work to me and so, I was working right away and never stopped and I’ve been consulting now for it’ll be 30, oh my gosh I think it will be 35 years in December?
John: Wow!
Liz: And it’s been a real evolution because I sort of shifted from telemarketing to customer service and call and contact center management but when you are doing that work, when you are dealing with people who deal with customers you learn about what goes on in the whole company and if executives were willing to hear about exactly as you said before. If they were willing to hear about root causes and not just what we had to do in the call center to clean things up and I could explain to them what was going on in the rest of the company that was creating problems for customers. So, over time I got to work on companies, strategy on their leadership development, on all kinds of operations issues really whatever needed fixing that wasn’t either finance or tech, almost anything else if there was a human involved, I could be involved and that has continued and has been unfailingly fascinated from fascinating from then to now.
John: That’s amazing to hear, I mean I’m a big advocate of reading and ingesting content right? Psycho-Cybernetics mindset all, everything to do with the psychology of humans and how they interact with others. I’ve always been in sales actually and I was spending 10 years in advertising sales before I started my own agency and getting to know what goes on with humans really humanizes you, as well because people aren’t mad about the product service it’s about what they perceive that brand to have that ethos of the value problem right? It’s like what’s the core value of the company? And it’s ingrained in the people and obviously you try to evolve the people to bring them up to the same value problem and it’s hard to get everyone in alignment and that’s the biggest challenge when you get bigger when you try to streamline costs and you try to be more efficient, there’s a lot of people involved and they’re in different stages of their lives, they have different values there, there’s so many different moving parts and dynamics. How do you bring that all together? Especially for larger corporations that have so many different pillars, so many departments, so many headcounts like you mentioned you worked at a call center 300 people. I used to work at a fairly large corporation that had I don’t know 10,000 people right? And if you look at HR departments there’s so many subsets within the HR department on training and you know employee benefits and all that stuff right? There’s so many things involved, what kinda customers did you have to like, have you been working with and what is, what have you discovered? Because I would love to hear some of the stories because you’ve probably experienced a lot of turmoil that you had to transition and change right? In terms of their culture.
Liz: So, the kinds of organizations I work with, they’re really all across the board because the important thing is that whoever the senior leader or the decision maker is, we have to trust each other and feel like we can say what is real otherwise there’s not much value to my being there you know if, if they don’t wanna hear it from me then I don’t wanna be there because I can’t accomplish very much and it’s not rewarding and the kind of organization is less crucial. I have worked in fortune 500’s, I have worked in non profit organizations I would say what I really love, I love family business, I love privately held, I love where you can go directly to an owner and say “Here are the things I’m seeing.” “Here are the things I think we can do.” Do you wanna do this?” “Do you believe in this?” “Do you want to put your skin in the game?” “Do you want to back it up?” or “Do you wanna live with it the way it is?” I mean it’s amazing, John often people think about what it will take to change and decide that they’re actually okay with how it is the way it is. They don’t want the disruption and to have to put in all that effort and to do exactly what you’re talking about which is to convince every person that we’re going in this new direction and to your other point where you talked about customers, so much of it is not just the values because you can actually have the same values and not get along it is about the relationship and the way we treat each other in the relationship because people can have wonderful conceptual values and still behave badly and they can behave badly because they’re under pressure, they certainly can behave badly when they’re afraid or because something about their bad behaviour has worked for them at some early point of their or career and no one ever helped them change it and they don’t know it doesn’t work anymore. There are so many reasons you can have, I mean the brain so you’ve, you’ve read a lot, you know the brain loves it’s habits, the brain loves patterns and habits because it wants stuff to be quick and efficient and that means we often react to what we think is happening but it might not be what’s actually happening. So, I really like any projects where people are really interested in making improvements, they are interested in hearing their own thoughts come back to them from somebody else so that they can see them in a fresh way and in hearing somebody else’s thoughts and then rolling up their sleeves and getting to work that is very rewarding.
