Leading through Uncertainty with Gwen Hammes, Cro Metrics: Show Notes & Transcript

Post | Jul 15, 2025

Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.

In this episode of Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business, we’re talking how to bring back our confidence in media spending with Rich Kahn. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review!

Episode Summary & Player
Show Notes
Marketing Smarts Summary
Transcript

***Strategic Counsel*: Leading through Uncertainty with Gwen Hammes, Cro Metrics**

Just when you think you’re settling into the new normal, something else changes on a macro scale. That’s the reality we’re living in. When you’re faced with so much uncertainty, leadership becomes even more important than usual. We wanted you to learn from an expert with tons of experience leading through uncertainty, so we welcomed on Gwen Hammes, Co-CEO of Cro Metrics. They’re the #1 experiment-led growth marketing agency. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

What are leaders experiencing in light of all these changes?
How Gwen dealt with toilet paper hoarders during COVID
How can leaders give their teams actionable steps to claim control?
Being transparent about business actions
How do you know when it’s time to pivot?

And as always, if you need Strategic Counsel, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:

Show Notes

Leading through Uncertainty with Gwen Hammes, Cro Metrics
- [0:00] Welcome to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business
- [1:42] Welcome Gwen Hammes to the show!
- [3:28] What are leaders experiencing in light of all these changes?
- [5:01] What does Gwen actually do?
- [8:20] How do you help people when they take policy changes personally?
- [12:06] How can leaders give their teams actionable steps to claim control?
- [15:16] Being transparent about business actions
- [18:32] Building flexibility into your organization
- [21:10] How do you know when it’s time to pivot?
- [27:01] Creating in partnership with clients
- [30:03] The core of how businesses survive is by providing value
- [33:43] The power of creativity during uncertainty
- [37:12] Giving intentional parameters to use creativity strategically
- [39:37] Budget decisions during uncertain seasons
- [43:49] What are the decisions that need to be made right now?
- [48:02] How can orgs make change management as smooth as possible for their team?
- [52:12] How to communicate the long term consequences of transitions
- [55:46] Explain the why and always be selling
- Quick-Fire Questions
- [56:42] What Gwen’s listening to: The Acquired Podcast
- [58:22] How does Gwen unwind?
- [1:00:55] If Gwen could make any law, what would it be?
- [1:02:29] Connect with Gwen and check out Cro Metrics!
- Make sure to follow Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts
- Learn more at ForthRight-People.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn

What is Strategic Counsel?

Thanks for listening Strategic Counsel. Get in touch here to become more strategic.

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:03
Welcome to the Strategic Council by Forthright Business Podcast. If you’re looking for honest, direct and unconventional conversations on how to successfully lead and operate in business, you are in the right place. In our discussions, we push on the status quo and traditional modes of thinking to reveal a fresh perspective. This unlocks opportunity for you, your team and your business. Now let’s get to it. Welcome to the Strategic Council Podcast. I’m Ann Candido.

00:32
And I am April Martini. And today we’re going to talk about leading through uncertainty. We thought that we were in our new normal after COVID, but changes this new administration are making are causing inks which warrant a conversation about how to manage through it. Yes, and to be clear, we’re not taking a political stand here and saying whether the administration is right or wrong.

00:53
What we are taking a stand on is providing a guiding light to help those of you who are suffering to find your way through. So whether you’re dealing with tariffs, the cut in healthcare research funding, travel bans, the shift in DEI, or other issues, our goal is to give you strategies to help you find your way through while maintaining the strength of your organization. Right, and this episode applies to, even if it isn’t one of these triggers that we have mentioned, even if you’re not facing one of those.

01:18
Maybe you’ve been impacted by other forces or maybe you’re falling short of your business goals for other reasons. So there could be a multitude of reasons that you are right now trying to lead through uncertainty. And we have brought on a special guest to help us with this topic who has had a lot of experience leading through uncertainty and that’s Gwen Hommis. She is the CEO of Crowmetrics. Gwen, do you want to introduce yourself and give everybody a bit of your story? Absolutely. Great to be here. Thank you for having me.

01:46
As you said, my name is Gwen Thomas and I have been in the marketing world my entire career. So I actually started my intern for an advertising agency when I was studying abroad in Argentina and I’ve never looked back. Speaking my language in the advertising space. That’s right. That’s right. Some people call us a little bit nutty, but I don’t know. think I was lucky enough to find my niche.

02:11
And I actually studied economics in college. And I always said, I loved that piece of it because it was really about how the world worked, right? It was about the intersection of people and economies and governments and society. And, and I think the marketing element and the way I got into that was really just because I’m fascinated by people. I’m fascinated by human beings and I love brands and I love the power of ideas and really bringing kind of those things together. So,

02:41
Yeah, that’s kind of led me after a long career on the advertising side into what we do at Chrometrics, which really is kind of optimizing the consumer experience through the power of experimentation, because what people do is not what they say. And we believe in experiments to get underneath that and really kind of drive and then also follow the behaviors that are working. Which is the root of uncertainty, right? Trying to figure out humans and trying to give them what they want, right? So.

03:09
There’s gonna be a lot of really fantastic parallels between the specific issues that are really plaguing businesses right now, but then how you can use those just for normal everyday business in order to make your business better and stronger, right? Completely. Yeah. So let’s get started. So Gwen, mean, there is for sure a lot of uncertainty, which is clearly causing a lot of struggles for leaders and organizations.

03:34
Let’s start with what leaders are experiencing in the face of these changes. Can you kind of set the landscape up for us a little bit? Yeah. So I think a lot of these changes and whether they are the impact of tariffs when, you know, companies and clients like ours are importing goods from, you know, other markets where that is a concern to, you know, what’s happening currently in the Middle East that’s weighing on a lot of people personally to just the day to day, you know,

04:02
price inflation, the price of eggs, the price of staple goods and commodities, I think. And so going back to humans, at the end of the day, it’s really about what are people facing on the macro sense as a society? What are our particular consumers and targets facing that we can help them with, or we can meet them with they are? And then I also think about it in terms of being a leader in an organization of what are our people experiencing? And how do we keep them

04:31
focused and motivated, also acknowledging that everybody’s kind of dealing with this in different ways. And so we want to kind of meet them where they are, but also, you know, not let them just kind of sit in it and continue to motivate and drive kind of forward momentum. Yeah. I mean, I think that’s all so true and we could go a variety of ways just in what you just said. But I think for our listeners, something that’s always helpful is if you can give

04:59
kind of a case study example, whether it is internal to your organization or it’s based on a client that you can share it with and just kind of walk us through what you do and what that looks like because I think that contextualization can really help. Yeah, so I’ll actually start and you know, one of the bigger challenges I think we all faced was in COVID. It was interesting because at that time I was leading the global business of Kimberly Clark, which sells toilet paper, a brand like Hot Nell, also sells Depend.

