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087: Roy Atkinson: Despite the fact that I grew up privileged

Roy Atkinson Show Notes

Roy Atkinson grew up as a privileged kid. Then Roy found himself needing to work his way through high school and college while his mother tended to her ailing mother and Roy’s father. Roy had to get over several humps to move onward and upward. But one of Roy’s most valuable lessons came later.

Roy was cited as the model for the “Digital Renaissance Man” by Charles Araujo, writing for CIO Insight. His varied background shows why.

Roy is a lover of language. He studied Spanish for three years and French for four before graduating grammar school. He returned to Spanish for three years in high school and two more in college, by which time he was the only non-native speaker in the class. He started reading Italian as well, and learned to speak it with friends and neighbors in New Jersey.

Along the way, he studied six years of Latin, two years of Greek, and two years of German in formal classes, adding some conversational Serbian through a friend. He is currently about six months into learning Swedish using Duolingo software.

Roy was also an honors student in English literature and philosophy at Iona College and at the State University of New York, at both the Purchase and Albany campuses.

This all ties back to his love of communication in all forms, and his desire to understand and be understood.

Roy learned customer service from the ground up, delivering newspapers, mowing lawns, walking dogs, stocking shelves and ringing up customers in a supermarket.

He paid for college expenses by pumping gas and playing music. After academia, Roy launched a musical career—he had been playing guitar, piano and percussion since childhood—and was able to work as a full-time musician and producer for over twenty years. He was voted “Best Solo Artist” six consecutive times by the readers of the New York regional publication Musicmachine Magazine and was inducted into the Musicmachine Hall of Fame in 1989.

In 1995, Roy changed careers and obtained a job running information technology for an international nonprofit think tank based in Camden, Maine. He was later hired by The Jackson Laboratory where his manager suggested he attend an HDI meeting, and Roy became a member and later a founding officer for the Northern New England local chapter.

When HDI, the professional association and certification body for technical support, needed someone with technical understanding, deep IT support experience, and excellent writing skills, Roy applied for and got the job. He has been with HDI since 2010 as their senior writer/analyst.

Roy currently lives near Bar Harbor, Maine.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @royatkinson and get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow Click to Tweet

“Speak the language of the business that the business understands.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet

“Understand what success is to your business.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

“Understand how to help customers be successful in your business.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

“Express things in the terms that business units can understand.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

“Be mindful, pick up on details for people.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

“Earning your way in and getting familiar with people is really important.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

“You can get disconnected with people if you push it to hard too fast.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

“Understanding the other person is paramount in any relationship.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

“Listen to what people have to say and how they say it.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

“Being a good leader is to understand when you need to go in and when you shouldn’t.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

“Try to help other people get over difficulties they are facing.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

Hump to Get Over

Roy Atkinson grew up as a privileged kid. Then Roy found himself needing to work his way through high school and college while his mother tended to her ailing mother and Roy’s father. Roy had to get over several humps to move onward and upward. But one of Roy’s most valuable lessons came later.

Advice for others

Eliminate obstacles from your people’s path.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Focusing too much on what other people think.

Best Leadership Advice Received

Leaders are people who make other leaders.

Secret to Success

Seek to understand and then be understood.

Best tools that helps in business or Life

My technology that helps me to connect with others.

Recommended Reading

Peter Drucker: Management Rev Ed

Contacting Roy

email: roy.atkinson [at] ubm.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/royatkinson

Twitter: https://twitter.com/royatkinson

Twitter: https://twitter.com/hdi_analyst

Resources

54 Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Competencies List: Emotional Intelligence has proven to be the right kind of intelligence to have if you want to move onward and upward faster. Get your free list today.

 

Show Transcript: 

[expand title=”Click to access edited transcript”]

087: Roy Atkinson: Despite the fact that I grew up privileged 

 

Intro: Welcome to the Fast Leader Podcast, where we uncover the leadership like hat that help you to experience, break out performance faster and rocket to success. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

 

Need a powerful and entertaining way to ignite your next conference, retreat or team-building session? My keynotes don’t include magic but they do have the power to help your attendees take a leap forward by putting emotional intelligence into their employee- engagement, customer-engagement and customer-centric leadership practices. So bring the infotainment creativity the Fast Leader show to your next event and I’ll help your attendees get over the hump now. Go to beyondmorale.com/speaking to learn more. 

Jim Rembach:    Okay Fast Leader Legion it’s said that our experiences that makes us wiser. Well, then our guest today is one of the wisest because he’s had tons of experiences. Roy Atkinson was cited as the model for the Digital Renaissance man by Charles Araujo writing for the CIO Insight. Roy is a lover of language. He studied Spanish for three years and French for four before graduating grammar school. He returned to Spanish for three years in high school and two more in college by which time he was the only non-native speaker in the class. He started reading Italian as well and learn to speak it with friends and neighbors in New Jersey. Along the way he studied six years of Latin, two years of Greek, two years of German in formal classes, adding some conversational Serbian through a friend he’s also currently about six months into learning Swedish. Roy was also an honor student in English literature and philosophy at Iona College and at the State University of New York at both the Purchase and Albany campuses. This all ties back to his love of communication in all forms and his desire to understand and be understood. 

Roy learn customer service from the ground up delivering newspapers, mowing lawns, walking dogs, stocking shelves and ringing up customers in the supermarket. He paid for college expenses by pumping gas and playing music. After academia, Roy launch a musical career. He’d been playing guitar, piano, percussions since childhood he was able to work as a full-time musician and produce for over 20 years. He was voted best solo artist six consecutive times by the readers of New York regional publication, Music Machine magazine and was inducted into the Music Machine Hall of Fame in 1989. 

In 1995 Roy change careers and obtained a job running information-technology for an international nonprofit think tank based in Camden, Maine. He was later hired by the Jackson Laboratory where his manager suggested he attend an HDI meeting and Roy became a member and later a founding officer for the Northern New England local chapter. When HDI, the Professional Association and Certification body for technical support needed someone with technical understanding, deep IT support experience, and excellent writing skills, Roy applied for the job and got it. He has been with HDI since 2010 as their senior writer. And Roy currently lives near Bar Harbor, Maine. Roy Atkinson are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Roy Atkinson:    I’m ready to get over the hump and help everybody else do it too Jim. 

Jim Rembach:       Sounds good. Now I’ve given our listeners a little bit about you but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get you even better? 

Roy Atkinson:    My current passion is making sure that people get great service whether it’s IT support or customer service and making sure that the folks who are practitioners in those areas have good information to go on, that’s really my focus and my passion. 

Jim Rembach:    That particular focus and passion, I have that too Roy. So, when you start thinking about you and what you bring to it, needless to say your experiences are ton, but what do you like bringing to it that you think is kind of like your niche and your special song?

Roy Atkinson:    I think that in many senses I’m a translator and it not only goes for languages had someone tell back in the days when I was working in a supermarket one of the Cuban folks that work there told me that I should work at the UN as a translator and that translation skill not only works for languages but it also works for technology.  I was just writing something yesterday about being technology translators on how to support people, can help people understand and better utilize the technologies that they have if they can explain them in terms of people to understand. And in order to do that you have to have a deep understanding of the technology and be able to explain it in everyday terms, analogies, stories so that people get a hold of it and corrupt their brains around it. 