John: And it’s great to hear that because humans don’t like change they’re so used to a certain behavior, habit, especially tendencies right? They love certain things the way things have been for 5,10, 20 years to someone to make a change especially the elderly owners of corporations, small companies, whatever it may be, they’re so used to it right? For them to make that huge transition or bring someone on that wants to make that you know transition, it’s overwhelming for a lot of people because that comes with stress, that comes with a lot of uncertainty and unknowns and with that in mind we are in an age hearing you know this global information age that change is constant, we’re constantly making, changing, and disrupting every single industry with technology and if you are not a part of this change you’re gonna be left behind and with that in mind, I mean you’ve seen a lot of corporations, you’ve seen a lot of individuals and private companies. What were some of the, the major triggers? Like I know you mentioned like private and family run are always the best because they probably, they probably understand and they acknowledge their own problems because you have this one-on-one relationship them right? Versus a corporate ladder very much you know, very structured and a lot of tears and it’s hard to get things done because it’s a meeting after another meeting, after another meeting nothing ever, I actually gets done right? What have you found that really makes a difference in these companies? Because there’s so many different variations so many different you know things that can go wrong probably does go wrong right? You know what have you found? Because I just love that you have worked with so many companies, so many people and you have a lot of experience. When I hear 30 plus years of any industry or any profession, you’re an expert. After 10 years you know a lot more than a lot of people but 30 years? That’s a lot.
Liz: So, I’m gonna agree with some of what you said and shift some of it a little bit.
John: Sure.
Liz: Because the interesting thing is that a lot of people want change.
John: Yup.
Liz: So, it’s not that everybody’s resistant to change, people are resistant to change that is imposed upon them, people are resistant to change that they don’t choose, people are resistant to change where they can’t see how they really make it work and those were for good reasons because we hate to look stupid, we don’t like to feel ignorant, we don’t wanna feel unsuccessful, there are all kinds of good self-protective reasons that we shy away if, if it’s not something we really want or don’t really see how to do and that goes back to the question you asked before about values. So, it is very important in any planned change or I’m thinking about the pandemic, organizational response to unplanned change to anchor it in the context of where is the company going? What are the company’s purposes? What is the purpose and value of any individual person’s work and therefore, what will the change mean to any individual human? And I think the thing that goes wrong so often is an individual often brilliant, enterprising, thoughtful, comes up with the proposal for change and thinks that explaining it once will get people to rally to the cause and that announcing it after there’s executive agreement will get everybody on the train and that is really inaccurate. It is remarkable how often you can have very smart executives, a wonderful leadership team struggle putting together the best possible plans and then they know all about the plans and they believe in them, and they think that an all hands meeting or a company-wide memo or video or whatever it is they do will actually explain to everybody what’s next, what’s expected and then we go on, gung-ho from here but that’s not meaningful to all the individuals who didn’t come up with the idea they need it sort of at the desk level. So, going back to your earlier question, the changes that work best either percolate up from the actual employees who need them and then there maybe a negotiation process with the management, how we plan the systems, how we assign accountability, whatever or if they’re coming down, they come down slowly enough with ongoing communication to an extent that most of the people don’t even dream of in multiple channels, repeated messaging with variation, one-to-one discussion, and the chance to review and shift as necessary. That is a lot of work and it takes a lot of time and most of us don’t plan for that I mean we don’t even like the changes we plan for ourselves, I’m gonna eat more healthy, I’m gonna drink more water, I’m gonna do these things but the day we forget to bring our special cup to the office, well that day we don’t drink more water. You know it was our change we were signed up a thousand percent, we made a mistake and it fell down that day, you multiply that over several hundred people you have a lot that’s sort of going of course. So, the amount of coordination and the sort of gritty determination to see it through tiny step by tiny step, that’s the kind of commitment that’s actually necessary.
John: And it’s great to hear from you about that exact point because people forget that, people ingest content differently and they absorb it differently at different stages and it’s very similar to because I was in sales for 10 years. Psychologically it’s all about hitting them at the right time in the need sales process cycle at the right moment with the right offer with the right value prop with the right kinda product that they will say yes even though there’s 10 of rejections before then right at multiple stages so it’s very similar to internal struggles when you have a new project, you have a new system, new tech stack or software you need to slowly educate, inform and then inform and then implement slowly with multiple touch points, multiple communications, video, training, touch points Q and A’s and it’s constant and it could be going over 3, 6 months or year or a couple years for everyone to actually get it right? On the same page and that’s very important as a leader someone that owns and run that ship of what a corporation, company to understand that humans absorb content differently, every employee is different they’re, they’re going through a lot stress and challenges, personal, business, corporate, career, whatever it is.
Liz: Right!
John: You don’t know what’s going on.
Liz: Right.