05:28
I can see where this is going. It was one of those moments, right? We can all think back to like, oh my goodness, what do we do? What are we seeing? What are we feeling? What are we experiencing? And there was a hoarding on toilet paper and we could have very clearly just said, you know what? Sales are through the roof, which is a, you know, very much a conundrum even for Kimberly Clark. Cause were like, we don’t want them to be through the roof because of hoarding behavior.

05:53
But we could have just said, all right, shut all the advertising down, shut all the marketing down, just let this ride. That’s what any kind of crisis PR firm would tell you to do. But instead we said, hey, how do we take this moment where consumer behavior, where human behavior is hoarding toilet paper because that’s the only thing they can control or they feel they control. And how can we turn that on our head? And so we got together with our strategists and with our creatives and we said,

06:20
What is in here? And it was like in this world, there was the insight of in a world where people are hoarding and where there’s uncertainty around toilet paper, how do we actually transition that into a positive? And so our team came up with a beautiful campaign called Share A Square. And it was really about, everybody has a little bit of extra. How can you share it with, you know, whether it’s friends or neighbors or the community? And it was actually amazing because, you know, we, we folded in a partner they had with United Way.

06:49
where for everybody that liked and shared the post, they would make donations to local communities. And it was something I think that felt good to our people. It felt something they wanted to be a part of. And then when we saw what the connection was within not only communities, but in the outside world, it was something that was featured on Think with Google. It was a case study that was brought up in a lot of different forums where we were actually able to make a positive impact.

07:17
in a moment of a lot of gray. And so for me, the big lesson is how do we find some of these glimmers of hope? How do we channel our momentum and our energy towards those things as opposed to just sitting in and kind of like letting these bad things almost happen to us? I think to the mindset is such a critical thing to really address because when we were going through COVID,

07:44
There was a lot of feelings, like there was that feelings of fear. There was a lot of those feelings of uncertainty, of course, but now with some of these changes, especially like, I’m just going to hit on the cut of DEI support, which seems to be plaguing a lot of our clients, especially nonprofits, higher education, public universities, all those sorts of things. It feels like they’re taking this very, very personally.

08:13
I mean, I’ve heard people say like, I feel like my gender’s being shedded. I feel like my ethnicity is being shedded. Like, so these are like deep seated personal reflections that seem to be very connected to some of the actions that are being taken. So when people are kind of in that state and they’re taking everything and all these things that are happening so very, very personally, how do you…

08:40
help them through that? Like, what is your advice for helping them think through that and shifting that mindset kind of similar to how you just mentioned that Kimberly Clark, which I case study, which I think has some relevancy here. So how do you help them think through that? Yeah, I mean, I think the big thing that I always think about is again, is first to like, just acknowledging it and recognizing it. Again, everybody’s in a little bit different of a place and it’s okay to sit with it. But you can’t kind of dwell in it. And so you have to say, okay,

09:09
this is something and you’re always, you’re going to feel that way and that’s okay. We’re not saying don’t feel that way, but we’re saying, well then what are the things that give you energy, that give you momentum, that you feel like you can actually make that positive impact? And so one of them, for instance, we work with a lot of nonprofits, the common citizen doesn’t realize how much money the federal government had been giving to a number of nonprofits to the point that all of a sudden,

09:37
their business model, their playbook is completely appended. And to your point, it’s a lot of very personal and deep feelings, because folks that work in the nonprofit space, they’re doing it because they have the conviction and the mission is personal to them. It’s not just a job, it’s part of their mission. And so one of the things that we’re trying to work with those clients on is to say, okay, well, what is that new playbook? You might not be able to get kind of the micro donors to refill the pipe.

10:07
of the federal funding, but how do you think differently about macro donor strategies? How do you feel think about differently about, you know, they’re talking about the great wealth transfer and, know, who is this like next generation who is much more mission and purpose based in terms of their decisions and how are you building, you know, relationships with them in a place that there’s an authentic connection between what their beliefs are and what they’re passionate about and what your nonprofit offers? And I think

10:35
That’s where you start to have some of those initial conversations and you see some of the creative problem solving come on. And it feels like people have been able to take a bit more control, maybe not a full control of the situation that’s kind of happened to them, but in a way that they feel like I can actually take a step forward. I can actually think about it. I can actually put pen to paper and that, you know, sense of kind of like despair and frustration and sadness.

11:05
starts to be kind of channeled for good in terms of what can they do. Yeah, I mean, I think you said again a lot of really good things there, but a couple of things that strike me is one, and we do a lot of executive coaching and organizational development work. And I love the piece about you started in the Kimberly Clark example, like how do we turn this on its head and make it positive? But then the other piece I think is.

11:30
helping people, one, see their role in the bigger picture and understand that they do have a place there, but also being able to take immediate action. And so one of the things we talk about with people often is, and you said, you you can sit with it. We’re not saying you can’t have these feelings. And like, you said a lot of these things are deeply personal, of course. But I think when we can encourage people to do something, you know, take one step.

11:55
do the next thing, that sort of thing, instead of sitting in the despair spiral, they’re able to feel like they’re back in the driver’s seat. So I would love to hear, you said something about internally with your team, and Anne’s gonna laugh because I’m the one that loves to talk about the structure of the teams that are doing the work and all of that. But talk to me about how you do that as a boss and a leader for the people that work for you. Yeah.

12:21
And maybe even before I get there, I just want to build off something you said. And this goes to some of like the behavioral science things. I’m a big believer in like, what are those micro steps? Like what are those itty bitty steps that can start building that momentum? And so whether, you know, and that’s where like, even for me, and a lot of the things that I do in my, you know, my personal and professional life, when I have a goal, I’m like, man, sometimes it’s that mountain, how do you start small? And so I always just say that to people and folks internally.

12:51
at my company, they always joke whenever I’m like, all right, guys, what’s the microstep in order to make the change? But so if we kind of think about for, you know, internally and from a structural standpoint, you know, I think a lot of us have unfortunately been through, you know, having to lay people off. And that is like one of the worst things as a leader that you ever have to do. And while it’s, you know, you can never say never, I think, you know, I was

13:20
traumatized, it’s probably a big word, but it’s true when I had to do it in a previous life. And so I’ve thought about and I’ve implemented now at Chrometrics ways in which we can reduce the potential for that happening. And essentially what we’ve put in place is what we call a dynamic talent model. So think about kind of like different rings of cross-centric circles. And my goal is with our FTEs to, you know, be able to commit to the best of my ability, a level of

13:49
predictability of certainty that they don’t have to worry about their job. And in marketing, we have ebbs and flows, we know this, you can’t time them. And that’s really where we have kind of these contractor layers to say, how can we make sure that we’re having a very small, tight team of FTEs and then bigger contractors that can manage through the ebbs and the flows. And there’s a lot of clarity.