Jim Rembach:     Thanks for sharing that and the translation piece, I think the experiences that you’ve had bring so much to the ability to do that translation. But you and I had the opportunity to have a brief conversation after a recent call center conference in Long Beach the with the ICI contact center expo. It was after a keynote where they were talking about executive buy-in and they were talking about an executive at Delta dental of Michigan, Loobag Battagliari (?) was talking about his exposure and introduction to the contact center and held the director that was there, really helped indoctrinate him and helped communicate the contact center. And he talked about several things that I think probably both of us have written about. But that translation to the executive level is something that so many people struggle with at the frontline and even middle managers. With the experiences that you had, if you were to say that there’s one or two things that the folks can do in order to kind of breakthrough that barrier what would it be?

Roy Atkinson:    I think one of the most important thing, and this has been a big topic and information technology over the past few years, is learning to speak the language of the business, there it is again learning that language and delivering information in the language that the business understands. The business may not care about how many times you pick up the phone last month those and those metrics that are so important to contact center and support center managers so they can determine staffing and things like, if I go to the sea level and I say “Hey we enter 10,000 calls last month” they’re going say, “Okay, so what? It’s not important to me what’s important to me is how quickly did you get people back to work after something broke. Why did something break? That’s a big question. So understand what success is to your business and understand how to help the customers be successful in the business and then be able to express things in the terms that the business units can understand.

Jim Rembach:     When you started talking I started thinking about my own experiences being in contact center operations and some of the struggles that I had as a youth in my tenure in contact centers, and part of it was just what you’re talking about. And I think for me as the course of my career is gone and I’ve had the opportunity to sit on some boards for nonprofit organizations for-profit organizations and had those strategic conversations. When I was in operations if someone wants to say to me, you need to talk to your language for me it’s like, what is it? I’ve never exposed to it? Where do I go get it? How do I actually get past that hump of “I’m in the innocent unknowing bucket”? I’m clueless, what do I do?

Roy Atkinson:    So, one of the things that you can do is get yourself educated, okay, that’s one thing.  And one of the best way to do that is start reading. Read business publications, read Harvard Business Review, read Bloomberg. Get to look at the terminology, understand what they’re talking about. In my case, I decided back in 2010 that I really needed to have a more formal structure to that and so I started taking classes at Tulane University Freeman School of Business and pick up a master certification and advanced management strategy on 2011. So, I had that formal business background that would enable me to be more familiar with the terminology and understand what they were looking for and what the terminology meant to them and that’s super important. 

Jim Rembach:     There’s one other aspect that for me I’ve also found is that, you find uniquely different folks within different segments or areas of an organization when you start talking about personalities of course but the way that they actually connect with the business and the customer, and heck even themselves for that matter, is that you kind of have to start with that general framework but then you have to look at the individual and I even recommend to folks building a dossier on the folks that are decision makers within the organization. Like this person for example, loves coffee, I had the opportunity go to a workshop on the science of persuasion and this one guide during the break was talking about how he wasn’t able to connect with the person who he reported to directly and I ask him, “When you walk into his office, what do you see?” He goes, “Coffee” it was all over the place. This guy is a coffee aficionado. He buys coffee from all over the world.” And I said, “What about you?” He goes, “I hate coffee.” I said, “That’s your first problem.” 

Roy Atkinson:    Exactly.  I’ve got a friend named Robbly Jess, who works for a company called Rack Space they’re famous for fanatical support and Robs thing he just love video calls with customers from Rack Space he’s in the support world, and he looks at the background when he’s on the video call he looks at the background maybe he sees a picture of a dog he understands that that person has a dog is a dog lover and so he’s able to send a bunch of dog bones to that person before the next time they talk, things like that are really important picking up on details for people, super important. And I think that—and I know personally I’m always a little bit jittery when people start asking for personal details because I want to feel comfortable with them but at the same time if somebody is mindful enough to pick up on something like that for me it makes a world of difference. I know that you love chocolate and so you send me chocolates, great, that’s a great way to make a friend and introduce yourself to further your relationship. Chris Brogan way back quite a few years ago, wrote a great blog which I refer people to still and it’s called, Earning Your Way In, and he talked about—maybe I met on Twitter and I re-tweeted one of your tweets or I liked one for you tweets and maybe next time I have a Twitter conversation with you and maybe you send me a direct message with your e-mail address saying I’d love to talk to you about this so I responded e-mail so now we’re connected on Twitter and e-mail next thing I connect with you on LinkedIn I get to look at your profile, I get to know more details about you, where you work and what you’ve done and what you do now. And then maybe we have a phone conversation and the next thing you know we’re having coffee together because I came to your city and that type of earning your way in and getting familiar with people is really important than I think. You can get disconnected so this is a delicate area because you can disconnect with people if you push it too hard too fast and understanding the other person of course is paramount in any relationship. So, listen to what they have to say, listen to how they say it. 

Jim Rembach:    I think those are all great pieces of advice. And for us when we start talking about how do we make sure there were on the right direction, right course, and those reminders a lot of times we lean to leadership quotes. Is there a quote or two that stands out for you that you can share? 

Roy Atkinson:    Today I was thinking about a quote from Peter Drucker and I’ll paraphrase it because I don’t remember it exactly but it has something to do with manager’s being people who get in the way of people getting work done.  And that can certainly happen at so many different levels it’s so easy for managers to insert themselves into places that are just creating stumbling blocks for people to get things done. So being a good manager and a good leader is to understand when you need to go in and when you shouldn’t, that’s a really important thing.  I love Drucker, I love Jim Marrone. Jim Marrone has so many different quotes, I can’t even think how many. I use to have a randomizer on my e-mail signature years ago that I think I had 30 Jim Marrone quotes and I would just insert one in my e-mail signature every time an e-mail out, it was great, I loved it.

Jim Rembach:    I know that looking at all the things that you’ve been able to get exposed to and that you really sought out in regards to your own growth and development and very creative as well as technical and structured so you’re working both sides of that brain which is awesome. But to really come into your own, a lot of times, we have to get over some humps in order for us to really find our zone and into really find a groove. Can you think of a time where you’ve had to get over the hump where it sets you in a better direction? Can you share that story?

Roy Atkinson:    There are a lot of humps that I’ve had to get over Jim and I guess one was, despite the fact that I grew up, kind of a privilege kid, I went to a small parochial grammar school, I went to a parochial high school, especially during high school and the early bits of college there were some internal things in the family my dad was ill, my mom was trying to take care my dad and her mother was also ill so she had to devote time and effort to taking care of her mom, all of these created some financial stress on the family and so throughout my high school and college years it was up to me to go out and pay my way and so that’s where some of that work experience comes as I was always working, always trying to figure out could I schedule my college classes in the morning and work at night which I did for quite a few years, so all of those things were difficult to overcome but the same time I learned things from every single one of those experiences. I learn some self-sufficiency from being able pay those bills. I learn to be creative in how I scheduled myself and what my tracks were in school and all that kind of things, so all of that played out in later years as I approach difficulty and try to help other people get over difficulties that they were facing.  

And they’re one of the most valuable things that I could do for people who work with me or for me, was to eliminate obstacles from their path. I remember one specific instance where one of my team members was rather discouraged on how to take a certification exam and he wasn’t sure he could pass it and didn’t know how he could take it because it was far away. And so I managed to convince the testing company to let him take the test remotely, which was not their policy, but I managed to convince them to do that. He passed the certification test and it kind of turned him around because he felt more self-confident. I think that type of thing is important, get the obstacles out of the way. 