John: And therefore, it’s so important to just constantly drip them like you mentioned and ensure that everyone’s on that alignment like connected and it’s, it’s fun to hear right? Because I’ve been really really pushing my company to communicate, collaborate, discuss openly you know with a lot of forms, interactions, meetings, and just workshops and stuff so that everyone not only gets to know and like each other but then they understand what each person does every day tasks, roles, responsibility so then they do not judge, they understand when they send something it takes longer, oh I know you’re going through a lot of projects and going through a lot of tasks and I will wait right? Like and it’s kinda forced but it’s more like I understand it’s a different perspective right?
Liz: Yeah, I agree with that, I actually think that understanding and awareness are more valuable than liking because you can like somebody and actually disrespect them too.
John: Yes.
Liz: We’ve all heard I like her but, right? That’s deadly but if understand her situation and I know the pressures she’s under then I’m more likely to give her some grace.
John: Exactly.
Liz: And even ask, oh Susan how does this affect you? Is there some way that I can do this? That is actually better more realistic, more helpful to you? Because if I can do it without any difficulty I’m happy to do that and that’s how you build shared commitment to things which goes along with what you’re talking about in terms of the collaboration. That idea of shared commitment as opposed to we are to each doing our separate things and then we let the chips fall where they may and were aggravated and resentful if it doesn’t come out our way.
John: And it’s interesting because I know a lot of tech companies hire newer employees like people fresh out of university college, highly educated, smart, creative, and their whole objective is to let people be free. They have this great work environment, they allow them to eat whenever, go on breaks whenever, do whatever but they’re creative and that’s interesting because different companies have different SOP, structures and systems, processes but with these R and D techs companies you need them to be as creative as possible, open so that they are aware of opportunities. Have you noticed that on specific levels of corporations or types of companies that you’ve worked with? And has there been you know because I always look at someone that is maybe a little bit younger with technology in terms of how they grow, grew up on a computer versus someone that’s more wise I would say, someone that’s more in their 60’s I would say 50’s are more hesitant to change. Have you noticed that you know the, the younger people are much more creative in a sense that they have all these ideas and they wanna, are more outspoken in that sense?
Liz: Okay so, you’ve just raised a half a dozen issues all at once so, let me parse out of this. What I’m thinking is even those people who are encouraged to be so creative and free they usually working within some kind of project management structure it is not that they are just, they may be free to have their meals when they want and to work when they want but they also have stand-ups or huddles, they come together to talk about what they’re working on. They are free to do something that is outside the nature of the business kind of thing, there are still some structures.
John: Yep.
Liz: Part of why young people can be more free is they’ve made fewer mistakes than the rest of us, they have not yet lived through.
John: Exactly!
Liz: The pain
John: Children, pain, elderly, parents like life yeah, totally get it.
Liz: So, more experienced people often got to be careful but generalizing but often the brain likes its habits.
John: Yeah, yeah.
Liz: As you live longer you have more of them about more things on the other hand I think one of the greatest gifts whatever your age is to be a curious person.
John: Yeah.
Liz: Because if you wonder, why does that way work and why does that way not work? Then, at least you are open to hearing a new story about it and you might change your mind, the problem is the closed mind not the age. There are plenty of young people who are very rigid, who can only work or function in certain, particular ways that they are used to and they are very uncomfortable being asked to work in a different way. One of the things we’re at risk of right now particularly given this pandemic which has been going on it feels like forever. There are many new employees who have never ever met in person, the rest of their team, their boss, etc. So, the kind of getting to know you the awareness and the understanding we talked about before, that’s not present for a lot of people and so, they’re doing their own thing in their head without understanding how it really comes together and integrates with whatever else is going on in their organization and sometimes they are deeply distressed when an idea that they have worked on, on their own the doesn’t fit perfectly. It’s those cues and clues we get from working with other people that help us have better ideas I mean there’s new science now on brainstorming for example that the great ideas are not the first things that everybody barfs out on the table in the first five minutes where you have the loudest talkers coming up with the most and the rest people sitting quietly sometimes it’s coming up with some ideas and then building additional ideas on those ideas that and it’s, it’s those secondary ideas, those more thoughtful ideas that often have the most promise for actual implementation. So, you can bring young people along to see all that, one of the things that’s great about young people today is they want to know if there are more efficient ways of doing things they want to know, you know kids grow up with cheat codes. They wanna know what is the shortcut, they’re very interested in that, they want feedback all the time that’s often harder for older people who didn’t like getting feedback to give as much as they think, why do I need to tell you all the time? Can’t you just do it by yourself? But that ability, the call and response, the ability to go back and forth and share ideas? That’s fabulous and young people are really up for that.