14:17
with them about where are we? What is our strategy? Where do you play in here? And how can we just grow in a very kind of sustainable way so that we’re never getting over, you one of my favorite terms, like never getting over our skis. And, and that’s, I rather be kind of too tight with FTEs and have a bigger contractor pool than too big with FTEs. And then all of a sudden in times like these, you know, we’re seeing a lot of new business deals being paused. They still know that like,

14:46
This is still on our roadmap, but we just need to wait a month or two or three. And so that has impacts on our business, but we’re able to weather those things to say, all right, well, we’re going to pull back a little bit on the contractors and we can kind of keep that core. And so far it’s been well received by our people. And so far it’s been able to kind of like work in action, which for me is the biggest thing.

15:10
Well, I think that that is sorry, and I’m going to keep going and then I’ll and then I’ll OK, well, I think that that is so important because I think it sets expectations with people. Right. And then also respects them at whatever level they are with the ability to hear the message that you’re giving. Right. And so it’s the same way we are. I and I are the only full time employees. And over time, we’ve had.

15:37
1099s that work regularly for us and 1099s that come in and out of projects and contracts. But I think the takeaway here is making sure that you’re transparent, but also being intentional with what you’re doing action-wise, because I love the expression too about getting out over your skis. That’s one of my favorite ones. But I mean, that is where we see people make short-term knee-jerk decisions. And it’s…

16:02
bad no matter what, but it’s even worse when it’s impacting people and their lives and their livelihood and their families and all of that. And so I think one, like I said, the proactivity and the thinking forward and being able to ebb and flow because yes, marketing does have lots of peaks and valleys, but then also getting the quote unquote credit for that with your people, because I think that builds the trusted relationships with them that they’re seen.

16:26
and respected and they don’t have to waste their time worrying about their job because you’re telling them and then paying that off with your behavior. And then I imagine that when you do have to reduce the contractors or whatever, that’s part of the discussion too. So people understand and have transparency of what’s going on, right? Exactly. And the key word you said is transparency. And that’s, you know, that’s a lesson that that I’ve learned in my career, right? I think there were times I just, you know, you don’t want to share the real real sometimes because

16:55
Sometimes it’s not great, right? Sometimes you’re in a tough spot or sometimes you lose a client or whatever might happen. And I think that’s been a big learning for me. This was actually something Anne and I had talked about of like, was accused and probably rightly so of toxic positivity. And I was almost trying to kind of like have my rose colored glasses on and I wasn’t bringing a previous organization into what was happening.

17:22
And then when things like layoffs did have to happen and some other outcomes as a result, it was a big shock to people. And that was a really hard lesson to learn. That was bad. And so for me, really being overly transparent and connecting it back to what our strategies are, think a lot of times companies, have, once a year, here’s the…

17:49
here’s the railing cry of the year and here are the things we’re gonna do. And then sometimes you never hear kind of how other decisions are connected to it. And so I’m a big believer in always bringing it back to that. So that if we do have to pull back on some contractors, part of that messaging is, hey guys, just as a reminder, we have our dynamic retail model. Here’s why it exists. And now here’s what are the criteria of why we need to pull back on some contractors. And then they understand.

18:19
okay, this is actually in an effort to keep us as FTEs whole. Yeah, I see so much really great threads here to pull on. And I think we’re going to try to pull in as many as we possibly can. But I wanted to go back to what you had to say about the organization, because I think it’s really important for people to hear not only the transparency by which you manage organization, but the

18:45
flexibility that you’ve built into the organization, which I think is so critical right now. And we’ve been having that conversation with a lot of our clients in this time of uncertainty. And if there was a several lining, and I’m not saying there’s a several line to people feeling really, really bad about things, like I said, about having feeling that they have their identity stripped. But if there is a several lining to some of the tension that these changes are causing, it is forcing a look at

19:14
your current reality, you’re making for some people doing a landscape reality check and maybe breaking out a little bit of a complacency kind of mindset of things that have been kind of just running on autopilot to some extent, but maybe not in the best interest. So when you were saying best interest of the organization, so when you were saying, you know, the look at the micro donors versus the macro donors, mean, that’s definitely something we’ve been talking to our nonprofits about. like, listen, you’ve gotten really comfortable going after

19:43
big money, but what about all these younger kids who also have money and they have this mindset of wanting to help and wanting to make change and impact? You haven’t tapped into those people, right? And so get that some of these grants and some of these partnerships and some of those things are starting to feel, starting to dry up a little bit and causing some tension, but

20:10
this might be an opportunity to figure out new ways of tapping in to other groups. And this is across the board for a lot of the things that we’re facing. The tariff situation is another one where we’re been relying on everything coming in from outside of the United States. This is an opportunity to look at what’s around us in our own country. Now I’m not trying to trivialize it because I know it’s really, really tough for a lot of people out there.

20:35
But if you have the right mindset in your organization, and we talk a lot about thinkers versus doers, what tends to get people in trouble right now is they have way too many doers and not enough thinkers. And the thinkers are the ones who are gonna get curious, they’re gonna get creative, they’re going to work within this flexible organization to kind of figure out, how do we pivot if we need to pivot? But when you are loaded up with doers,

20:59
who are just task oriented, it starts to feel really, really heavy and really impossible to see through. So I know you have some strategies and you kind of alluded to this a little bit when you were talking about like, how do you know like it’s time to pivot versus how do you know that it’s you should be holding on to your vision? And how do you think through how to shift that mindset of your organization?

21:24
in order to get them to be more flexible in their thinking, more curious in their thinking. And as April said, you know, that short term focus versus a long term focus. So I just threw a lot at you in that. Trying to pull bunch of these threads together. So take that where you where you may. But I appreciate your thoughts on that. No, I love that. And I think, too, I am a big believer and advocate. And again, talk a lot about this internally of.