Jim Rembach:    So, Roy, I know you’ve gone over a lot of obstacles. You’ve also done a lot of things from a creative side, you have a music business, you’ve been a musician, all those languages that you’re learning, the writing that you love to do, but when you start thinking about all of those things what are some of your goals?

Roy Atkinson:    I think that one of my primary goals is to help my organization be more successful. And I think one of the ways we can do that is by better communicating with our members in our communities. And so I try to increase the options for people, as a matter fact, today as we’re recording this we’re coming up on the first Twitter chat that HDI is going to do and so that will increase the options that people have to communicate with us not only on the subject that we’re going to talk about today but to feel more free about tweeting us and communicating with us that way, open up the channels make sure that people have as many options as possible to freely communicate that’s really important and that’s a limitation of another obstacle and maybe overcome their fear of getting on Twitter give them some place to start, that’s important too.

Jim Rembach:    So, now for the folks that are listeners that are in the support community, what will be the Twitter chat, hash tag that you’re actually using? 

Roy Atkinson:    It’s hash tag #hdichatat

Jim Rembach:    Perfect. So hopefully they’ll come see you. 

 Roy Atkinson:    One P M eastern time every Friday. 

Jim Rembach:    And the Fast Leader Legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on, let’s get a quick word from our sponsor.

“Max on contact center agent performance is impossible unless your customer’s involved in grading and coaching agents. So make it simple for you and customers with the award-winning External Quality Monitoring Program from Customer Relationship Metrics. Get up over the hump now by going to customersgradeacall.com/fast and getting your $7500 rapid result package for free.” 

Alright Fast Leader listeners it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Roy, the Hump Day Hoedown is the part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So, I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Roy Atkinson, are you ready to hoedown?

Roy Atkinson:    I’m ready to hoedown.

Jim Rembach:    Alright. What do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

Roy Atkinson:    Focusing too much on what other people think. 

Jim Rembach:    What is the best leadership advice you have ever received?

Roy Atkinson:    Leaders are people who make other leaders.

Jim Rembach:    What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

Roy Atkinson:    Wow! Seek to understand than to be understood, Stephen Covey.

Jim Rembach:    What you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life?

Roy Atkinson:    My technology. It allows me to connect with so many people in so many ways. 

Jim Rembach:    What is one book that you’d recommend to our listeners, they could be from any genre? 

Roy Atkinson:    I would highly recommend Management by Peter Drucker.

Jim Rembach:    Okay Fast Leader listeners you can find links to that and other bonus information from today show by going to fastleader.net/Roy Atkinson. Okay, Roy, this my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you have been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything you can only choose one, so what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why? 

Roy Atkinson:    I would take back a little bit better understanding of how to use a spreadsheet. Because at that point I was doing business it was a full-time job and I would’ve been better at it if I understood the financial side better.

Jim Rembach:    Roy it was an honor to spend time with you today, can you please share with the fast leader listeners how they can connect with you?

Roy Atkinson:    Sure thing. You can find me on Twitter @RoyAtkinson or @yatkinson, you can also find me at @hdi_analyst, that’s the HDI side of my Twitter life. And you can e-mail me roy .atkinson@ubm.com.

Jim Rembach:    Roy Atkinson, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom theFast Leader Legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over for the hump. Woot! Woot!

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader show today. For recaps, links from every show, special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

END OF AUDIO

 

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052: Jon Wolske: I could have come up with other solutions

Jon Wolske Show Notes Page

Jon Wolske is very much a data-driven guy. But he found himself managing a bunch of feel-like people. Even though his people were bringing good ideas, Jon would find himself getting down to the nitty-gritty data of how their ideas would be affecting things. When Jon’s struggle to communicate with his team came to a head Jon realized something that cause him to move onward and upward faster. Listen to Jon tell his story of how he got over the hump.

Jon was born in Toronto, Canada and raised in Salisbury, Maryland where Jon was heavily influence by parents that were both musicians with a strong work ethic

As a musician himself, Jon has over 20 years of experience. He plays Bass, Guitar, Sings Lead and Harmony Vocals as well as writes songs. Jon is currently in the Beau Hodges Band which you can find out more about on Facebook or ReverbNation.

Through his experiences playing music on stage, working as a corporate trainer and doing customer service, Jon found a love for speaking and sharing the hope of being part of a movement that can change the world. Jon has spoken for organizations new and old, small to large, non-profit to big moneymakers; because all of these organizations have cultures and purposes.

As the Culture Evangelist for Zappos Insights, Jon is part of the Zappos Family of companies headquartered in Las Vegas, NV. Always passionate about sharing ideas that might change the world, Jon loves to hear about small changes people have made that have ultimately had a much bigger impact on the world around us all!

Jon currently resides in Henderson with his wife Kelly, who also works at Zappos, working towards the goal of changing the way we (humans) do business!

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @JonWolske and get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow Click to Tweet

“Without great employees…you won’t have business.” -Jon Wolske Click to Tweet

“(Human-centric) is not something you try, it has to be something you do.” -Jon Wolske Click to Tweet 

“You’re not too busy…to think about where is this person coming from.” -Jon Wolske Click to Tweet 

“You’re not too busy to think about…did I handle that in the right way.” -Jon Wolske Click to Tweet 

“The human side of business is more important.” -Jon Wolske Click to Tweet 

“I’m not a good leader of people if I’m not speaking their same language.” -Jon Wolske Click to Tweet 

“Build open and honest relationships with communication.” -Jon Wolske Click to Tweet 

“Build a positive team and family spirit.” -Jon Wolske Click to Tweet 

“If we’re working together, I should know more than what job you do.” -Jon Wolske Click to Tweet

“I should know what drives you and interests you outside of work.” -Jon Wolske Click to Tweet 

“Don’t be afraid to start with small things.” -Jon Wolske Click to Tweet 

“Your culture is there…it may have shifted.” -Jon Wolske Click to Tweet 

“How did you make sure you existed beyond the hard times?” -Jon Wolske Click to Tweet 

“What makes us who we are today?” -Jon Wolske Click to Tweet 

“Don’t be afraid to put a small version into action.” -Jon Wolske Click to Tweet 

“Every job, in some way, prepares you for customer service.” -Jon Wolske Click to Tweet 

Hump to Get Over

Jon Wolske is very much a data-driven guy. But he found himself managing a bunch of feel-like people. Even though his people were bringing good ideas, Jon would find himself getting down to the nitty-gritty data of how their ideas would be affecting things. When Jon’s struggle to communicate with his team came to a head Jon realized something that cause him to move onward and upward faster. Listen to Jon tell his story of how he got over the hump.

Advice for others

Don’t be afraid to start with small things.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Willingness to let go of myself.

Best Leadership Advice Received

Listen, Listen, Listen

Secret to Success

Humility

Best tools that helps in business or Life

Understanding situations quickly.

Recommended Reading

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Contacting Jon

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jwolske

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonwolske

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JonWolske

Resources

54 Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Competencies List: Emotional Intelligence has proven to be the right kind of intelligence to have if you want to move onward and upward faster. Get your free list today.

 

Show Transcript: 

[expand title=”Click to access edited transcript”]

052: Jon Wolske: I could have come up with other solutions

Intro: Welcome to the Fast Leader Podcast, where we explore convenient yet effective shortcuts that will help you get ahead and move forward faster by becoming a better leader. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligent practitioner, Jim Rembach.

Getting maximum contact center agent performance is impossible unless your customers involved in grading and coaching agents. So make it simple for you and customers with the award winning External Quality Monitoring program from Customer Relationship Metrics. Get over the hump now by going to www.customergradethecall.com/fast and getting your $7500 rapid results package for free. 