John: And I think you mentioned and raised a really good point about human connection and where, yes during this pandemic a lot of the newer employees and I see this with even my organization we used to meet every month do a big annual trip and get to know each other on a personal you know it doesn’t have to be intimate but on a level where we all understand each other. What’s going on in their life, where they’re at in their you know cycle right?
Liz: Yup!
John: What challenges and problems they have outside of work, what are some of their stressors and I’ve learned this just from interacting with so many people not just in my company and my career right? And prior to that I’ve always been active in terms of sports and community, and all that stuff. So, just getting to know people and inquire, I’m always curious like you mentioned but more so, this pandemic? I came at a different stage in the company, I was really doing workshops, I was doing monthly workshops, Q and A, asked me anything, let’s make sure meatal health is great right? Everyone is helping each other overcome this and support each other. Everyone’s through a lot of different challenges and new stressor and how do we understand each other more, be vulnerable right? But it’s hard and I get it for some some people because they need it, they need that belonging sense of belonging and if companies are it for them because they have no other social activities, they have no family and that’s it and you’re breaking that from that?
Liz: Right!
John: Social interaction? It’s very difficult so, acknowledging being aware of where people are coming and what’s going on but one of the things that you mentioned which is social interaction is the last year and a half 2 years, I’m really really focused on community like my neighborhood, my community because I was so busy constantly you know working, only hanging out with friends and family, my social circle but getting to know others and opening up yourself to you know people, strangers, neighbors, that you never really interactive with because you’re now at home you’re stuck right? You’re spending so much time here you might as well get to know your neighbors right? In the last 10 years I never really spoken to my neighbors until most recently and I got to really appreciate what’s going on in their lives and that’s the human interaction and you don’t have to have the same career or whatever but you live next to them right? So, might as well get to know people and that’s one thing I’ve always been you know I’m a strong believer in like getting to know others being yourself and ask open-ended question like I’m the type that would constantly ask questions and letting people just when they’re comfortable share it or not and just be vulnerable right? Be yourself but that’s also very difficult for introverts right? Like if you’re not an in, you’re extrovert and you’re not social guess what you’re in front of computer looking for stuff right? And communities online, it’s hard like you know building relationships with new people is a challenge for a lot of people because it’s not comfortable.
Liz: Right!
John: What do you have to say about that? Because during this pandemic like a lot of people are mental health huge situations, student, kids, you know colleagues, employees, there so much going on, how do you overcome it for a lot of people?
Liz: What you said about community is beautiful, I think it is very important to recognize and I’m saying this specifically for anybody who is thinking about starting an initiative to create community we are all different, we are not comfortable with the same things and we don’t want the same things at a base level we may need some of the same stuff but we need it in different amounts. So, if we’re focusing specifically on introverts, I wouldn’t use the word vulnerable. Introverts feel vulnerable all the time they’re trying to keep everybody else, I’m an introvert let’s keep everybody out, let them in only a little bit as I grow to trust them if it’s comfortable, if it’s safe I wouldn’t use the word vulnerable, that’s a red flag. I would say let’s get to know each other but you make it more mild so it’s not threatening so that’s one aspect. Another aspect is, it is very helpful to have something to do with other people as opposed to just being with other people if you’re dealing with introverts. So, I’m making this up I’m no expert in this, this is deduction and logic but if you wanna get to know people who are your neighbors and you suspect some of them might be introverts instead of saying let’s have a big get to know you block party when we never met each other because introverts may not come okay? What about if you were to do something good for your neighborhood? A cleanup, something for animals, something where there is a purpose so the introvert might be attracted by the purpose as opposed to the crowd and most people once they’re there, they’ll greet somebody and then there’s as you say as a connection made. So, you give it to people as much as they can take but it is really important also in, when talked about change initiatives if you overwhelm people no matter how good your intentions are, they have to stop you for their own survival. That looks different inside a corporation than it might look you know in the park but it is a withdrawal or in some cases if I don’t think I can be safe by withdrawing I may even go on the attract to push you away. So, creating options people can help make sandwiches maybe we are having the block party but we need volunteers sometimes introverts are really good volunteers they’re happy to to the work. So, on the sandwich line they meet two people and they’re doing a good job and then you can praise them and thank them afterward that might be way in, the thing is that we are all like each other because we are all human but we are all quite different in what makes us comfortable and the golden rule is no longer enough we have to think in terms of what makes the other person comfortable as opposed to doing for them what we would wish for ourselves.