21:51
I want people to be playing to their strengths and I want people to raise their hand. Because even as you were talking about this thinkers versus doers, I think when you give an invitation to your org to say before the invitation, here is the stark reality of what we’re facing. When you are either in trouble or you have major headwinds and you name it, you put it out there. And then you make the invitation of we’re coming together as an executive leadership team to be, you

22:20
scenario planning and what we can do. If anybody has ideas and you want to play a role in here, please do. And you’ll find sometimes it’s like one of the most junior person people on the team that comes in with something. Or sometimes it’s, you know, the very quiet data analyst who all of a sudden has been actually thinking about this and is passionate that comes with, you know, some great ideas. And so I’m also a big believer in like, how do we create

22:48
the space to invite people where they feel they can actually contribute. And I’ve, I don’t know, I’ve done this more recently in the last few years, like nine times out of 10, you’ll actually be surprised by who are the people that are contributing, you know, the quality of the ideas and where you can go from a broader standpoint, though, to what you were asking about, how do you think about your strategy? And I always say, it’s like, it’s almost like that strategic spine, right? There’s a lot of a DNA on like who you are as an organization.

23:18
where you have a right to play, you know, I talk a lot about like hand over heart, can we do something? We don’t wanna be, we don’t wanna be that company that’s like, yeah, we can do, you know, everything from soup to nuts because the minute you start saying that you do nothing well and you’re, you know, dead in the water, cause you’re not delivering. We’ve seen that, right? And so I always think about it like, really, what is that spine? What is that like core to who we are? You know, what is the value that we’re adding to clients?

23:47
And then it’s almost like from a, from a strategic shift standpoint to, meet people, meet our clients where they are and what they need is I always say like, what are those the low hanging fruit? What are kind of like this tip of the spear and then what are more of those blue sky? And it’s been an interesting thing even for us, because, um, before I joined it, Kermetrix, there were a couple of capabilities that they had built out that was like, if we build it, they will come. And guess what? Nobody came. Nobody came.

24:17
Unfortunately, nobody came. And so even on that standpoint, the change in strategy has really been, all right, we will build capabilities when there is a direct client poll and we will be honest about how we’re building those and build them in partnership and almost baiting them together. And that has been a much, much more fruitful type of a strategy. And so that has helped to unlock, you know, even more of kind of like gray hair consulting where we’re helping organizations actually build a culture of experimentation.

24:47
that has helped us think about, you know, right now, one of the kind of betas we’re doing with the client is thinking about PMAX on Google, Performance Max. It’s like, that is a huge headache for brands because it’s diluting the actual brand and it’s just making about the product and things like that. And so we’re proactively working with the client on like, what are different ways in which we can tackle that so that they kind of become the winner within that. You think about AI, right? Chat GPT.

25:15
how many searches are now happening on chat GPT or even, you know, Google, you’re what search words used to be all of a sudden, you’re getting a Gemini summary that’s taking the brand out of it. And so you can find out information without ever leaving Google. And so those are the types of things that we’re building up those capabilities, you know, because they’re literally happening and in partnership with clients. And I think the exciting thing is we have a couple of clients like Mattel or Bombas who are like anything you guys are baiting.

25:44
we wanna be there right there with you. And that is like, those are the best conversations to have because you don’t feel like, all right, we’ve made this thing and here you are, know, ta-da, but we’re actually building it in partnership because there’s truly a problem to solve. There’s some creativity, there’s experiments we have to run, we have to try some things out to see what works. And then we can really go from there. But I think that’s when you get back to these kinds of moments of like, all right, we’re…

26:12
what needs to be true, what is that spine? And then how much can you flex and how can you try things out and have different partners and clients that are there with you so that you’re not kind of going out on an island and crossing your fingers? Yeah, well, I mean, first and foremost, the piece about agencies saying they can do everything. I hope everybody heard that. And anyone who knows me knows that’s a giant pet peeve of mine and why I left.

26:36
Part of the reason I went to create my own thing, right? Is that whole like, oh yeah, yeah, we can do that. And I mean, I have a visceral reaction still to that statement. I mean, I was on my own for almost two years and Anne and I have been in business for over five now or we’re in our fifth year. Well, anyway, it doesn’t matter. years. Yeah. Yeah. like just yesterday. Yeah. I still get that like feeling of dread in my stomach of going and pitching something to a client.

27:00
and knowing as we’re pitching it that we have no business pitching it, right? And then running back to the agency and being like, okay, we got to learn this new thing. I think the good thing about technology is we get called out on that a lot easier now, right? Because we can’t possibly know how to do all the things. But I love what you said about the flip side of that, which is creating things in partnership with clients that are relevant to the business challenges or landscape challenges or world challenges as we are today.

27:30
and figuring out ways to collaborate in order for everybody to come along. Because I think the other danger, and you said it, when you join this organization, getting there and they have this thing that they’re selling, but nobody’s buying it, right? And creating that in a vacuum. And one of the things we talk to our clients about all the time is making sure that their customer consumer client is in the room. And oftentimes that’s the role we serve as sounds like it is for you too.

27:59
but to make sure that they’re not sitting there talking to themselves and they’re really thinking about what’s going on outside and what we can learn from that. And I think on our side of the work, when things go really well is when we can look across all of our clients on behalf of each one and say, here’s the patterns of what’s happening. And here’s what you may not know because we live across all these clients and you’re in your business every single day. And so then,

28:26
we can be bringing ideas because of all we have learned in collaboration that can really disrupt categories or clients in a positive way and build new momentum. And I think this is one of those times where that’s really critical. We saw it in COVID and now with everything going on in the world, there’s lots of opportunity for it as long as we’re staying proactive in channeling that energy in the right way. I mean, you hit the nail on the head.

28:52
those have been my conversations with clients over the last month, right? As they say, like they have more blind spots than they ever had before. There’s more kind of noise in the system. Technology is moving rapidly. And a lot of them have been, you know, trying to stay ahead of it on their own. And so exactly that is we’re trying to help create some of that connectivity or, this, you know, this client has been trying this, what’s happening here? And it was…

29:19
It was fascinating. were talking, one of our clients is Living Spaces and we were talking to the president last week and he was saying, he was like, I haven’t valued my network as much as I do now. And he’s like, I think in the world of technology and AI, the network is going to become more important. He’s like, cause I can’t test every single thing that’s out there. I need people that I know and that I trust and that are also trying things to compare notes and

29:47
and help me determine, all right, where do I want to place my bets or, you know, Hey, if there’s a hundred things I could try, what are the five or 10? Because I’ve gotten recommendations from people that I know and trust. And then I can make a decision from that. So I’m, I’m right there with you. All right. I’m going to get in my tide box for a second. knew it was coming. was like, Oh, she’s been quiet for a minute. Here we go. going. You got going now. It’s Ann’s turn. It’s my turn. So yeah.