 

Okay, Fast Leader Legion, I am excited to be able to have the guest that I have on the show today. John Wolske was born in Toronto, Canada but raised in Salisbury, Maryland to two parents that were musicians and had a strong work ethic. As a musician himself, John is over 20 years of experience. He plays bass, guitar, sings lead, and harmony vocals as well as write songs. John is currently in the Beau Hodges band which you can find out more about on Facebook or Reverb nation. Through his experiences playing music on stage, working as a corporate trainer and doing customer service, John found a love for speaking and sharing the hope of being part of a movement that could change the world. 

 

John has spoken for organization’s new and old, small and large, nonprofit to big moneymakers because of all of these organizations have cultures and purposes. As the Culture Evangelist for Zappos Insights, John is part of the Zappos family of companies headquarter in Las Vegas, Nevada. Always passionate about sharing ideas that might change the world, John loves to hear  about small changes people have made that have ultimately had much bigger impact on the world around us. John currently resides in Henderson with his wife Kelly who also work at Zappos, working towards the goal of changing the way we humans do business. John Wolske, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

 

John Wolske:     Absolutely. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Thanks, John.  I’ve given our listeners a little bit about you, but can you tell us that are current passion is so that we can get to know you better?

 

John Wolske:     Yeah. I think you nail it on the head, my passion really is getting people to think differently and not just like from a business book standpoint but I think differently about how you interact with people, how you communicate, how you treat people so that you can get more out of them without trying so hard but ultimately at the end of the day you go home and you feel good about yourself and they’ll feel good about everything as well.

 

Jim Rembach:    Listening to you say that, I also started going back to the whole musician and musical background, a good friend of mine who is a Christian artists and he talked about the reason that he really does music isn’t for himself, he’s doing it for others. And when you start also talking about impacting world, changing the way that we do business, I think both of those things have such a strong drawing connection to one another that I could definitely see how you have found that such an incredible place to work for, and also speak about. And I know also that you do some things that are really important for us on the show in regards to leadership quotes you repeat them, you create them, is there one or two that stands out for you that you can share with us and tell us what they mean to you?

 

John Wolske:     It’s a quote by Richard Branson and he talks about how putting your customers first, it’s about putting your employees first. What’s behind that is you have these great people who drive your business and as a leader you should be focused on them and their growth and ultimately they will make great connections to your customers. Understanding that your customers are really important to the business side of business but without great employees or great connection you won’t even have that business. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Obviously, you guys have gotten a lot of recognition for that and you have the blessing of being able to share all of that in many different places and that’s where I had the opportunity to  connect with you at a contact center and then I asked you to be on the show, and thanks for accepting. This whole issue associated with, just say human centric and human focus because the internal will therefore affect the external, you guys know that you’ve gotten that formula right, being a foster child for that, okay, powered by service, powered by people, powered by humans all that stuff is definitely readily available from anybody and everybody who is either wanting to make those kind of changes, make an impact for the world or is even struggling and isn’t sure why, but how come more folks have not jump on board?

 

John Wolske:     I think just business gets in the way. I think that in a lot of cases people try, they read a book, they get inspired, they go to a conference and they go back they try their own fire but unfortunately that takes energy and resources and time and business gets in the way. I really just think that one of the biggest issues today it kept me saying that you try, it has to be something that you do. So, one of the biggest things when I talk to big groups is I ask how many people are busy, and of course, the whole room put their hands up. It’s a bunch we we’re in 2015 that, “I’m so busy. I’m so important.” You’re not too busy to stop before interaction and think about, “Where is this person coming from? How can reach them in the right way? You’re not too busy right after interaction to go, did I handle that the right way? Is there something I can learn for next time? And I think that too many people were so busy and business is so important that we forget that really ultimately that human side, the person side of business is more important. It doesn’t take that much time you have to be aware of it constantly. 

 

Jim Rembach:     I think that brings such a great point, it’s creating the right habits because so many times I have seen the bad habits just get repeated. For example, “Yeah, we are pressed for time. We have a lot of things that we need to do. I have back to back meetings that are going to be all day and people sit down in chair and the ones who are facilitating say, “Okay, let’s get down to it, we don’t have so much time.” That is failure number one, that’s going to just cause a repeating patterns so what’s going to happen when you go to the next meeting? 

 

John Wolske:     I think I have a pretty strong theory too if I ever get around to writing a book there will be a break out chapter—I really think that you actually only get 20 minutes of valuable work at a meetings. Once you set up who’s there? What we’re here to talk about? In 20 minutes you should be capturing some sort of next action. And saying, “Hey, cool we got this done.” Because after about 20 minutes the conversation goes elsewhere, people stop really being invested, that’s just my personal opinion. But for me is that I give you acted and you said, “Okay, let’s get down to…here’s the issue. I’ve been like, “Thank, God.” 

 

Jim Rembach:     Even when you saying that I started thinking of a song that Billy Joel wrote and recorded talking about having a hit song and needing to cut it down to like, 3:05, right? Same scenario, a five minute song may not help you make to chart because you end up starting repeating a chorus and things like that. Like some of the songs that you here where they say the same thing for four minutes and fifty seconds, just like—shut up already. Needless to say, we don’t listen to that a lot, but I think there’s a lot of correlations there. 

 

John Wolske:     I think so too. I’m a big fan of talented Jem bands but ultimately after six minutes of the same song coming back around to the hook, you kind of like, “Ah-hh and you go back to the next radio station even though you’re really enjoying the music, if you’re just saying the same thing over and over again, you should be done, you’ve said it.

 

Jim Rembach:     That’s a great point. Now I know a little bit about your background, coming from and moving and growing up as a musician and you maybe even playing in a band now and even in yourself doing some praise music and finding your way into the role that are doing now. I know that there was humps that you have to get over that we can all learn from. Is there one that you can share with us that can give us some learnings and inspiration to help us get over our own humps? Can you share that with us?

 

John Wolske:     Truly about communication. I was in the call center, it’s a good job cause I needed health insurance, that’s how I gotten to the Zappos family. I feel in love in what we do and inside of a year and half or so I found my way into this new team that was developing a tour experience to tour our office. And that experience I started to grow a team and it came to a head after about two years we built this great tour experience and the team was rockin’ but I was not communicating well to the team, so, I’m very much like a data-driven guy. So, I’m very much—if you have an idea kind of back it up a bit, show me how this is going to impact things. If you have an idea and you feel like it might be a good idea that doesn’t really fly with me and my team is a bunch of feel-like people, and they have some great ideas.

 

And so they would approach me and they would say, “Hey, we’re thinking about changing the signs on the tour saps around the office” of course I’m going, “Okay, we’ll budget, and we’ve just replace the sign three months ago, and how is this going to be better if the signs are still pretty new?” I’m going right down to the nitty-gritty bottom line data how is this effecting everything. And I could have said, “You know what, what we can do to change the existing signs? I could have come up with other solutions maybe and I just learn that my entire team feels like people and I am very much a data-driven show-me person. And it kind to a head and I said, “You know what, I’m not a good leader of people if I’m not speaking the same language.” And so I’ve got to release that need for data I’ve got to understand where they’re coming from just like they should understand too that I would like some data. It has to go in two ways, if people can’t get to know you as a leader and understand the best way to approach you also need to work down to that level and say, “Hey, how do I make sure that I’m listening and gaining the right stuff out of this conversation?” 