John: It’s, it’s beautiful to hear liz because and maybe it’s different perspective because when I said community, I and neighbors I go to park with my son and I meet a lot of parents that have children similar ages so we have something like-minded.
Liz: Right.
John: We live in a neighborhood and we have children, there’s people that have pet and they surround you know pet park, dog park, they have interests like minded and I’ve been really honing down on this when I am, I’m working on my own community online community where we’ve been really focused on in a corporate level my company finding like-minded intersects, game night, reading nights you know whatever it is social night, let’s have a you know online game, reading, whatever event right? So, it’s not, It’s voluntary whoever likes that certain interest or hobby they can all join and it’s fun right? It’s a social interaction, it’s very similar to all these clubs and associations and groups that you have globally although it’s been closed for over a year but it’s the same kinda mindset right? Like if if you can gravitate with people that have similar interests then, there’s a connection somewhere, age or some sort of foodies or whatever, travel bloggers, whatever it may be at least you have something in common and therefore you’re connected.
Liz: Right!
John: That’s a whole point right? And this is why I learned sales right? Just asking questions to find if there’s intersect.
Liz: Right!
John: You know finding people who are loving travel, loving food, loving certain things and you can share your perspective on certain restaurants, different cuisines destinations that you travel and therefore there’s a connection.
Liz: Right!
John: People are more willing to listen and want to work with someone that gets them that understands them,, their point of view gets listened and understood.
Liz: Right!
John: Connected, it’s the same thing with the culture, corporate culture when you get people to understand each other on each skilled task role then you can really help them with other tasks right? Like, give them certain projects, deadlines but understanding each other perspective that’s how you build a good company I feel or create your own you know whole person like if you look at yourself like family, friends, work, you know religion, activities. What do you guys all have in common? There’s some sort of interest that intersect with people that you like hanging out with really spending a lot of time with right?
Liz: So, let’s just look for where the gaps are in that when you’re talking about all the activities with the people in your firm I would bet that there are 1 or 2 or 3 who don’t show up to most of those things because there were you know whether you take a bell curve or any other distribution, there’s always somebody in the left-hand tail right? So, how do you get those people engaged? One of the ways is to create a forum in which it could be like a lunch and learn people talk about something that’s important to them and it could be from when they were young, it could be a hobby now but it’s highlighting each person we have here because we are all important and then it turns out that this one person loves orchids. Quiet person doesn’t talk much but it turns out that I’m taking this up completely, they show photos of this room full of orchids and everybody who has now I’m going back to the connections you’re talking about before those intersections. Anybody who has any gardening, anybody who likes decor, decoration, beauty, you have a lot of different possibilities there, maybe they talked about some of the science of the breeding or care and you might get somebody with an interest in other aspects of botany or you know who knows what. Helping even these people who might otherwise be in the shadows have a safe five minute way to bring themselves forward a little bit goes to the getting to know you without their necessarily needing to be vulnerable but now everybody knows something significant and important about them and if my experience is any guide when they have a birthday people might chip in together and buy an orchid or look for a card that has orchids or you know that then mushrooms because we want to find those places of connection and in the same way that we wanna be seen, in general we wanna say “Oh! I see you, I see what you care about.“ And I want to address that.
John: That’s a great point because giving everyone a voice because everyone has a superpower, their story, whatever it is there’s is intersection of some sorts because you’re connected at the company level you believe in something together right? You have this entire value, core values or ethos that’s connected and you’re put in this company for a reason right? You guys all believe in hopefully the mission or whatever it is, the goals. If you are able share, collaborate, bring everyone together and then they look forward to wanting to work and support and help each other because they understand each other. It just the culture actually gets better like everyone then will look forward to embracing and working with these individuals that they didn’t even know existed in the company.
Liz: That’s right.
John: And the larger it is, the harder it gets right? Large corporations, very difficult to manage a lot of different subsets everyone in the management level has to be on board to then pass it along because there’s so many people, different time zones, different fact, like different skill sets, so much going on right?