30:15
So I want to go back to a key thing that I think you both hit on, is value. At the heart of everything we do, especially as B2B, but this works at B2C too, our core of how we survive and succeed and thrive is by offering value. So in the midst of uncertainty, sometimes you have to ask, how can I add value in this new context, this new landscape amongst this new challenge?

30:45
Here’s where the tide box comes in. Now the problem that a lot of our clients will then face is, well, and you kind of alluded to this, Gwen, is that I’m stuck. I offered this thing and now nobody needs this thing. Now what do I do? Which is why April and I continually tell all of our clients you need to build a brand, right? Who you are is not what you do. It’s not what you sell. Who you are is what you do emotionally to impact somebody’s life.

31:15
Right? So if you think that all you do is sell this little widget and that’s what your business is about, these moments of uncertainty are going to feel very, very, very painful because like you said, Gwen, sometimes in these moments, people don’t need that thing. I mean, when I worked on the Tide business, when times got tough, people would downgrade the level of their laundry detergent, right? And so they didn’t necessarily need Tide in that moment. So you had to have a connection that superseded

31:42
the desire for the product benefit that you’re offering, which is clean clothes. You can get clean clothes a lot of different ways. Now what Tide offered was that confidence that you wouldn’t have to rewash your clothes, you wouldn’t ruin your clothes, you’re still gonna look good. And that confidence is what continued to make Tide be a prominent brand even through uncertainty. So that learning, I believe, it still plays and is a really strong thing to…

32:10
really hone in on in these times of uncertainty of like, what do you offer your customer, your client, your consumer that supersedes your product benefit, that supersedes the thing that you sell that connects in a more emotional level that warrants that value, that tangible value that allows you to continue to survive these levels of uncertainty that frankly continues to let you

32:36
charge what you need to charge in order to kind of get through that, even charge more in some cases. For example, tariffs are forcing a lot of people to pass through costs, right? How do you pass through costs? Because you have to have value that supersedes the thing that you’re selling. You have to offer value in other ways that allows people to say, yeah, I’m going to pay more for this because it was worth it to me, right? So it’s really important that you really think about brand. At any other time, I mean, sometimes it just,

33:04
breaks my heart that it has to come to this for people to be like, oh, now I see. So who am I? I’m not just somebody that sells this thing. I am somebody that helps businesses thrive. I help people get from point A to point B and realize their visions and their dreams. Whatever that means for your context of your business, you have to hone in on that. You have to figure out what that is. And that is going to be a core way that you’re able to survive.

33:32
Yeah, no, I’m off my tide box now first. love it. And it’s interesting too, because I also think in these times of uncertainty, again, I think about the power of creativity. And so one of the things like we’re also trying to do is say, hey, who are the audiences that maybe are uncovered, that you have that are using your product or using your brand, but you haven’t actually talked to? I mean, one of the clients we have, for instance, is Talkspace and a big,

34:00
data point that they found was like, hey, obviously a lot of teens are searching therapy, but it’s oftentimes their parent, not them themselves. And so how do we capture that? And how do we talk to that parent of a teen in the right way, as opposed to just somebody that you assume is kind of coming for themselves? It’s a very different type of a thing. Or going back to living spaces. I mean, we were talking about like, well, you know, what if they sell rugs? Like who are the core consumers that are buying rugs?

34:29
are probably different from those that are buying couches. And can that be a different type of a way in into their brand, into their product and increase sales in a different type of a way. And so I do think that there’s part of that creativity that has to be unlocked. I mean, one of my favorite brands out there and it’s a Chicago based brand is Dude Wipes. Like how much fun are they? The brand personality that they have created, you know, the like the poop jokes and all of that kind of stuff. But it brings a lot of levity.

34:58
in today’s world and they’re extremely shrewd. mean, they’ve, they’ve, you know, there are multi hundreds of millions. Maybe they’ve even had a billion dollars brands now and they have just been able to get distribution on Walmart next to baby wipes, which again, I’ve worked on toilet paper. That would be the Holy grail because guess what grown men and women are using baby wipes instead of disposable toilet wipes. And so you just think about those things about like how creativity can kind of come in and help and not just in terms of

35:27
messaging, but in terms of distribution, in terms of, you know, point of sale, in terms of audiences that can maybe unlock things in new ways so that you can have different perspectives on a brand and on a business and meet people where they are. Well, and I think it’s creativity, but not just for creativity sake, right? It’s strategic creativity and not that we don’t.

35:53
You said before like low hanging fruit to, I forget what the middle one you called it all the way to the spear blue sky. Okay. And so I think that there is room for that spectrum and there’s always, there is sometimes room for blue sky, but what you highlighted there is I think it’s having an in-depth knowledge of what you can do to Anne’s point about who am I really at the brand level and then who am I doing that for? And then you’re able to unlock.

36:20
or look around corners or find new targets or those kinds of things, because you’ve done the work to fundamentally understand who you are and where you’re allowed to be creative, right? And this is a debate that for years I would have with what I would call true creatives, which just remember everybody, I do have a design degree. So I feel like I’m allowed to speak to this, right? Where it was the desire to create something just for the sake of creating it, where I was always the one to come in as the…

36:48
creative strategist to say, okay, that’s great, but you’re not the target, right? Or, oh yeah, actually that is really interesting. And I think that, you know, as a whole person or psychographically, that does make sense to go take a stab there because we are targeting this and this population shares that, right? And so I remember Steve Leder was one of the guys that we had on our podcast, it’s been years now, but he talked about

37:15
the reference of a playground where it was fenced in and the kids would use the entirety of the playground versus if you had a play scape or whatever and there were no fences, everybody kind of stayed like this, right? And so giving the parameters to explore but with intentionality and using the learnings as you go so that creativity isn’t just all over the place, but it is getting closer and closer to new solutions that are good for these brands. Totally.

37:45
The phrase I always think about is like getting really crystal clear on like, what is the problem to solve? mean, you know, it’s that Einstein quote, right? Like, think it was Einstein. You know, if I, if I had 10 minutes to solve a problem, I’d spend nine minutes determining what the problem was to solve. I mean, because that’s really where it gets to it. And I think going back to Anne, what you were saying about adding value and especially like in our business, right? We’re a professional services company. So it really is about, is about the people.

38:15
But it’s also, at the end of the day, it’s a people business. People wanna work with people that they like and people that they feel like are helping them in new ways. And so whether it’s proactively coming and saying, hey, here’s some problems to solve. If you guys thought about those, I think they could be really interesting in meeting and unlock some new things for you to literally asking. And I do that a lot of times in my one-on-ones with the senior clients and just say, what else can I do to help you?