 

Jim Rembach:    Listening to you telling us that story, and thanks for sharing, I started thinking about the whole meeting, you know, conversation that we we’re talking about a moment ago. If I don’t take the time to have those connections be created and really get to know the folks who are part of the team whether they’re a team that I interact with on a consistent basis or cross-functional I don’t meet with them very much, is that it if we don’t do that how are we going to have results from that meeting because we’re going to have disconnect—that’s not what I  understood, it’s not what I interpreted, it’s not what I want, you kept cutting me off, my opinion doesn’t feel—all of those things that really cause dysfunction that so many of us have to deal with and it all started with, “Okay, we have a lot to do, let’s get to work.” 

 

John Wolske:    Yeah, absolutely. That was one of our ten core values is to build, open an honest relationships with communication, we also have to build a positive team and family spirit. And so when you really do focus on that aspects, working together, I should know who you are, I should know more than what job you do on my team or what job you do that’s going to affect my work. I should know what drives you, what you’re really interested outside of work, do you have family, what they’re interested in, you really get to know people. 

 

My wife and I would go to a baseball games in the weekends, we don’t have any kids, but when I get to know our team members we’re great friends with our team members and then when it comes down to working we know so much more about where you’re coming from were not so sure about how can I make sure you understand where I’m coming from and then the team really does work better together. 

 

Jim Rembach:    No kidding. And definitely you have some of that expression capabilities through your music as well that means people can get to know you through that. So, I know you got a lot of things going on. You have a lot of passions, you have a lot of interest with the work that you’re doing a lot of travel as well, but when you start looking at all the things that you have on your plate, what are some of your goals?

 

John Wolske:    My personal goals really I think are around a growing—as a speaker. I’ve been speaking now professionally for five years and I think I’ve got a pretty solid product but there’s always something you could be doing better. I still use power points, I think at this point I could probably do the presentation without the power point but I haven’t yet done that, so, when you think about just this world that I’m in, there’s so much more that I can learn. Storytelling too is not my first go to because I’m a data guy. I’ll tell you something, what I really should tell you how it’s affected some things. I think there’s a lot for me to learn and grow, I’m also in charge of speaking on behalf of Zappos, I would like to grow this offering and grow the amount of speakers that we have and get people certified in who maybe thought they can never be speakers. When I left the call center floor I never said, “Man, I’m going to be a public speaker.” Besides pulling in a band I really couldn’t talk in front of many people except that I did training job which I just didn’t think was the same thing. I would train 30 people for their job and I just figure I knew how to do the job, I want to make sure you knew how to do the job because you need the job, and I never once concern that I was ever being prepared to be a speaker but now I can’t imagine not speaking. ‘Knock on wood’ if anything were to ever happen with my relations here at Zappos, which I don’t foresee, I would be a speaker, I have to, I have to get my own product to speak about.

 

Jim Rembach:    I know that probably it’s easy for you to make a transition to being a speaker, with being a musician being onstage doing live music all of those things, you have a comfort level that most people when you start in speaking have to really that’s a hump they have to get over—oh, my gosh, I’m on stage but I suspect that that was the easy part for you. But if you think about all of those things and—yeah, you’re talking about relying on Power Point and that’s one thing, you definitely can grow your way out of that and sometimes you have to push away past, if you look at all of the things and all the dynamics what one thing that stands out and say–Oopps, that’s my hump, what would it be?

 

John Wolske:    I think my hump would be original thinking actually. Up until now I really been focused on what other people had said about it and I think I’ve been speaking about it now that I should really be thinking about what’s my angle. Like, what do I really want to get across? And probably I’m already doing it in sharing this Zappos story, but how can I make this really—like the information that I want to share, and not just simply, “Hey, here’s our story, and it’s a great story by the way, this is John Wolske speaking from the heart to see how we can change the world.”` 

 

Jim Rembach:    Talking about changing the world, so many of us kind of feel like we’re kind of stuck and don’t have the power  and the ability to make some of the changes that we would like to make happen. Definitely you’ve seen some big shifts you had the opportunity to go in a lot of different organizations ones that are interested in what you are doing but maybe not necessarily have the desire to go to the effort, because we know it takes some effort every time we’re changing a culture. A lot of times it’s easier to have a culture be the one that you want when you’re starting a new business but when you’re having to go into say a 130 year old organizations, it’s like “Woo-oh-oh” we got a bigger barge that we now have to move. So, when you start thinking about all of those things including Zappos current transition to go to holacracy-type of organizational structure. If you’d look at all of those things, if you were to say a piece of advice that I would like everybody to hear, what would it be?

 

John Wolske:    And to use the barge analogy, the barge doesn’t put itself at the dock the tugboats do. And so I think if you’re looking at you’re current situation you just think, “Oh! My Gosh, it’s so ingrained we been doing this for so long” just remember that you have tugboats, you have people who passionate, people who can start to pull or push the organization in to the right direction and do not be afraid to start with those small things. When I’ve seen a lot of companies that setting of its initiative and so they bring in the speakers they’re doing is, we’re going to change our culture and they essentially try to set a five year goal in the span of the next year but if could be five or ten years if you really want to make sure that that should get in the right place. So, what you need to do is open up the conversation. Your culture is there if you’re that old 130 years old, it’s been there for a while and it may have shifted, so, go back to the history and say, “What has made this company who are today?” Go back to the beginning because probably it’s still there. Wow! Cool if you catch that. Look at some of the strategic decisions and the big things you had to go through even those hard times, how did you make sure you existed beyond those hard times? That’s what made the company, so then put that in the history bucket, that’s what has been present. 

 

Now, let’s talk. I have a conversation on every level, what makes us who we are today? And you’ll probably find those things from the history bucket are still there. But things change, if you’re doing things the way you did 130 years ago, nobody would have a computer or typewriter, so you have to change. And then realize, okay, our people, our brand is driven by XYZ whatever comes up from the conversation and then start to put those in action, don’t be afraid to put a small version in action and say this is work, keep telling a lot of first. And if does work, great you can grow it, and if it doesn’t you can change it, you can kill it but you have to put those little things in action. I think what too many people trying to do is they put big things in action and when big things fail they just say, “Oh, it doesn’t work.” And you just start with those small things, let the tugboats put you into the right spot. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Thanks for sharing that and some of the things you were referring to are really based in positive psychology and is part of the appreciative inquiries area of study that so many people can just learn about. One of the things that I like mentioning is that—hey, what we need to do is ignite tradition to help it fuel our tomorrow.

 

John Wolske:     Yeah, absolutely. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Because you’re exactly right. The things that allow us to persevere and be where we are for the past 130 years are really the things that we need to be holding to re-ignite and use those to help propel us into what we need to be moving towards and be a little bit more fearless in regards to some of the decisions that we make. So, many times we lose sight of that because we focus in on—oh, threats, oh-oh—we need to change—wooh, but let’s see what we need to hold on to because sometimes those are the things that are our most cherished that will help you shine, so thanks for sharing that. For me, I speak personally I don’t know if I could work with my wife. How are you able to accomplish that?

 

John Wolske:    Well, first my wife’s pretty awesome. And you have to acknowledge that—when I started working in Zappos, as silly as it sounds, working in a call center customer service center talking about shoes, I’m not a big shoe guy, I would leave the call center at the end of my shift just on cloud nine and then I go to pick my wife wait up from her job and she was definitely not on cloud nine. In most days her bad days are really my good days and so being a judicious husband you don’t say, “Hey, you’re ruining my good days.” You say, “You know what, we should both have good days and I think I know a way that we can both have good days” and so I said, “You should work at Zappos.” When I pick her up from work I was holding an application in my right hand across then fasten your seat so she couldn’t get in the car without hitting this piece of paper. 