Liz: Right!
John: So, it’s easier to manage when you have on 50 people or 100 people or 300 people versus 10,000 people.
Liz: Correct and when you have 10,000 people in addition to managing the 10,000 at the top level with corporate philosophy, corporate purpose, corporate mission. You have to create neighborhoods inside that because we can’t feel cared about 10,000 people but we can, we can feel cared about you know our desk mate and so, even in the organizations and there are many, John I hate to tell you where the culture is not positive enough or the kind of care you’re talking about is not present I’ve interviewed thousands of employees who will complain about the company and I will say “So, why do you stay?” And they say because of the people in their department are people they have come to know and have real relationship with and so, sometimes it is those connections that actually create a surrogate for what should be thoughtful company culture and you can identify the neighborhoods in the organization where those small cultures are stronger and you can build outward from them as well as bringing the culture in to them.
John: Oh that’s great, I mean this has been amazing Liz I know we, I had a bunch of questions but I don’t really go through them right? And again it’s always fun to just talk to people about their opinion, perspective and their expertise right? So, can you tell the listeners what you’re working on today like what have you been up to this during this pandemic and what are you planning on doing on the next 3, 5, 10 more years because it seems like you’re still loving what you do and you’re still very passionate and it sounds like you’re excited right? To keep doing this because it’s fun.
Liz: Yeah! No, that’s that is I’m so lucky John because that’s actually true and I make jokes that I will still be consulting and coaching when they put me in the nursing home because you know it’s been so great why not keep doing it. So, I have interesting client work I’m very grateful for that, I would say professionally I think it is probably time for me to write a book which requires more quiet time I mean I’m an introvert but I do a lot of writing already. So, I have to think about how to do that in a way that’s really comfortable because the part I like the best is being with clients and actually making stuff happen and on personal level. I’m thinking a lot about aging and how aging works and about how to make things smooth and comfortable for my kids so that when I get too old to really take care of myself, it’s easy for them. I want to stay vital, interesting, and interested, and worth dealing with for as long as possible. So, I’m already you can’t wait to the last minute on these things I’m already thinking how to manage my life so that I stay current with technology so I know what are the interesting ideas of the time whenever that is and so that I make easy for others.
John: That’s amazing to hear wisdom and as you mature in not just life career as a parent your, your values change right? Like in terms of not values but your focus changes
Liz: Yes!
John: On different stages of your life.
Liz: Yes!
John: You know at the beginning it’s maybe career advancement you know some sort of balance in terms of equity and learning wealth and making sure you have some of sustainability to ensure that your children have the most available but then you have to take care of your health you got to make sure that your longevity and you stay current like you mentioned so that you brain continues working and it’s fully optimized and functional and of course then your looking at legacy right? Like writing a book, making sure that you can be remembered for many generations not just your children right? And so I love that I’ve, I’m also working on a book I’m working on community, I have a lot of different projects on the go but it’s fun right? Like you mentioned being curious
Liz: Yes!
John: Having a lot of interest having a lot of people you interact with and enjoy the process because life you never know what’s gonna happen but if you keep living and keep doing, and keep moving at least you know you didn’t say “I should have” I could have” right? At least you could say “ I did and it didn’t work out but I tried it.”
Liz: And you can say “I still want to”
John: Yes!
Liz: I would like to be valuable and vital till the end and that means being enough aware of what’s going on to keep wanting things.
John: Yes! So true. I’m so honored, thanks a lot Liz. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you, I know we have a lot of different tangents there. How can some of the listeners get in touch with you if they want to reach out for your services? Is there a website or social channel, or email that you would like to include? And we’ll put it in the show notes.
Liz: Great! Thank you. The best place to find me is on my website which is www.lizkislik.com I’m gonna spell that for anybody who’s on exercise bike. That’s L-I-Z-K-I-S as in Sam L-I-K and actually John, if anybody goes there they can get a free ebook that is about the interpersonal aspects of conflict and my tedx is there which is about conflict and I have years and years of blogs and articles about how you deal with humans and as a human inside organization. So, there’s loads of material there and people are welcome to come and use it.
John: Amazing Liz! Thank you for sharing I’ll have that in my show notes again, I wanna thank you for our discussion today and truly honored to have you on the show. Thanks again, Liz.
Liz: It was so fun I enjoyed it a lot, thanks John.
John: Thank you!