38:43
It’s as easy as that. And sometimes they’ll share like, man, I’m having a really hard time, you know, internally from a culture standpoint, and I’m trying to get culture of experimentation off the ground and man, it’s just hard. so, you know, we’ll kind of brainstorm and I’ll follow up with maybe a couple of different ways that I’ve, that we’ve helped other clients work and, know, make a connection or whatever those things are. And so I think when you can do that, in addition to delivering with excellence and having outstanding strategy and the right, you know, tech and tools and all of that kind of stuff.

39:14
that goes a long way. And so when they are making, as inevitably all clients are, budget decisions, they’re saying, you know, who’s actually adding value beyond the, you know, checking the box and doing the work that I need to be done. And I feel nine times out of 10, that’s when those things get prioritized. Yeah, let’s talk about budget decisions, because I know that’s another one everybody’s facing. especially when times of a certain income, people tend to constrict, right? They tend to

39:43
We don’t want to spend, cut everything, and it’s a very reactionary and somewhat justified action as a result of the uncertainty, but maybe not the right one. And what me and April will say is sometimes when we get into these situations, the best thing you can do is invest in people who actually have been there before, right? Who have the expertise, who have the know-how, that have the…

40:11
the viewpoint across multiple different industries, as you mentioned April, that can bring perspective that helps you to think differently, right? Because if you know you have fear, you know you have all of those like icky feelings that are starting to kind of constrict everybody down, sometimes you need that fresh perspective in order to really get your mind and your brain thinking differently. And so what we tend to tell our clients, even though feels very self-serving, is like,

40:41
you need to invest in people. mean, it’s either people internally, but people externally is like a really, really good strategy for helping to relook at things like your strategic plan. Help me think through my strategic plan. Are my pillars still appropriate? Do I still have the right customer, consumer or client? Do I have like the right enablers that are supporting me here? Do I have the right capability in order to weather the storm?

41:08
Me and April talk all the time about what must be true action planning. really thinking through when you hit these challenge, what must be true in order for me to thrive, in order for me to succeed, in order for me to get through here. That is really, really hard to do when you’re in the state of panic and decision, constriction. So I’d love for you to speak a little bit, Gwen, about how you help people kind of really balance this tension they’re feeling between like,

41:36
Ooh, I want to save because I don’t want to overextend myself because I don’t know how long this is going to last. And I don’t, it’s a little unpredictable versus like what, what do I invest in that are the right things to invest in, order to help my business go through this? Yeah. And maybe I’ll start by saying, I think, you know, going back to being labeled as toxic positivity, I’ve kind of moved to an optimistic realist.

42:04
And I think that the dose of optimism, like you have to have, because it can be very doom and gloom. and sometimes it’s like, what’s the worst that can happen, which in these moments of, you know, constriction and pulling back, it’s like, oh man, if the bottom, you know, the floor is falling out already, if, know, the whole thing washes away, we are in a whole lot of herd. And yes, we have to kind of scenario plan that, but it’s also like, well, what’s the best that can happen? And how do you think about those different

42:34
kind of stages within the scenarios. And honestly, my approach has always been a bit of kind of like the quantitative and the qualitative, right? Like, okay, well, let’s play this out. What does that look like? It’s X, Y, and Z. What are these scenarios? Where can that be? I think it’s also the qualitative, I’d say, is even with our clients, when we’re having those conversations, understanding and getting close to them of like, well, what else is going on? What is driving their fear? Is it their boss?

43:04
that’s just frozen and paralyzed and saying, don’t care how you get there, you have to cut this much and it’s on you. And I’m going to think really poorly of you if not, is it, they’re hearing kind of rumor mills of something else is going on. So how can they actually take this moment of uncertainty and instead of just doing what’s asked of them, be even that strategic partner and leader internally to help outline and take a

43:33
a broader view, take a big step back and be and say, there’s a couple of different possibilities. We don’t actually know what the future is going to hold. But in scenario A, you know, here are the assumptions and therefore this is what we’ll do. You know, scenario B, here’s the assumptions. And you can kind of also determine, okay, what is the decision we need to make now versus, you know, delay versus never decide.

44:01
And that delay one is always interesting. mean, we’re having that one right now, even internally, we have some, some hires on the docket that like literally today I’m meeting with, you know, HR and finance to say, Hey, we’ve gotten some good candidates in. we in a place to hire? As I was mentioning before with our dynamic talent model, do we want to bring in those FTEs or, know, we have a couple new business things that are really close to closing a few big expansions. Do we want to hold off for a month?

44:29
to see where those things land. Cause we think we’re going to have more certainty in a month. And you know what, if they close this week, next week, full steam ahead, we’re good. If they don’t, we might, you know, in a month from now, we may need to reconsider what that is and just continue down the contractor route. And so I always think about for even my clients of like, what are those things? And if you’re truly a partner to your clients, you put yourself in their shoes. And like, I am always a big believer and I was lucky enough to have

44:59
a mentor earlier in my career that said, you know, as long as you’re doing what’s right and what’s best for the client, like everything from the agency side will take care of themselves. And so sometimes I say to them like, Hey, look, you don’t have to make a decision today. If you’re not ready to renew or you’re not ready to whatever, that’s okay. Like don’t feel that, you know, you’re going to break a relationship with me or with the team because of that. Cause I get where you are, but

45:26
here’s maybe a safety net if you do need us to help you with X, Y, and Z that we can put together or we can do some project things or whatever that might be. And I think even that goes a really long way to building that trust, to adding that value because they see that you are recognizing where they are and where they need you to be without them having to be the one to just have a black and white solution. Yeah, I mean, we do something similar with our clients. Our big question is always,

45:55
what’s keeping you up at night, right? And that’s always a good one to unlock some of those things that I think they, I don’t know why, hold back maybe, or feel like it’s not the right time or whatever. And I think asking questions like that, and then like you said, being a true partner helps them understand that you see not just…

46:17
the company for what it is, but who they are as people. And I think that’s the big difference. I mean, I, as you were talking, I was kind of playing through our relationships with clients now versus again, what I was pushed to do in previous lives within agencies. And I think the mistakes are always made when you’re chasing the money instead of building the relationship and man, do clients pick up on that quickly. And so back to the point of bringing value, I think that relationship piece is huge. And also,

46:47
I think the point of contention comes when we fight too hard for something that they’re not ready to either pull the trigger on or even hear, or it’s just a pain spot that you have to be more gentle about it, right? And so I love all the stuff you said about making sure, I mean, for me, it just goes back to the partnership again, right? It’s doing, like you said, what is right for the client on behalf of the client and how that will never steer you wrong versus making decisions for.