 

And I said, “Really, honestly you should it” and she had never worked in a call center, never worked in a customer service although every job I think prepares you in some way for customer service, with the fire she put on the previous jobs. So, she took the job and six months after I started working here, she started working here, so we’re both in the call center and then we just took different paths. And she went into the new hire training department for a couple of years, I went into Insights and the tours, which then evolve into the speaking, we actually merge the organization of training and insights. And when we then split again insights kept Kelly because she’s really good doing what she does and that’s training people and she facilitates a lot of our onsite events. She’d come in for a day or two days of training, she’s really focused on doing that. And then I travel, I think that’s really how we get along so well because I travel so much. 

 

Jim Rembach:    John that’s awesome. And the Fast Leader Legion wishes you and Kelly the very best. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor. 

 

Developing your contact center agents using surveys is what monkeys do. Elevate your ROI and VOC by building integrity and agent engagement mode with the survey calibration process only available in the award winning External Quality Monitoring program from Customer Relationship Metrics. Move onward and upward by going to customergradethecall.com/fast and getting your $7500 rapid results package for free. 

 

Here we go Fast Leader listeners, it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, John the Hump Day Hoedown is the part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So, I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster, John Wolske are you ready to hoedown?

 

John Wolske:    Let’s hoedown. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Alright. What do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

 

John Wolske:    Willingness to let go of myself.

 

Jim Rembach:    What is the best leadership advice you have received? 

 

John Wolske:    Listen, listen, listen. 

Jim Rembach:    What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

 

John Wolske:    I was thought to be concise because I’m pretty awesome. Humility. 

 

Jim Rembach:    What do you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life?

 

John Wolske:    Understanding situations quickly. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Now, I know you’ve mentioned something about not being a one who likes to read, but can you think of a book that you would recommend for our listeners?

 

John Wolske:     Start with Why by Simon Sinek.

 

 Okay, Fast Leader listeners you can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fastleader.net/John Wolske. Okay, John this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you’ve been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything you can only choose one, so what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you? And why?

 

John Wolske:     I would say that it’s my power to speak and share and inspire people. 

 

Jim Rembach:     John it was an honor to spend time with today, can you please share with Fast Leader listeners how they can connect with you? 

 

John Wolske:     Absolutely. You can find me on Twitter@bassred, LinkedIn, of course my Golf 2016 has become huge on LinkedIn so connect with me there. And you can find me on Facebook, John Wolske.

 

Jim Rembach:     John Wolske, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom, the Fast Leader legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot! Woot!

 

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader Show today. For recaps, links from every show, special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the www.fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster. 

 

END OF AUDIO 

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049: Leslie O’Flahavan: I have the joy of looking over my shoulder

Leslie O’Flahavan Show Notes

Leslie O’Flahavan was a high school English teacher and had deep joy in being a teacher. After her first child arrived, she wondered how she would juggle the long hours at school and the challenges of parenthood. So she (naively) started her own business and quickly proceeded to make only $3,000 in her first year. That’s when Leslie made an important discovery that helped her get over the hump.

Leslie O’Flahavan grew up in Chicago, but she’s lived in Washington, DC since 1988, and she feels like she is “from” DC now.

While Leslie hopes she won’t be leaving anything “behind” any time soon, she hopes her legacy will be that she helped people improve the way they write, so they can understand each other better and do their jobs well.

Leslie believes good writers are made, not born. She believes that most people can be helped to write really well at work. She believes that people do have the capacity to improve the way they communicate.

Leslie is a get-to-the point writer and an experienced, versatile writing instructor.  As E-WRITE owner since 1996, Leslie has been writing content and teaching customized writing courses for Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. Leslie can help the most stubborn, inexperienced, or word-phobic employees at your organization improve their writing skills, so they can do their jobs better.

She’s got soup-to-nuts experience with online communication; she’s developed content strategy, written online style guides, trained employees, benchmarked content and e-mail quality, written content, and more. As a result of her work, E-WRITE clients improve their customer satisfaction ratings, reduce training cycles, improve productivity, and limit legal risk.

Leslie is a frequent and sought-after conference presenter, a former faculty member at DigitalGov University, and the co-author of Clear, Correct, Concise E-Mail: A Writing Workbook for Customer Service Agents. Leslie holds a B.A. in English and Rhetoric from the University of Illinois and an M.S.Ed from Northern Illinois University. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland with her husband, daughters, and dog (who barks concisely, of course).

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @LeslieO and get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow Click to Tweet

“The tasks of writing well at work are changing so quickly.” Click to Tweet

“We need writing skills that are made of rubber, not of steel.” Click to Tweet

“Really rigid grammar police, they suffer.” Click to Tweet

“Writing is changing very quickly and good writers change with it.” Click to Tweet

“The principles of effective writing haven’t changed, the channels have changed.” Click to Tweet

“I need to write in a way that makes my reader understand and care.” Click to Tweet

“The writer’s obligation is to make the writing interesting and easy to read.” Click to Tweet

“I can make a vigorous business teaching people to write better.” Click to Tweet

“With the passion and skill in place, making a business is possible.” Click to Tweet

“My goal is the same, but the world around changes.” Click to Tweet

Hump to Get Over

Leslie O’Flahavan was a high school English teacher and had deep joy in being a teacher. After her first child arrived, she wondered how she would juggle the long hours at school and the challenges of parenthood. So she (naively) started her own business and quickly proceeded to make only $3,000 in her first year. That’s when Leslie made an important discovery that helped her get over the hump.

Advice for others

The market may not be too crowded for you even if what you’re offering is already being offered by other people or seems too humble to offer.

Holding her back from being an even better leader

I don’t have enough staff.

Best Leadership Advice Received

Keep on going.

Secret to Success

I work really hard; it’s not a secret.

Best tools that helps in business or Life

Good presentation skills.

Recommended Reading

Letting Go of the Words, Second Edition: Writing Web Content that Works (Interactive Technologies)

Contacting Leslie

Website: http://www.ewriteonline.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslieoflahavan

Twitter: https://twitter.com/leslieo

Resources

Free Chapter: Clear, Correct, Concise E-Mail: A Writing Workbook for Customer Service Agents : http://www.ewriteonline.com/writing-workbook/preview-the-workbook/ 

54 Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Competencies List: Emotional Intelligence has proven to be the right kind of intelligence to have if you want to move onward and upward faster. Get your free list today.

 

Show Transcript: 

[expand title=”Click to access edited transcript”]

Intro: Welcome to the Fast Leader Podcast, where we uncover the leadership like hat that help you to experience, break out performance faster and rocket to success. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligent practitioner, Jim Rembach.

”Contributing to the annual $150 billion loss in training and development investments is downright demoralizing. So raise your spirits and training ROI by increasing learning transfer with ResultPal, get over the hump now by going to resultpal.com/fast and getting a $750 performance package for free.” 

 

Jim Rembach:    Okay Fast Leader Legion, today and I know I have somebody on the show who can definitely help me get over the hump. I met her at a recent contact center industry event in Las Vegas, of all places, but we had such a great conversation that I needed to have her on the show. Leslie Oflahavan grew up Chicago but she has lived in Washington, DC since 1988 so she feels like she’s from D.C. now, and while Leslie hopes she won’t be living anything behind anytime soon, she hopes her legacy will be that she helped people improve the way they write so that they can understand each other better and do their jobs well.