47:15
fill in the blank of all the other reasons that could be out there that’ll work against you. I love what you said about the question of like, what keeps you up at night and the flip that I should actually use more often, but I love when you do ask is like, what gets you up in the morning? Yeah, we do that one too. Yeah. Why do you come to work every day? Yeah. It’s like, are those things that excite you? And again, having people play to their strengths and focus more on what excites them and less about what, you know,

47:44
what weighs them down or when you can bring the things that weigh them down into the world of excitement, I think is always just a really positive element. I agree. One more place I want to take us before we wrap up. And because we do know that there are there is a lot of people out there who are making changes. They do have to make cuts. They are shifting their vision and that’s causing again, some compounded feelings here.

48:13
And change management is never easy. So I’d love if you could give some perspective about how these businesses can transition as smoothly as possible and really help their organizations understand the reason for the changes so they can get them on board even quicker. And because we know sometimes people don’t like change, especially when they’re not feeling very much like change at this moment.

48:40
So it’s not good change or at least good change. So if you can give some perspective there, I think that would be really helpful. I am so glad you brought up the topic of change management. It’s probably one of my favorite again, being a student of human behavior, because interestingly enough, I had found a stat that the literally the word change triggers your amygdala, which is your fight or flight response. And people have like just such a negative visceral reaction to that word. So.

49:10
At some point I will try to rebrand the phrase change management. But I think there’s a few things on that front because you really hit the nail on the head. think number one is organizations think about change management is like a one-time thing versus an ongoing, right? Organizations are living, breathing, changing, evolving at all times. And I think one of the biggest challenges when it

49:38
feels like it’s a one-time event or how many times have we, have we not only seen in the past, but seen today of like, yep, there’s another reorg and you everybody’s pulling their hair out and all of that kind of stuff. It’s like, well, how do you think about it is, is we’re going to constantly be changing and shifting and evolving. And so that then it doesn’t become this scary dreaded thing. And I think it also helps our people be very comfortable with some of that fluidity because

50:07
Usually what change and change management means is like, you’ve been doing something one way, one particular way. You know how it works. Do know, A, B, C, D, here’s your process, here are the steps. And now we’re going to be changing it and whether changing the structure, changing the process, changing, whatever that may be. And so my encouragement is always, how do we, how do we, and it’s almost like not just manage through it. It’s really lead through it. So that again, it’s, I make this terrible joke. It’s like voting in Chicago early and often like,

50:37
how can you give people a heads up on here’s what’s coming, here’s why it’s gonna be coming. Get them closer as to where it’s going to be happening. I’m a big believer and I say this to my organization, I’m never going to be coming with like a light switch change. And if I do, please call me out on it because everybody should see, know, I have the strategy in place, we know where we’re headed, you’re gonna be seeing and I’m gonna be sharing, here’s some thoughts I have, I want some input, I want some pushes.

51:05
And then over time, will roll them out and we will incorporate them. anytime it’s at like big shift or big left turn, I mean, that is more than change management. is like, I don’t want to say crisis management, but that’s how it feels to people because they feel blindsided. They feel like they didn’t have a say in it. They feel like they didn’t have understanding or clarity about the why in advance. And therefore that’s

51:33
that’s what it is. And so for me, it’s more about how do you incorporate it? So it’s just an ongoing fluidity of evolution for a business. And sure, sometimes it’s going to be bigger waves versus other ones. And sometimes there’s things you can’t see around corners for. But I think even just saying, hey, this big, we lost this big contractor, hey, this huge issue just happened. And we’re figuring out what to do. And it’s not looking good.

52:03
that’s going to go a long way before the implication of what that might be gets announced. Well, and I appreciate what you said about change being kind I I internalize it as like a dirty word, right? With what you were saying. But I think so often the situations where people are blindsided or it is a major shift happen and nine times out of 10, I feel like it should never happen because even if you like, okay, let’s take the big client example, right?

52:31
If you tell people regularly with transparency a message they can hear and internalize and you’re bringing them along the path, part of that should be if we were ever to lose this major client, this would be the repercussion, right? Or on the positive side, we have this one major client. We need to proactively supplement who has ideas on what we could be doing to bring more in to diversify the portfolio so that that never becomes an issue, right? But I think the problem comes

53:00
And I mean, you said crisis. I mean, I think that is a fair statement is when people, when there’s a major shift and people are let go and just droves or a business shuts down or whatever, oftentimes you can trace back the path to how it got there and where those conversations should have started. Right. And one of the tools we use, because it is, you it’s not too dissimilar from like, you know, what, what keeps you up at night, what gets you up in the morning. But a lot of times companies, talk about risk, right. And risk mitigation.

53:30
And we almost, I want to be talking much more about growth, which we do a lot, but one of the tools we have put into place and we’ve gotten some good traction internally. And also it’s like a good type of assessment is you guys are familiar with the nine box for talent performance, kind of like performance on the X axis and potential on the Y. We’ve actually done that for client assessments. And so performance, look at how we’re performing for them, but also how they’re performing for us.

53:59
Right. You have some clients that like, don’t give you access to analytics that don’t share what’s happening in their business. It’s like some of those start to be yellow flags and sometimes they get to red flags or you have, you know, an executive sponsor on the client side who it’s gone radio silent and won’t get, you know, won’t respond to anybody. And so you have a day-to-day contact that they’re really good, but you got one person at a, you know, mid level or junior level. Well, that’s, that’s to the, you know, that’s to the left side from a performance standpoint. And then potential again is.

54:29
whether it’s size of company, whether that’s opportunity to expand and make a bigger impact. And that’s really helped us to have kind of visibility and in very different action plans. So while of course we’re focused on the ones that are kind of in the, the bottom left in terms of risk mitigation, we’re also really focused on the ones that are further in the top right, because it’s like, well, what are we doing there? Maybe it’s a really small client today, but they’re part of a

54:57
Fortune 500 enterprise and hey, we’re having, we have a great relationship with them. How do we get introduced to other people? How do they become kind of the internal advocates for the work we’re doing in terms of where that can go? And, and like I said, I mean, we were an experimentation company, so we’re constantly trying things out. And this was one where like, let’s see how this goes. And I mean, it’s been, it’s been great just seeing, I think the internal adoption, change management, adoption. That’s a big indicator.

55:25
but then also how the actions that we have been able to make have actually, you know, mitigated some of the risks, but also unlocked some of the opportunity in ways that I don’t think we would have if we didn’t look at it that way. Yeah. So I think that’s great. I mean, and a really great way to wrap this up, because what I heard very clearly within that is explaining the why that’s extremely important, enrolling people along the way. So it’s not like a big like rug pool.