 

Leslie believes good writers are made not born. She believes that most people can be helped to write really well at work. She believes that people do have the capacity to improve the way that they communicate. Leslie is a get to the point writer and an experienced personal writing instructor. As E-Write owner since 1996, Leslie’s been writing content in teaching, customize writing courses for Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and nonprofit organizations. Leslie can help the most stubborn, inexperienced or work-phobic employees or ‘me’ improve their writing skill so that they can do their jobs better.

 

Leslie is a former faculty member at Digital Gap University and the co-author of Clear, Correct, Concise Email, a writing workbook for customer service agents. Leslie holds a B.A. in English and Rhetoric from the University of Illinois and a Master’s from Northern Illinois University. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland with her husband, daughters and dog who barks concisely of course. Leslie Oflahavan, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

 

Leslie Oflahavan:     I am more than ready and reporting for duty.

 

Jim Rembach:     Now, I’ve given our listeners a little bit about you, but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you better?

 

Leslie Oflahavan:     Sure. My current passion is my lifelong passion and that is helping people to learn to write better at work. And because the tasks of writing well at work are changing so quickly, I really want to assure people they can do a good job and help their managers, help them do a good job, this is especially true for customer service writers.  People who many times began their work life delivering customer service on the telephone and now are called upon to do via email, via chat, and via social media. And how would they have known that their work life would have brought them to this place, so I’m reporting for duty, I’m here to help.

 

Jim Rembach:     Listening to you talk there’s so many things that are just flying through my head. And even for myself, talking about the journey of writing, and writing differently in writing e-mail, writing long form text and short form text and chat it becomes so complex. And then you start throwing in the mix up, well, I have so many different generations that I’m now having to communicate with in the workplace as well as maybe even customers that I’m having to communicate and make connections with, how do you a chunk down this massive concept component subject of writing? 

 

Leslie Oflahavan:    The first thing is we need writing skills that are made of rubber not of steel. I think that really rigid grammar police, they suffer as you said, because if you’re very strict grammarian you might say, “Back in my day all your sentences might begin, back in my day we never would have used text at work, back in my day no one would start a professional e-mail, Hi, Leslie—back in my days this, back in my day that, but writing is changing very quickly and good writers change with it, they change with it. So, the principles of effective writing haven’t changed, the channels have changed. And if you can keep your eye on the principles—what are the principles of effective workplace writing? They are—I need to write in a way that makes my reader understand and care, it’s pretty simple, I need to write in a way that makes my reader understand and care. The writer’s obligation is to make the writing interesting and easy to read, it’s an obligation. If you are a boomer and your colleagues are a millennials or colleagues are much younger than that, then you need to make your writing understandable and easy to read in the channel you may not have used before, it’s not that complicated but it’s not that easy. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Gosh! I start thinking about just what you did even mention about how people are saying in my day and that whole nostalgic piece and hanging up on that concept of I know and judging—I can’t even interpret or understand what this person is saying because it was improper context and all of that stuff. When you start talking about working with others to try to get them to open up, be more accepting receptive and all those things that takes a lot of effort and energy. One of the things that we use on the show to help us with effort and energy are leadership quotes. Writers needless to say they probably have created more quotes than anybody in this world, and so I know for you with all the work that you’ve been doing and things like that you have to have some really good quotes to share, but is there one or two that standout for you to help you do give that effort and inspiration?

 

Leslie Oflahavan:     You’re calling me out and of course I should have hundred at my fingertips. And the one that I do have at my fingertips you are going to think is so odd. Remember my work is all about the process of going from idea to draft to finished version of whenever you’re writing. Sometimes I help customer service agents go from reading the customer’s question in the e-mail to drafting an answer, to checking it and sending it. Sometimes I help scientist prepare a journal article, so what is our research say? What’s my article draft and how do I send this? So lots of time I’m helping people revise their writing or I’m buildings their willingness to revise their writing, so the quote that comes to mind honors how difficult it is to revise your writing. And I’m quoting the short fiction writer Flannery O’Connor and she said, “I would as soon eat a wool blanket as revise something I’ve written.” And that quote always comes to mind it honors how difficult it is to write well and it honors that there’s tedium there, so she said, “Yes, give me a big wool blanket and I’ll eat it, I’d rather do that than revise what I’ve written.” So, I know that’s kind of odd quote to pull up, but to me I keep that one in mind because it does acknowledge that writing really well can be hard.

 

Jim Rembach:     Definitely and when I’m listening to you with that quote, for me one of the reasons why I absolutely why I wanted to have you on the show and learn more about you and the work that you’re doing is that, I struggle with just doing the activity itself . I ideate and I have ideas all the time but to be able to convert them and put them into written form, that’s a huge hump for me. So I know with all the work that you’ve been doing and where you are right now, and having a long tenured career and really getting a whole lot of success and recognition where you are right now because of all the complexes that we’ve been talking about, we all have humps to go through in order to be able to get to the point that we are today, is there a time where had a defining moment that set you in a better direction, can you share that with us?

 

Leslie Oflahavan:     Sure, thank you for asking. I wouldn’t call it a defining moment of difficulty, I would this moment that I’ll describe a defining moment of opportunity and joy and confidence, and it is defining moment of starting my business.  Here we are in the end of 2015 and in May, 2016 my business E-Write will be the right will be 20 years old. So I have the joy of looking over my shoulder at this 20th year anniversary and just remembering founding the business. With my first career, I was a high school English teacher, I had deep, deep joy in this work—deep joy, I love being a high school English teacher.  

 

In 1990, my first child was born. When you work and your life as a high school English teacher, you get to school at 6:30 are 6:45 in the morning and you leave school at about 4:00 PM and you go home and you have a really dry flavorless dinner and then you prepare for the next day. You read, you write, you read student work, you prepare tests, you do a lot of work it’s a very tiring job. So, as I held this little baby in my arms I am ran fresh out of creativity I could not imagine a life where I would be the kind of parent I wanted to be and be kind of teacher I wanted to be and I call this a lack of creativity on my part, you don’t know what you don’t know. 

 

But at the point I said this job, I can’t do both, I really can’t do both. So, I think what I’m going to do is start a business. Well, the joke is on me, of course, because in terms of the amount of time that I’ve worked I’ve always worked as much or more but just that I can remember 20 years ago that feeling of stepping into this new career, that workplace writing was changing, that e-mail was ubiquitous, that people and positions of influence didn’t have assistants who were preparing their writing for them they were writing their own correspondence. And I had this sense writing in the workplace is going to change and I just said, “Let’s put an E in front of the word write, let’s start a company let’s start, and I stepped off into the start with the sense that underneath me was my family’s support, that my skills and my vision were in place, and though I did not know what would happen next that most of it would be good. And so here it is, what else is there? I look back over those 20 years and I was right to take this step into the unknown.

 

Jim Rembach:     When you start talking about going through that process and making that decision and going from a scenario where you have the school year that you’re following, of course it’s very predictable, when you start moving into a business setting and a business environment, entrepreneurial know environment, all of that structure and that consistency goes away, so how were you able to transition from being very structured to unstructured begin having to fine structure?