55:55
And then you’re always should be selling. You always should be marketing. You always should be selling. mean, again, it’s that complacency thing where we start feeling really good with what we got. And then we don’t do those analysis to understand, hey, where are we vulnerable? Where do we have opportunities to diversify and really being proactive in the way that we manage our business in that way. So I think that’s really, really great way to wrap this up. But before we close this out, Gwen, are you?

56:25
open to some rapid fires? Ooh, yes and no, but lay it on me. All right. I don’t think I made these too hard. Sometimes I go off the rails a little bit as April knows, so we’ll see. You can go off the rails. I like that. I’ll start with an easy one. Okay. What are you reading right now? I am actually not reading anything. I am listening religiously to the acquired podcast. Oh, guys got into that?

56:54
Oh, it’s fabulous. It, go super, super deep into organizations. Like they start with the history, they start about like how they’ve progressed and then ultimately like where they are today. So it covers again, like founder stories, business strategy, like how things have evolved. And so, you know, the one I’m reading, I’m listening to right now is actually Rolex, which is fabulous, but they have ones on like IKEA. They have ones on Visa, the NF, I mean, the NFL one is fascinating.

57:23
So it’s kind of these brands that are part of our lives. And maybe we’ve worked on before, for instance, they had one on Mars, which I worked on Mars for many, many years earlier in my life. And I had known a lot of the stories, but it just, gets into such in depth. And so for me, I love it because it just, I’m doing a ton of walking this summer, not in this heat wave these couple of days. And it’s just a great way to kind of like clear your mind, but also feel you’re getting

57:52
different inspiration and different perspectives and point of views. I’m a big person on like, you know, steal with pride. So there, you know, there’s a lesson in there that then I can make my own. I will do that. I love that we do the same thing. Me and April do the same thing. All right. Another little easy one and I’ll hit the hard one. think favorite way to unwind. I am a working mom. I’ve always, you know, again, working in advertising all of that. I feel like for so many years it was like,

58:21
work and mom and soccer games for my kids. Like that was all that I was able to do. And a few years ago, I was like, man, I, I need some hobbies, girl got to get some, some hobbies. And so I’ve been very focused actually through new year’s resolutions on creating a lot of hobbies, which has been so fulfilling. So some of it is like walking. I’m doing right now a hundred miles of summer. So it’s basically from like May 1st till August.

58:51
30th, 31st, 31st, walking a miles. like, that’s easy enough. It’s less than a mile a day. I can do that. So I’m in middle of that now. I have been doing open mic standup comedy. that has been a ton of fun. Yes. Writing and with 20 and 30 year old dudes. So I’m like the, you know, suburban mom that comes to those. I love it. And most recently. So I played piano growing up and I actually played it in our high school show choir, but I haven’t played it in years. And so.

59:21
We’ve just pulled the trigger. We bought a piano and I’ve downloaded some app. So I’m gonna, that’s like my next thing that I’m going to get back into. And my New Year’s resolution is to play at the piano at the bubbles in the O’Hare Airport American terminal, two songs by heart by the end of the year. So. Awesome. I love it. Those are great ones. Those are great. Yeah. I’m going to take some inspiration from that. Cause my youngest is heading off to college here in the fall.

59:50
going to need some new hobbies. right now I’ve been considering that as like, oh, know, iPhone photography and shooting. It’s been like the other one. So we’ll see. Maybe I might take up some of yours. Because I used to play piano and play my violin, but I need to go get my violin redone, my bow restrung and stuff like that. And I don’t want to cut my nails. So we’ll have to see. going back to the microsteps, like I was like, okay, I’m going to have a big goal. And then like

01:00:17
for the comedy thing. was like, I’m going to get my bit book and I’m just going to start writing. And then you start writing. then, and then finally I was like, all right, I have to do it by, you know, the other year I was like, I have to do it by December 31st is do my first open mic. And I did it on like December 20th, you know, and I got it in. So, so good. I’m hilarious. Oh, I knew, I knew that was coming. I am hysterical. know. And let me know. I’ll give you all my tips. just gotta, you just gotta get up there.

01:00:46
That’ll be great. you. All right. So this is the last one. It’s a little apropos for the episode. So if you could make any law, what would it be? So we are fully remote and there are so many benefits to it. get, you know, great talent that comes in. We’re able to, you know, get people from different backgrounds and different experiences. And it’s great. The one challenge we have, which I don’t think I fully recognized until I was in this role, is the labor laws in every single state are different.

01:01:15
And it is a pain in the neck because one of the things we’re trying to drive is obviously equity. And it’s extremely hard to drive equity when every single state has a different law. And so then you say, well, do you go to the most rigid? Do you go in the middle? Like, where do you kind of go? And so I don’t want to say that I want this as a law because I realize there’s a flip side to it. But I question, why don’t we have a federal labor law?

01:01:43
that is consistent because I think a lot about, you know, what are the paper cuts that get in our way? my poor people team, the amount of time that they have to spend and the expertise that they’ve built up about individual state labor laws feels like there would be a better way. Well, you think post-COVID we’d have something if not before, right? You would. You would. Not as fascinating. That’s a little bit more of a…

01:02:11
No, that actually got my brain going. was like, oh, I would have never thought of that. Put that out in the the ether there and hopefully somebody picks up on that. So I love that one. When this has been awesome, so anything else you want to say to close this out, anything that we missed and then obviously tell people where they can find you. Yeah, I think the big thing for me as we think about leading through crisis is it’s not about like what has happened, but it’s about what do you do? How do you react? How do you show up?

01:02:40
And it’s okay if you don’t have the answers and actually people would prefer to hear that you don’t have the answers, but you at least have a way forward. And I think that is just goes to show some of that transparency, some of that humanness, some of that, like, I’m not going to let this paralyze me or make me stand still or, you know, focus on the doomsday, but really about like, all right, what are those micro steps that you can start to take and, and, and move forward? And if you’re interested.

01:03:10
please find us at Chrometrics.com. I am on LinkedIn, Gwen Hammes. And yeah, it’s been such a pleasure spending the afternoon with you two. Thanks so much. Thank you, Gwen. And with that, encourage all of our listeners to take at least one powerful insight you heard and put into practice, because remember, strategic counsel is only effective if you put it into action. Did we spark something with this episode that you want to talk about further? Reach out to us through our website, forthright-people.com. We can help you customize what you have heard to move your business.

01:03:40
And make sure to follow or subscribe to Strategic Council on your favorite podcast platform.