 

Leslie Oflahavan:     That’s a really interesting and thoughtful question. And I would say, the business didn’t go from cold water to a rolling boil overnight. So, I would say I think my income in 1996 was somewhere in the $3,000 range, I had a slow first year. And so, I was able to learn a little bit along the way in the first year perhaps, but something interesting happened to me as an entrepreneur. When you’re a teacher there is no link whatsoever between the amounts of effort you put in and what you earn, they’re disconnected utterly, and they have nothing to do with each other. When you’re an entrepreneur there is a strong link between how much hustle you bring and what you earn. And what I discovered about myself in the first year or so that was very motivating to me, very motivating. So, here’s my business strategy in a nutshell—ahhhhh [Laugh] these work are really, really hard and do all of it all at once, so that what’s happened. 


Jim Rembach:     I know when you start talking about moving from having that guaranteed salary, even though it may not be what was ideal from a teacher perspective to go into that $3,000 a year, that’s a shocker. And they talk about even in podcasting where a whole lot of people right now are getting into podcasting and a very large percentage of those folks maybe do five episodes and then they’re done, they quit. And then a vast majority of those that remain past end of quitting like after six or seven months. So, so when you start looking at who’s continuing to do it and, Woot! Woot!—we’re getting close to a year here at the Fast Leader show which we’re so excited about is that how did you move from that, ‘Hey, oh my gosh! My revenue went down. Yeah, and I’m excited I get all this freedom and I have the opportunity to navigate my own destiny to a certain degree. How did you persevere past that? 

 

Leslie Oflahavan:    Well, that’s a good question. That $3,000 year was one alone that did not happen the next year I always have known that I would make my own way financially in life and I always and that when called upon I would always be able to support the people I love financially, when called upon. That was the first year and that was the end of that nonsense. So what happened was, quickly I started doing both work that brought in revenue right away, building work that would bring in revenue later. And I’ll give an example of this, when we launched the company I had a business partner until January 2011 when she retired, when we launched the company we had the idea that we were going to help people learn to write better e-mail. In 1996, it was too soon, people still were using faxes, they were still using memos and they were confused, why would I need help writing email? Email amounts to this. The 11:00 A.M. meeting will be at 11:30 why would I need any help writing that? So, quickly, 1996 quickly we move to offering writing for the web courses and people did need help right away. I would have picture myself, if you need is a visual I was kind of like a surfer standing on the surfboard in rough water, I wasn’t surfing yet but I was standing on that surfboard in rough water saying, “Where are the waves going to take me? Where is this water going to take me?” And I had to switch off right away. And I was in it for the long run and we started making money in the next year right away. So, that flat year, the revenue I won’t even call it revenue I’m sure I spend more than $3000 of the business in the year that I earned $3000, that was different than the next year. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Gosh! Thanks for sharing that. I’m really inspired by the fact that you were able to persevere and yet remain flexible and get ahead of the curve and that’s fantastic. But if you start talking about all of the things in that transition, being able to not repeat that $3000 year, if you have one piece of advice you’d give to the Fast Leader Legion, what would it be?

 

Leslie Oflahavan:     I guess, when I talk to people about what I do for a living, sometimes they have a perplexed look on their face as if, “Can you really make a business teaching people to write better?” Of course I answer yes, I can make a vigorous business teaching people to write better. So, my piece of advice is attached to the humble quality of the service I offer. A grocery stores open all the time, can you really make a new business selling groceries? There’s a Safeway down the street, why do we need a Trader Joe’s? Well, yes because people need to eat all the time. You can a new business selling groceries. And even though the offering might be rather humble or even there may be a lot of competition you can make a business in that same market if you bring something to it that other people want. So, my bit of advice is, that the market may not be too crowded for you even if what you’re offering is already being offered by other people or seems possibly too humble to offer. My passion and my skill at helping people learn to write better is there. And with that in place, with a passion and the skill in place making a business is possible. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Thanks for sharing that. You bring up a couple of things that for me just stood out is that, don’t think that just because other people are already there that there isn’t room for you to bring your uniqueness, your unique selling proposition, your unique personal proposition to the table, that in itself could cause you to have success were others may not be receiving it or obtaining it.  And that’s one of the things that we try to focus on the Fast Leader show, I talked to a lot of our guest before we get on the show on that, our show is different and I get this feedback a lot of time it’s because we talk about the person and that gets woven into what it is they do because that’s really were greatness comes into play. It’s not what you do that makes you great, it’s who you are that makes what you do great. And you need to bring that to whatever you’re doing even if you’re employed, so, working for someone, being an entrepreneur, being a solopreneur, bring your uniqueness to light. 

 

Okay, when you start thinking about all of the complexities of what we we’re talking about earlier, the different generations, the different types of writing because even when you’re explaining things about ideation and being able to convert that into written text, well if we start to chat and things like that, that goes away were not talking about that type of writing, it’s a different types of writing, there’s just so many different dynamics. You also mentioned something about staying ahead of the curve and all these complexities and moving parts, when you start thing about all the things that you have on your plate, even your family and the dog who pronounciates well, if there is one thing that’s really giving you some charge and you have some goal set, what would you say that they would be?

 

Leslie Oflahavan:     My goals I guess, remain the same and that is to help people who are either struggling to write well at work, people whose job responsibilities have changed they didn’t use to have to write very much but they do now, people whose ambitions have grown about how they will communicate in writing at work to help them do it better. And because the age curve in the workplace is different—the curve is the same the people are different—we need new ways of helping them learn to do their job well. When I contrast the way business writing was handled 20 or 30 years ago, the way business writing is handled now, there are some substantial differences that some people find objectionable, such as the level of formality, I don’t find this objectionable. My goal’s the same but the world around changes, I just keep trying to meet my goal.

 

Jim Rembach:     And the Fast Leader Legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on, let’s get a quick word from our sponsor. 

 

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Jim Rembach:     Alright, here go Fast Leader Legion it’s time for the—Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Leslie, the Hump Day Hoedown is the part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So, I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Leslie Oflahavan are you ready to hoedown?

 

Leslie Oflahavan:     I am so ready. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Alright. What do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today? 

 

Leslie Oflahavan:     I don’t have enough staff. 

 

Jim Rembach:     What is the best leadership advice you have received?

 

Leslie Oflahavan:     Keep on going.

 

Jim Rembach:     What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

 

Leslie Oflahavan:    I work really hard it’s no secret.

 

Jim Rembach:     What do you feel is one of your best tool that helps you lead in business or life?

 

Leslie Oflahavan:     Good presentation skills. 

 

Jim Rembach:    What would be one book you’d recommend to our listeners, it could be from any genre?

 

Leslie Oflahavan:    The book is Letting Go of the Words by Ginny Redish, it’s a text on writing for online readers. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Okay, Fast Leader Legion you can find links to that and other bonus information from today by going to the Fast Leader show notes page for Leslie and that’s at fastleader.net/Leslie Oflahavan. Okay Leslie, this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you’ve been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything you can only choose one, what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

 

Leslie Oflahavan:    I would take back a skill I have then, I would hold on to it and help it thrive and that is, watching how people learn and helping them to learn more quickly. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Leslie it was an honor to spend time with you today, can you please share with the Fast Leader Legion how they can connect with you?

 

Leslie Oflahavan:    Sure. You can connect with me lots of different ways. You can find me on Twitter@LeslieO, you can connect with me at my website which is ewriteonline.com or you could pick up the thing with the handset or headset and dial these numbers 301 989-9583 

 

Jim Rembach:    Leslie Oflahavan, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom, the Fast Leader legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot! Woot!

 

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader show today. For recaps, links from every show, special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

 

END OF AUDIO 

 

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